The Power of Now - excerpt - chapter 1

Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of being and the deep, unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars, even if they have great material wealth. They are looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment, for validation, security, or love, while they have a treasure within that not only includes all things but is indefinitely greater than anything the world can offer. The word enlightment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being. It is a state of connectedness with something immeasurable and indestructable, something that, almost paradoxically, is essentially you and yet is much greater than you. It is finding your true nature beyond name and form. The inability to feel this connectedness gives rise to the illusion of separation, from yourself and from the world around you. You then perceive yourself, conscously or unconsciously, as an isolated fragment. Fear arises, and conflict within and without becomes the norm. P12, Chapter 1 You used the word Being. Can you explain what you mean by that? Being is the eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death. However, Being is not only beyond but also deep within every form as its innermost invisible and indestructible essence. This means that it is accessible to you now as your own deepest self, your true nature. But don't seek to grasp it with your mind. Don't try to understand it. You can know it only when the mind is still. When you are present, when your attention is fully and intensely in the Now, Being can be felt, but it can never be understood mentally. To regain awareness of Being and to abide in that state of "feeling-realization" is enlightment. P13, Chapter 1 As you go more deeply into this realm of no-mind, as it is sometimes called in the East, you realize the state of pure consciousness. In that state, you feel your own presence with such intensity and such joy that all thinking, all emotions, your physical body, as well as the whole eternal world, become relatively insignificant in comparison to it. And yet, this is not a selfish but a selfless state. It takes you beyond what you previously thought of as "your self". That presence is essentially you, and at the same time, inconceivably greater than you. What I am trying to convey here may sound paradoxical or even contradictory, but there is no other way that I can express it. Instead of "watching the thinker,", you can also create a gap in the mind stream simply by directing the focus of your attention into the Now. Just become intensely conscious of the present moment. This is a deeply satisfying thing to do. In this way, you draw consciousness away from mind activity and create a gap of no-mind in which you are highly alert and aware but not thinking. This is the essence of meditation. In your everyday life, you can practice this by taking any routine activity that normally is only a means to an end and giving it your fullest attention, so that it becomes an end in itself. For example, every time you walk up and down the stairs in your house or place of work, pay close attention to every step, every movement, even your breathing. Be totally present. Or when you wash your hands, pay attention to all the sense perceptions associated with the activity: the sound and feel of the water, the movement of your hands, the scent of the soap, and so on. Or when you get into your car, after you close the door, pause for a few seconds and observe the flow of your breath. Bcome aware of a silent but powerful sense of presence. There is one certain criterion by which you can measure your success in this practice: the degree of peace that you feel within. So the single most vital step on your journey toward enlightment is this: learn to disdentify from your mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind, the light of your consciousness grows stronger. One day you may catch yourself smiling at the voice in your head, as you would smile at the antics of a child. This means that you no longer take the conent of your mind all that secirously, as your sense of self does not depend on it. P20-21, Chapter 1 So observing our emotions is as important as observing our thoughts? Yes. Make it a habit to ask yourself: What's going on inside me at this moment? That question will point you in the right direction. But don't analyze, just watch. Focus your attention within. Feel the energy of the emotion. If there is no emotion present, take your attention even more deeply into the inner energy field of your body. It is the doorway into Being. P27 Chapter 1

The Power of Now - Chapter 4

1. anesthetic Many people use alcohol, sex, food, work, television, or even shopping as anesthetics in an unconscious attempt to remove the basic unease. 2. moderation When this happens, an activity that might be very enjoyable if used in moderation becomes imbued with a compulsive or addictive quality, and all that is ever achieved through it is extremely short-lived symptom relief. 3. repression It's okay to feel resentful; it's okay to be angry, irritated, moody, or whatever - otherwise, we get into repression, inner conflict, or denial. 4. subservient When you have seen the limitations of your outer purpose, you give up your unrealistic expectation that it should make you happy, and you make it subservient to your inner purpose. Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences. No excuses. No negativity. No psychic pollution. Keep your inner space clear.

The Power of Now - chapter 3

1. morrow Take no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself 2. plow Nobody who puts his hands to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God 3. reverence A knowing that does not destory the sacredness and mystery of life but contains a deep love and reverence for all that is. 4. unwittingly Be alert as you practice this so that you do not unwittingly transform clock time into psychological time. 5. Vibrancy Your life then loses its vibrancy, its freshness, its sense of wonder. 6. obsession The mind then creates an obsession with the future as an escape from the unsatisfactory present. 7. deadening You are leaving behind the deadening world of mental abstraction, of time. 8. incisive Should a situation arise that you need to deal with now, your action will be clear and incisive if it arises out of present-moment awareness. 9. imbued When you act out of present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care and love - even the most simple action. 10. consecrated It is described as the path of "consecrated action.". 11. grim Being free of psychological time, you no longer pursue your goals with grim dtermination, driven by fear, anger, discontent, or the need to become someone. Everything is honored, but nothing matters. Forms are born and die, yet you are aware of the Eternal underneath the forms. You know that nothing real can be threatened. When this is your state of being, how can you not succeed? You have succeeded already.

The Power of Now - chapter 2

1. obnoxious Some pain-bodies are obnoxious but relatively harmless, for example like a child who won't stop whining. 2. perpetrator Once the pain-body has taken you over, you want more pain. You become a victim or perpetrator. 3. vehemently You are not conscious of this, of course, and will vehemently claim that you do not want pain. 4. momentum Although you are no longer energizing it through your identification, it has a certain momentum, just like a spinning wheel that will keep turning for a while even when it is no longer being propelled. 5. strive So they strive after possessions, money, success, power, recognition, or special relationship, basically so that they can feel better about themselves, feel more complete. Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to "die before you die" - and find that there is no death.

The Power of Now - chapter 1

1. elation With astonishment, disbelief, and elation, he saw that the box was filled with gold. 2. conjure The word enlightment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being. 3. conviction: a strong persuasion or belief By misuse, I mean that people who have never even glimpsed the realm of the scared, the infinite vastness behind that word, use it with great conviction, as if they knew what they are talking about. 3. affliction Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everybody is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. 4. trancelike It is not a trancelike state. Not at all.There is no loss of consciousness here. THe opposite is the case. 5. topple The mind is then toppled from its place of power and Being reveals itself as your true nature. 6. impulse The mind then gives form to the creatvie impulse or insight. 7. subliminally They have a strong emanation o anger that certain people pickup sublinally and that triggers their own latent anger. 8. exertion ...when the mind is rendered "speechless." sometimes triggered by great beauty, extreme phyical exertion, or even great danger. 9. aversion As long as I am my mind, I am those cravings, those needs, wants, attachments, and aversions, and apart from filled potential, a seed that has not yet sprouted.

The Power of Now - chapter 5

1. loin, gird If he had "kept his loin girded and his lamp burning." which is one of the analogies that Jesus used for presence, he would have noticed the master coming up from behind and stopped him or stepped aside. 2. esoteric The esoteric meaning of "waiting" 3. qualitatively There is a qualitatively different kind of waiting, one that requires your total alertness. 4. lest So he stays awake, alert, poised, still, lest the miss the master's arrival. 5. vigilance Because of the narrowness of that gap and a lack of vigilance and alertness on your part, you were probably unable to see the fundamental difference between the perception, the thoughtless awareness of beauty, and the naming and interpeting of it as thought. 6. seer This is what the ancient seers of India asked themselves. They saw the world as lila, a kind of divine game that God is playing. 7. squander, destitue This process is explained by Jesus in his parable of the lost son, who leaves his father's home, squanders his wealth, becomes desitue, and is then forced by his suffering to return home. 8. respite Already for most humans, the only respite they find from their own minds is to occasionally revert to a level of consciousness below thought. 9.temporal/discursive The words I am used in a sentence that starts in the past sentence indicate a radical shift, a discontinuity in the temporal dimension. It is a Zen-like statement of great profundity. Jesus attempted to convey directly, not through discursive thought, the meaning of presence, of self-realization. Raise the concern for The power of now, Chapter 5 The state of presence. "I am that I am" Paul's answer/comment: There's just one now. It's not the case there are a lot of now moments. Take movie/screen as the example. For the characters, they have no idea and cannot realize they are just reflection of the screen pixels. Time is illusion. It seems like everything changes but the screen is still the screen. Nothing matters. Consciousness/Now is the screen, and you are the characters. Quote for most people: The mind is a cage with no prisioner. Quote for the seeker: Nothing happens.

The Power of Now Practice

 When you are unoccupied for a few minutes, and 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 fifteen 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, present 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.

The power of now - Introduction

Introduction: 

imminent: imminent death

relinquish: one learns to relinquish mental/emotinal resistance to the "suchness" of the present moment

intersperse: almost continuous anxiety interspersed with periods of suicidal depression

dread: a feeling of absolute dread

loathing: a deep loathing of the world

loathsome: The most loathsome thing of all, however, was my own existence

annihilation: a deep long for annihilation

luminosity: That soft luminosity filtering through the curtains was love itself.

prisitine: Everything was fresh and prestine

palpable: Sometimes it is very strong, almost palpable, and others can feel it too

eon: have kept humans in bondage to suffering for eons

verbatim: Some of the questions and answers I wrote down almost verbatim

extraneous: overlaid with extraneous matter

obscure: alsmot completely obscured by it

exaltation: There is then a feeling of exaltation and heightened aliveness