The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
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This incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being.
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you are one with all that is.
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The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not the possessing entity — the thinker.
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listen to the voice in your head, be there as the witnessing presence.
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In your everyday life, you can practice
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So the single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this: learn to disidentify from your mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind, the light of your consciousness grows stronger.
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This means that you no longer take the content of your mind all that seriously, as your sense of self does not depend on
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Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.
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Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life.
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Accept — then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.
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As long as the egoic mind is running your life, you cannot truly be at ease; you cannot be at peace or fulfilled except for brief intervals when you obtained what you wanted, when a craving has just been fulfilled.
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The secret of life is to “die before you die” — and find that there is no death.
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for so many people, a large part of their sense of self is intimately connected with their problems.
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To be identified with your mind is to be trapped in time: the compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation.
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“Past and future veil God from our sight; burn up both of them with fire.”
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The mind then creates an obsession with the future as an escape from the unsatisfactory present.
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All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present.
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Presence is the key to freedom, so you can only be free now.
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“Problem” means that you are dwelling on a situation mentally without there being a true intention or possibility of taking action now and that you are unconsciously making it part of your sense of self.
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As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. 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.
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To be free of time is to be free of the psychological need of past for your identity and future for your fulfillment.
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the root of suffering is to be found in our constant wanting and craving.
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Anything that is done with negative energy will become contaminated by it and in time give rise to more pain, more unhappiness.
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Die to the past every moment. You don’t need it. Only refer to it when it is absolutely relevant to the present.
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If you develop such a mind pattern, no matter what you achieve or get, the present will never be good enough; the future will always seem better.
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Waiting is a state of mind. Basically, it means that you want the future; you don’t want the present.
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There is nothing wrong with setting goals and striving to achieve things. The mistake lies in using it as a substitute for the feeling of life, for Being.
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normal living: the background static of perpetual discontent.
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The sooner you realize that your outer purpose cannot give you lasting fulfillment, the better.
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These drugs, of course, simply keep you stuck in dysfunction. Their widespread use only delays the breakdown of the old
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Listening to the silence immediately creates stillness inside you.
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If you don’t like the word sin, then call it unconsciousness or insanity.
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Compulsive thinking has become a collective disease. Your whole sense of who you are is then derived from mind activity. Your identity, as it is no longer rooted in Being, becomes
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If you keep your attention in the body as much as possible, you will be anchored in the Now. You won’t lose yourself in the external world, and you won’t lose yourself in your mind. Thoughts and emotions, fears and desires, may still be there to some extent, but they won’t take you
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Conscious breathing, which is a powerful meditation in its own right, will gradually put you in touch with the body. Follow the breath with your attention as it moves in and out of your body. Breathe into the body, and feel your abdomen expanding and contracting slightly with each inhalation and exhalation.
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close your eyes and see yourself surrounded by light or immersed in a luminous substance — a sea of consciousness. Then breathe in that light. Feel that luminous substance filling up your body and making it luminous also. Then gradually focus more on the feeling. You are now in your body. Don’t get attached to any visual image.
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Most people don’t know how to listen because the major part of their attention is taken up by thinking.
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Your task is not to search for love but to find a portal through which love can enter.
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Paying attention to outer silence creates inner silence: the mind becomes still. A portal is opening
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As you do that, the dimension of stillness grows within you.
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You cannot pay attention to silence without simultaneously becoming still within.
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So become aware of the space that is all around you. Don’t think about it. Feel it, as it were. Pay attention to “nothing.”
Rand Duren
This fucked me up
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This is how the contemplation of space can become a portal for you.
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You also know that every form is destined to dissolve again and that ultimately nothing out here matters all that much.