Sarah's Reviews > The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

"Underneath the level of physical appearances and separate forms, you are one with all that is."

"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."

"There is one certain criterion by which you can measure your success in this practice: the degree of peace that you feel within."

"All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of being."

"Don't seek to become free of desire or "achieve" enlightenment. Become present. Be there as the observer of the mind."

"Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life. Have your dwelling place in the Now and pay brief visits to past and future when required to deal with the practical aspects of your life situation. Always say "yes" to the present moment."

"Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it."

"Break the old pattern of present-moment denial and present moment resistance. Make it your practice to withdraw attention from past and future whenever they are not needed. Step out of the time dimension as much as possible in everyday life."

"If your mind carries a heavy burden of past, you will experience more of the same. The past perpetuates itself through lack of presence. The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future - which, of course, can only be experienced as the Now."

"All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of fear - are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are cause by too much past, and not enough presence."

"Presence is the key to freedom, so you can only be free now."

"Certain things in the past didn't go the way you wanted them to go. You are still resisting what happened in the past, and now you are resisting what is. Hope is what keeps you going, but hope keeps you focused on the future, and this continued focus perpetuates your denial of the Now and therefore your unhappiness."

"There are no problems. Only situations - to be dealt with now, or to be left alone and accepted as part of the "isness" of the present moment until they change or can be dealt with."

"It is impossible to have a problem when your attention is fully in the Now. A situation that needs to be dealt with or accepted - yes. Why make it into a problem? Why make anything into a problem? Isn't life challenging enough as it is? What do you need problems for? "Problem" means 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. Or you are carrying in your mind the insane burden of a hundred things that you will or may have to do in the future instead of focusing your attention on the one thing that you can do now."

"When you create a problem, you create pain. All it takes is a simple choice, a simple decision: no matter what happens I will create no more pain for myself. I will create no more problems. If you create no more pain for yourself, then you create no more pain for others. You also no longer contaminate the beautiful earth, your inner space, and the collective human psyche with the negativity of problem-making."

"Is there joy, ease, and lightness in what I am doing? If there isn't, then time is covering up the present moment, and life is perceived as a burden or a struggle."

""How" is always more important than "what." See if you can give much more attention to the doing than to the result that you want to achieve through it. Give your fullest attention to whatever the moment presents. This implies that you also completely accept what is, because you cannot give your full attention to something and at the same time resist it."

"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."

""Am I at ease at this moment?" "What's going on inside me at this moment?" Be at least as interested in what goes on inside you as what happens outside. If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place."

"Do you resent doing what you are doing? Are you carrying unspoken resentment toward a person close to you? Do you realize that the energy you thus emanate is so harmful in its effects that you are in fact contaminating yourself as well as those around you?"

"Whether your thoughts and emotions about this situation are justified or not makes no difference. The fact is that you are resisting what is. You are making the present moment into an enemy. You are creating unhappiness, conflict between the inner and outer. Your unhappiness is polluting not only your own inner being and those around you but also the collective human psyche of which you are an inseparable part. The pollution of the planet is only an outward reflection of an inner psychic pollution: millions of unconscious individuals not taking responsibility for their inner space."

"Either stop doing what you are doing, speak to the person concerned and express fully what you feel, or drop the negativity that your mind has created around the situation and that serves no purpose whatsoever except to strengthen a false sense of self. Negativity is never the optimum way of dealing with any situation. In fact, in most cases it keeps you stuck in it, blocking real change. Anything that is done with negative energy will become contaminated by it and in time give rise to more pain, more unhappiness."

"Are you polluting the world or cleaning up the mess? You are responsible for your inner space; nobody else is, just as you are responsible for the planet. As within, so without: If humans clear inner pollution, then they will also cease to create outer pollution."

"See if you can catch yourself complaining, in either speech or thought, about a situation you find yourself in, what other people do or say, your surroundings, your life situation, even the weather. To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it."

"No excuses. No negativity. No psychic pollution. Keep your inner space clear."

"If you take any action - leaving or changing your situation - drop the negativity first."

"Is fear preventing you from taking action? Acknowledge the fear, watch it, take your attention into it, be fully present with it. Doing so cuts the link between the fear and your thinking. Don't let the fear rise up into your mind. Use the power of the Now. Fear cannot prevail against it."

"If there is truly nothing that you can do to change your here and now, and you can't remove yourself from the situation, then accept your here and now totally by dropping all inner resistance."

"Or is there something that you "should" be doing but are not doing it? Get up and do it now. Alternatively, completely accept your inactivity, laziness, or passivity at this moment, if that is your choice. Go into it fully. Enjoy it. Be as lazy or inactive as you can."

"Are you stressed? Are you so busy getting to the future that the present is reduced to a means of getting there? Stress is caused by being "here" but wanting to be "there," or being present but wanting to be in the future."

"As you move, work, run - do it totally. Enjoy the flow of energy, the high energy of the moment. Now you are no longer stressed, no longer splitting yourself in two. Just moving, running, working - and enjoying it."

"Does the past take up a great deal of your attention? Do you frequently talk and think about it, either positively or negatively? Your victim story and the dreadful things that were done to you, or maybe what you did to someone else? Are your thought processes creating guilt, pride, resentment, anger, regret, or self-pity? Then you are not only reinforcing a false sense of self but also helping to accelerate your body's aging process by creating an accumulation of past in your psyche. Die to the past every moment. You don't need it. Only refer to it when it is absolutely relevant to the present. Feel the power of this moment and the fullness of being. Feel your presence."

"Are you worried? Do you have many "what if" thoughts? You are identified with your mind, which is projecting itself into an imaginary future situation and creating fear. There is no way that you can cope with such a situation, because it doesn't exist. You can stop this health and life corroding insanity simply by acknowledging the present moment. You can always cope with the Now, but you can never cope with the future. The answer, the strength, the right action or the resource will be there when you need it, not before, not after."

""One day I'll make it." Is your goal taking up so much of your attention that you reduce the present moment to a means to an end? Is it taking the joy out of your doing? Are you waiting to start living? 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. A perfect recipe for permanent dissatisfaction and nonfulfillment, don't you agree?"

"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. The only point of access for that is the Now."

"When you honor, acknowledge, and fully accept your present reality - where you are, who you are, what you are doing right now - when you fully accept what you have got, you are grateful for what you have got, grateful for what is, grateful for Being. Gratitude for the present moment and the fullness of life now is true prosperity. It cannot come in the future."

"Give up waiting as a state of mind. Come into the present moment. Just be, and enjoy being. If you are present, there is never any need for you to wait for anything."

"Your outer journey may contain a million steps: your inner journey only has one: the step you are taking right now. As you become more deeply aware of this one step, you realize that it already contains within itself all the other steps as well as the destination. This one step then becomes transformed into an expression of perfection, an act of great beauty and quality. It will have taken you into Being, and the light of Being will shine through."

"Only the present can free you of the past. Access the power of Now."

"Deal with the past on the level of the present. The more attention you give to the past, the more you energize it, and the more likely you are to make a "self" out of it. Give attention to the present. You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You find yourself by coming into the present."

"Attention is the key to transformation - and full attention also implies acceptance."

"Forgiveness is to offer no resistance to life - to allow life to live through you. The moment you truly forgive, you have reclaimed your power from the mind. You become present, you enter your body, you feel the vibrant peace and stillness that emanate from Being."

"Presence, awareness of the eternal now."

"Salvation is not elsewhere in place or time. It is here and now."

"True salvation is fulfillment, peace, life in all its fullness. It is to be who you are, to feel within you the good that has no opposite, the joy of Being that depends on nothing outside itself. It is felt not as a passing experience but as an abiding presence."

"You "get" there by realizing that you are there already. There is only on e point of access: the Now."

"The moment that judgment stops through acceptance of what is, you are free of the mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace. First you stop judging yourself; then you stop judging your partner. The greatest catalyst for change in a relationship is complete acceptance of your partner as he or she is, without needing to judge or change them in any way."

"The opportunity that is concealed within every crisis does not manifest until all the facts of any given situation are acknowledged and fully accepted. As long as you deny them, as long as you try to escape from them or wish that things were different, the window of opportunity does not open up, and you remain trapped inside that situation, which will remain the same or deteriorate further."

"Being the knowing creates a clear space of loving presence that allows all things and all people to be as they are."

"A victim identity is the belief that the past is more powerful than the present, which is the opposite of the truth. It is the belief that other people and what they did to you are responsible for who you are now, for your emotional pain or your inability to be your true self. The truth is that the only power there is is contained within this moment: It is the power of your presence. Once you know that, you also realize that you are responsible for your inner space now - nobody else is - and that past cannot prevail against the power of the Now."

"All you really need to do is accept this moment fully."

"When you live in complete acceptance of what is - which is the only sane way to live - there is no "good" or "bad" in your life anymore. This "allowing to be" takes you beyond the mind with its resistance patterns that create the positive-negative polarities. Forgiveness of the present is even more important than forgiveness of the past. If you forgive every moment - allow it to be as it is - then there will be no accumulation of resentment that needs to be forgiven at some later time."

"Through forgiveness, which essentially means recognizing the insubstantiality of the past and allowing the present moment to be as it is, the miracle of transformation happens not only within but also without. A silent space of intense presence arises both in you and around you. You dissolve discord, heal pain, dispel unconsciousness - without doing anything - simply by being and holding that frequency of intense presence."

"Whenever you are not honoring the present moment by allowing it to be, you are creating drama. When you live in complete acceptance of what is, that is the end of all dram in your life. Nobody can even have an argument with you, no matter how hard he or she tries. You cannot have an argument with a fully conscious person. An argument implies identification with your mind and a mental position, as well as resistance and reaction to the other person's position. You can still make your point clearly and firmly, but there will be no reactive force behind it, no defense or attack. So it won't turn into drama. When you are fully conscious, you cease to be in conflict. Conflict within you ceases when there is no longer any clash between the demands and expectations of your mind and what is."

"All suffering is ego-created and is due to resistance."

"Presence, an unchanging deep stillness, an uncaused joy beyond good and bad. This is the joy of Being, the peace of God."

"If you cling and resist at that point, it means you are refusing to go with the flow of life, and you will suffer."

"All inner resistance is experienced as negativity in one form or another. All negativity is resistance. The ego believes that through negativity it can manipulate reality and get what it wants. It believes that through it, it can attract a desirable condition or dissolve and undesirable one. A Course in Miracles rightly points out that, whenever you are unhappy, there is the unconscious belief that the unhappiness "buys" you what you want. If "you" - the mind - did not believe that unhappiness works, why would you create it? The fact is, of course, that negativity does not work. Instead of attracting a desirable condition, it stops it from arising. Instead of dissolving an undesirable one, it keeps it in place. Its only "useful" function is that it strengthens the ego, and that is why the ego loves it."

"Whenever you notice that some form of negativity has arisen within you, look on it not as a failure, but as a helpful signal that is telling you: "Wake up. Get out of your mind. Be present.""

"Somebody says something to you that is rude or designed to hurt. Instead of going into unconscious reaction and negativity, such as attack, defense, or withdrawal, you let it pass right through you. Offer no resistance. It is as if there is nobody there to get hurt anymore. That is forgiveness. In this way, you become invulnerable. You can still tell that person that his or her behavior is unacceptable, if that is what you choose to do. But that person no longer has the power to control your inner state. You are then in your power - not in someone else's, nor are you run by your mind."

"Anything you accept fully with get you there, will take you into peace."

"When you accept what is, every piece of meat - every moment - is the best. That is enlightenment."

"You don't resist change by mentally clinging to any situation. You abide in Being - unchanging, timeless, deathless - and you are no longer dependent for fulfillment or happiness on the outer world of constantly fluctuating forms."

"Compassion is the awareness of a deep bond between yourself and all creatures."

"Your perception of the world is a reflection of your state of consciousness. Every moment, your consciousness creates the world that you inhabit."

"Everybody you come in contact with will be touched by your presence and affected by the peace that you emanate, whether they are conscious of it or not. When you are fully present and people around you manifest unconscious behavior, you won't feel the need to react to it, so you don't give it any reality. Your peace is so vast and so deep that anything that is not peace disappears into it as if it had never existed. You become the "light of the world," an emanation of pure consciousness, and so you eliminate suffering on the level of cause. You eliminate unconsciousness from the world."

"Who you are is always a more vital teaching and a more powerful transformer of the world than what you say, and more essential even than what you do."

"True change happens within, not without."

"Make sure that you carry no resistance within, no hatred, no negativity. "Love you enemies," said Jesus, which, of course, means "have no enemies.""

"If inner factors such as fear, guilt, or inertia prevented you from taking action, they will dissolve in the light of your conscious presence."

"Take responsibility for your life. Do not give unhappiness in any form whatsoever a dwelling place inside you."

"If you accept the image, no matter what it is, if you become friendly toward it, it cannot not become friendly toward you. This is how you change the world."

"You are the problem - as long as the egoic mind is in control. Do not blame life for treating you unfairly, but do not blame yourself either. All that is resistance."

"Say yes to what is or accept what isn't. If you abide in this state of acceptance, you create no more negativity, no more suffering, no more unhappiness."

"Stay alert, stay present - present with your whole Being."