The Power of Now - Introduction

Vocabulary 1. One night not long after my twenty-ninth birthday, I woke up in the early hours with a feeling of absolute dread. --dread: to fear greatly 2. I could feel that a deep longing for annihilation, for nonexistence, was now becoming much stronger than the instinctive desire to continue to live. 3. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. --peculiar: different from the usual or normal 4. Everything was fresh and pristine, as if it had just come into existence. --pristine:original, pure 5. I picked up things, a pencil, an empty bottle, marveling at the beauty and aliveness of it all. --marvel:one that causes wonder or astonishment 6. That day I walked around the city in utter amazement at the miracle of life on earth, as if I had just been born into this world. --utter: carried to the utmost point or highest degree 7. On this level, I also show you how not to make that which is false in you into a self and into a personal problem, for that is how the false perpetuates itself. --perpetuate:to make perpetual or cause to last indefinitely 8. Some of these forms, such as the ancient religions, have become so overlaid with extraneous matter that their spiritual essence has become almost completely obscured by it. --extraneous:existing on or coming from the outside 9. There is then a feeling of exaltation and heightened aliveness, as something within you says: "Yes. I know this is true." --exaltation:an excessively intensified sense of well-being, power, or importance