Four years ago, I walked into the library and stumbled upon “The Power of Now,” by Eckhart Tolle.

I was going through a painful break up and wasn’t coping with it well. But the realm of spirituality was beginning to permeate my days—I had started practicing meditation and Tai Chi.

I am a firm believer that books are like people: we meet them at the right time and in the right place. I’m pretty convinced that “The Power of Now” came to me at the time I needed it the most.

This book shed light on my just-ended relationship and helped me understand what went wrong. Thanks to Tolle’s words, I learned how to deal with my pain and move past it. I was introduced to the importance of the present moment and the notion of, “I am not my mind.” I also learned that pain is necessary for the evolution of my consciousness.

These words made me the person I am today.

We deal with so much pain and thought in our day-to-day life—we have become slaves to our ego. This book offers a simple, spiritual guide on how to change the pattern of our destructive thinking and become the “watchers” of our thoughts, instead of remaining the thinker.

Below are 20 quotes I personally read on a weekly basis, as they offer me true salvation:

“The present moment holds the key to liberation. But you cannot find the present moment as long as you are your mind.”

“To the ego, the present moment hardly exists. Only past and future are considered important. It is always concerned with keeping the past alive, because without it—who are you?”

“The mind can never find the solution, nor can it afford to allow you to find the solution, because it is itself an intrinsic part of the “problem.””

“Real love doesn’t make you suffer. How could it? It doesn’t suddenly turn into hate, nor does real joy turn into pain.”

“The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life. The pain that you create now is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what “is.””

“Surrender to what “is.” Say “yes” to life—and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.”

“Accept—then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.”

“Power over others is weakness disguised as strength. True power is within and it is available to you now.”

“Problems of the mind cannot be solved on the level of the mind.”

“The past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whatever form. Both are illusions.”

“Your life situation may be full of problems—most life situations are—but find out if you have a problem at this moment. Not tomorrow or in ten minutes, but now. Do you have a problem now? When you are full of problems, there is no room for anything new to enter, no room for a solution. So whenever you can, create some room, create some space, so that you find the life underneath your life situation.”

“How can we drop negativity? By dropping it. How do you drop a piece of hot coal that you are holding in your hand? How do you drop some heavy and useless baggage that you are carrying? By recognizing that you don’t want to suffer the pain or carry the burden anymore and then letting go of it.”

“If you find you’re here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally.”

“Die to the past every moment. You don’t need it.”

“Every form is destined to dissolve again and ultimately nothing out there matters all that much. You have “overcome the world,” in the words of Jesus, or, as the Buddha put it, you have “crossed over to the other shore.””

“Love is a state of being. Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you. It is not dependent on some other body, some external form.”

“To suddenly see that you are or have been attached to your pain can be quite a shocking realization. The moment you realize this, you have broken the attachment.”

“When you live in complete acceptance of what is, that is the end of all drama in your life. Nobody can even have an argument with you, no matter how hard he or she tries. You cannot have an argument with a fully conscious person.”

“Dissolution is needed for new growth to happen. One cannot exist without the other. The down cycle is absolutely essential for spiritual realization. You must have failed deeply on some level or experienced some deep loss or pain to be drawn to the spiritual dimension.”

“Watch any plant or animal and let it teach you acceptance of what is, surrender to the Now. Let it teach you Being. Let it teach you integrity. Let it teach you how to live and how to die, and how not to make living and dying into a problem.”

I am and will be forever thankful for “The Power of Now”—it has become my bible. I’ve read it multiple times and hope others find that it positively alters their perceptions, the same way it did mine.

Author: Elyane Youssef

Editor: Nicole Cameron

Image: BK/Flickr