Author Eckart Tolle Denounces Power of Now

Readers might be interested in the following news blurb I found in the Vancouver Sun Times today:

UPI Weisbaden, West Germany May 23

Yesterday evening, before a packed auditorium of people who had paid up to thirty marks to hear him speak about the “power of now,” successful author Eckart Tolle stunned his listeners by denouncing the power of now. “I want to apologize to all of you, and all who have read my books or listened to my tapes. I now realize that I greatly exaggerated the power of now, and to be honest with you I have to admit that now really isn’t that powerful after all. I have come to this conclusion reluctantly, after being confronted by numerous findings that indicate the weakness of now.” Eckart went on to explain his shock when Paul Tillich, a forensic anthropologist at the University of Cologne offered him incontestable proof that almost the entirety of human history, and indeed the history of the universe, happened before the now. Tolle explained that, “When Tillich pointed out to me many of the great people—Einstein, Mozart, Newton,Voltaire among many, many others were born, lived their lives, and did their amazing accomplishments before the now I suddenly realized that by focusing on the now I was encouraging the loss of so much culture, human accomplishment and connecting our roots with ancestors. I knew I had to rethink my whole philosophy, and just as I was struggling to come to grips with the immense power of the past, I received a scientific paper in the mail which had been sent to me by physicist Roger Penrose. This paper on the nature of time reveals that almost everything that is going to happen to us will occur in the future and that the future is like a vast and unknown landscape that will shape our destinies. Penrose points out that Star Treks (the shows and all the movies) would be meaningless in the now because they all take place in the future. Once I began to grapple with the immense power and vastness of the past and future I began to realize that now, which I had been telling people was so powerful, was actually a thin slice of practically nothing, something that is over just a moment after it has begun. I can no longer hide from you the profound weakness of the now.” A spokesperson for the author told reporters that Tolle is working on a new book tentatively entitled The Power of Past and Future.
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Hey just got off Amazon.com and found a preview of Eckart Tolle’s new book, The Power of Past and Future. (Go to Amazon, click on bestseller previews and enter the name “Tolle”.)

Excerpt from Chapter One:

I remember a wonderful episode that I witnessed in the time before the now, in what I refer to as the “past.” I was in a park and there was an old man who was feeding breadcrumbs to the ducks. These two teenaged boys about sixteen years of age came up on bicycles and they had badges of some sort of volunteer youth ecological patrol. This was a wonderful episode that occurred entirely in the past and yet it has so much meaning for me that I know I will refer to it again many times in the future.

Now that I have come to know the immense power of the past and future I see whole new levels of meaning in what is going on. For example, the other day some friends took me to cinema to see the film the Lord of the Rings. This was a very amazing story about a ring that had great power, not from the now, but from how and why it was forged in the past. Because of the enormous power of the past this ring held the balance point of the fate of all Meadow Earth. Then all these elves and fairies and wise wizards had a big council and they decided to have this really big quest and the whole purpose of this quest was to do something in the future, to throw the ring in the crack of doom in the future. First this very silly dwarf tried to destroy the ring in the weakness of now and it was a big failure. So all of these powerful, brave and wise characters looked anxiously toward the future and turned their attention from the feebleness of now to doing a great deed in the future. Even the great wizard, Gandahar, knew that the future was what would decide the fates of everyone including the Evil One, South Rond. As I watched this amazing film in the past, I became very glad that these great heros had not read my foolish earlier book, The Power of Now. Since I have seen this film at cinema I now like to write everywhere with this big marker that friends gave me, “Fobo lived in the past! He may live yet again in the future!” This is the state of being and awareness I call the power of past and future.

Excerpt from Chapter Three—”The Power of Absence”:

In the days before I awakened to the power and vitality of past and future, I used to mislead people by talking about the power of “presence”—a bit of almost nothing that occurs just briefly in that fleeting, feeble instant of now. Now, since my awakening, I can see the immense and blessed power of absence. I have discovered that when something happened in the past that means it cannot happen to you or anyone again in either the fleeting feebleness of now, or even in the great, unknown future. I call this the Power of Absence. Many people, many who may be reading these words, have been abused when they were children or had other terrible experiences happen to them in the past. Because of the amazing power of absence that dwells in the great fixity of past, these people know the healing miracle that these exact events can never be repeated. This is the great blessing of nonpresence that I call the power of absence!

Ok, so I was just kidding. Actually I highly recommend The Power of Now and Tolle’s audio and video tapes. His sincerity and spiritual insights are profound; I just couldn’t resist spoofing it a bit.

—Jonathan