Present Moment

Occasionally, for all of us, we accidentally enter into the flow of the Now. We could be skiing, skating, doing yoga, playing golf, and suddenly our activity aligns us with the flow of that moment. Emotionally we can enter accidentally into the Now when we look out and see the sun breaking through the clouds or we catch the evening light as it shades trees differently. Intellectually we can enter into the Now when we have an insight and an epiphany comes.

Before we can experience the truth of a higher state of consciousness, before we can stand on the ground of ourselves that is the secret stuff of Reality, we are asked to quietly be who and what we are in the Now.

What good is it to find a solution, some seeming strength, that doesn't really resolve your problem, but that is just another form of secret self-deception? Outside of its power to help you temporarily feel better about the weakness that just claimed you, what good is the "strength" of being able to endlessly explain yourself to yourself? Of being able to "intelligently" justify some deliberately hurtful act towards another?

When life falls apart, or threatens to come unglued, it seems almost natural to carry around some desperate, stressed, or depressed emotional state. But why cling to something that makes us ache? The answer is surprising, but evident, once we're aware of what's actually taking place within us.

Isn't it true in the moment when you look out and see a beautiful pink sky ablaze at sunset that it awakens the same beauty inside of you? When you see something timeless, when you see something beautiful, what you see is not outside of you. What you see outside of you is simply reminding you of something that you're asleep to in yourself. The beauty isn't out there in a pink moment. The intelligence isn't in a timeless thought or insight...

So many people today are bitter, broken-hearted, or just plain angry because of what happened to them while growing up. The reasons for their resentment or regret are as countless as are the number of unconscious people who unknowingly create such pain in the lives of those they hurt. But nothing that happened yesterday -- as horrendous as it may have been -- has authority over the present moment and its new possibilities...

The Presence moment can be thought of as a kind of "meeting" place of myriad invisible worlds. It is a timeless space of open-ended possibilities in which your created nature converges and interacts with all that constitutes your original Self. Call this all-encompassing Spirit what you will, but it is... and forever will be a compassionate intelligence whose living light creates, animates...

Looking at life through the eyes of resistance is not unlike looking at our own reflection in a pool of troubled waters; everything gets distorted. In fact, when seeing our lives through the narrow bars of some unwanted state, nothing is the way we see it.

We can't really know love's power to free us, to fulfill us through our relationships, until we gain some totally new ideas about how to see, and then interact with others. Not just a rehash of our past failed viewpoint; we know that path is powerless to heal the aching heart. An altogether higher view is called for. We need to be able to see others through the "eyes" of a completely fresh understanding...

Can you see that there is something inside of you that immediately begins to tell you what any event means and what you need to do about it? You've been with this storyteller for so long, it's an unquestioned presence in your mind. It's just part of what we call our life. But this storyteller isn't really alive. Its story is to ensure the continuation of its life...

Every time you get negative, you drain from yourself something vital to the development of your soul. But every time you catch yourself in those dark waters that carry you away, you add something to your development by working to understand them. The source of those dark, raging waters is an illusion. It is the illusion that is part and parcel with the present activity of your mind...

Wouldn't it be a real relief to get outside the limitations of negative reactions? But how do we get there? How can we be certain we're headed in the right direction?" Here is a great secret known only by those who have made the journey before us: Walk away from the mental "how" into the spiritual Now. And here is one of the keys to this special instruction: The journey outside of yourself doesn't...