THE POWER OF NOW by Eckhart Tolle

Awareness of the inner body has benefits in the physical realm. One of them is a significant slowing of the aging of the physical body. Whereas the outer body normally appears to grow old and wither fairly quickly, the inner body does not change with time, except that you may feel it more deeply and become it more fully. If you are 20-years-old now, the energy field of your inner body will feel just the same when you are 80. It will be just as vibrantly alive.
As soon as your habitual state changes from being out of the body and trapped in your mind to being in the body and present in the Now, your physical body will feel lighter, clearer, more alive. As there is more consciousness in the body, its molecular structure actually becomes less dense.
When you become identified more with the timeless inner body than with the outer body and when presence becomes your normal mode of consciousness and past and future no longer dominate your attention, you do not accumulate time anymore in your psyche and in the cells of the body. The accumulation of time as the psychological burden of past and future greatly impairs the cells’ capacity for self-renewal. So if you inhabit the inner body, the outer body will grow old at a much slower rate, and even when it does, your timeless essence will shine through the outer form and you will not give the appearance of an old person.
Another benefit of this practice is a great strengthening of the immune system. The more consciousness you bring into the body, the stronger the immune system becomes. It is as if every cell awakens and rejoices. The body loves your attention. It is also a potent form of self-healing. Most illnesses creep in when you are not present in the body. If the master is not present in the house, all kinds of shady characters will take up residence there. When you inhabit your body, it will be hard for unwanted guests to enter.
Not only your physical immune system becomes strengthened; your psychic immune system is greatly enhanced as well. The latter protects you from the negative mental-emotional force fields of others, which are highly contagious. Inhabiting the body protects you by raising the frequency vibration of your total energy field, so that anything that vibrates at a lower frequency – fear, anger, depression – now exists in what is virtually a different order of reality.
There is a simple but powerful self-healing meditation you can do whenever you feel the need to boost your immune system. It is particularly effective when you feel the first symptoms of an illness, but it also works with entrenched illnesses if you use it at frequent intervals and with an intense focus. However, it is not a substitute for the moment-to-moment practice of being in the body; otherwise, its effect will only be temporary.
Here it is. When you are unoccupied for a few minutes, especially last thing at night before falling asleep and first thing in the morning before getting up, “flood” your body with consciousness. Close your eyes. Lie flat on your back. Choose different parts of your body to focus your attention on briefly at first: hands, feet, arms, legs, abdomen, chest, head, and so on. Feel the life energy inside those parts as intensely as you can. Stay with each part for 15 seconds or so. Then let your attention run through the body like a wave a few times, from feet to head and back again. This need only take a minute or so. After that, feel the inner body in its totality, as a single field of energy. Hold that feeling for a few minutes. Be intensely present during that time in every cell of your body. Don’t be concerned if the mind occasionally succeeds in drawing your attention out of the body and you lose yourself in some thought. As soon as you notice that this has happened, just return your attention to the inner body.

Adapted from The Power of Now, copyright 1999 by Eckhart Tolle. Reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA, 800-972-6657 (ext. 52). Visit www.eckharttolle.com.