The power of now

Hi,

I'm sure many of you heard about the book "The power of now" by Ekhart Tolle. If you didn't here is a link to an audio version of this book:

It seems to me that Ekhart Tolle view is that living in the present moment, is the main goal of meditation. I thought of it only as a means to an end.

When you are in the present moment, your mind stops thinking, and thereby your awareness leaves your mind, and goes to the next zone, a more inner or higher zone which is your spirit or soul or your subconscious or what ever you want to call it - and there you experience all the good things meditation has to offer.

Any way, being in the now is only a means to stop the mind from thinking. You can't pay attention to the events that happen in the present moment - external events or internal events - and be absorbed in your thoughts about the future or the past, at the same time.

Why is it so? I have a theory: while you are in a receptive mode, gathering information through experience, the mind width holds its judgment until all the information is gathered. Maybe there are other explanations, but this one seems to be a simple one, and I see not reason to seek for complication (but I'm willing to hear). It doesn't make much of a difference anyways, as the simple fact is that the mind does stop thinking when you pay attention to the present moment.

In meditation you first detach your awareness from your body, by stopping all body activities, as a result, the awareness - which seeks interest - moves from the body to a deeper zone, the zone of thought - the mind. Now you need to continue to a deeper zone. How do you do it? again by using the tendency of your attention/awareness to seek interest, you can either stop thinking or think repetitively the same thought, until your awareness is bored and moves on. the second approach is the approach of transcendental meditation which doesn't require any concentration, it is totally mechanical. the first approach is that of Mindfulness meditation. You can't stop the mind from thinking, and by trying to do so you only draw more attention to it, because we give the same amount of attention to the things we want as to the things we resist. The solution is to adopt an indirect approach, meaning to stick the attention to the present moment, without rejecting thought, but as a result, thought will necessarily stop.

At this point that's my way of seeing thing. In my view the present moment is not what we are looking for, but a means to trick the mind to stop thinking, once this purpose was achieved we let go of the present moment, and dive into the subconscious mind.

Or am I wrong? is the "now" more then that? I would like to hear other opinions.

Thanks.