Embracing the Now: Finding Peace and Happiness in What Is [Paperback]

A few years ago I read "A New Earth Awakening to Your Life's Purpose" by Eckhart Tolle. At the beginning of the book, he writes that the reading would change my life. I have always felt a little resistance when writers claim they can change me with there writings without knowing me. But in this case Tolle was right. During the reading, I experienced how he opened a new perspective of life, and it has forever changed my inner sense of living.

After Tolle's book I was looking for other teachers who have experienced what is called an awakening. I searched in particular for women who had experienced awakening. After some searching, I found Gina Lake a spiritual teacher from Sedona,USA and I responded with the the same resonance to her teachings that I had responded to Tolle. I began to follow Gina's blogs and read some of her books which I downloaded from her website. I saw and heard interviews with her, which is available on her site[] and on You Tube.

"Embracing the Now" is according to Gina Lake one of her major books and in my opinion contains the same life-changing potential as Tolle's book "A new Earth". Gina Lake takes a similar standpoint as Tolle and other nondual teachers such as Adyashanti, when she describes the journey to awakening.

She describes in detail the Ego's role in our lives, how it prevents us from experiencing true joy and peace of mind. In short chapters she dismantles the Egoic Mind in a clear and comprehensible way. She describes how the Ego defends itself against what is going on in the moment, and how the Ego always is chronically dissatisfied. The Ego has a tendency to focus on whether there is too much or too little of something in the present moment. The Ego obscures the moment with plans, fantasies, dissatisfaction, worries and fears etc. which always leaves us feeling a little out of sync with life. "When we agree with he Egoic mind, we feel like a victim or like we have a problem to fix. When we do not agree with it we just experience the moment as it is, without the ego's negative influence." Turning our attention into the moment is the only thing that can give us the joy and serenity we so strongly long after and its only in the moment that we can be in touch with what Gina Lake describes as the Essence. The Essence is our initial rise, our origine, our true identity. Gina Lake defines the Egoic Mind as a kind of programming that Essence creates to experience its diversity. When we confuse Egoic conditioning with our true selves, we experience suffering."When we experience life as Essence, we are at peace, and-when we are experiencing life as the ego, we are unhappy. It's that simple." Turning our attention into the moment provides that the Essence more easily can work through us and lead us into more productive and optimal life situations. One way to check up whether we live from the Egoic Mind or from Essence is if we experience a feeling of compression and negativity or a sense of joy, flow and opening. "Essence drives us to fulfill our life through inspiration and urges, not trough shameful feelings of inadeqacy as the ego does "A recurring theme in the book is the thoughts impact on our lives. Gina Lake distinguishes between functional thinking and thinking sprung from the Ego. Her defenitions of how problematic thinking make our lives is illustrated in provocative but very uplifting ways.

It is not an easy task to downplay Ego-dominance but in a loving way Gina Lake shows us that we really have no other choice if we want radical happiness in our lifes. Gina Lake is able to convey the problems that many of us face every day, infact in every moment. She puts the spotlight on the sore points of being human and then shines the way out for us: Accepting the moment just as it is, to let go of the Egos dominance and open ourselves up so that something larger can work through us. During the reading, it dawned on me that after this book it will be impossible for me to neglect my own Egos negative influence on my life and when I read her final question to me, the reader: "Are you willing to Be at Peace?" I had only one answer.

I can't believe how underrated Gina Lake is. I can only assume it is because she has detached from her own ego to such a degree that she downplays her books rather than heavily promoting them. I wish more people knew about her books, they are absolute lifesavers. This book is an easy but enlightening read. Everything I thought I knew about life and myself turns out to be a bit of a lie. This persona that I was trying to maintain is the result of fear and the incessant chattering of the ego. I can't put it nearly as eloquently as Ms Lake does but I am slowly feeling more free and more at peace, something I had struggled to attain for years. I highly recommend Gina Lake's books, all of them, but start with this one. Her Youtube clips are also amazing, she's an unbelievable person and, I would say, her books are better than those of Eckhart Tolle and other 'spiritual masters'. If your life is currently being consumed by anxiety or depression, I very much believe you will benefit from this book.

As a practical guide to understanding the machinations of the ego and learning to reduce its influence, thereby improving the quality of your life, this book is excellent, excelling in clarity and usefulness anything else I have read on this topic. But it must be borne in mind that the theoretical explanations (which constitute perhaps 5% of the material) are not advaita and ought really to be ignored.
Dennis Waite, author of Back to the Truth: 5000 Years of Advaita