4  The Here and Now

If every moment is well lived, then the next moment will take care of itself.

To be able to enjoy the moment to its fullest is to enjoy the entirety of creation.

There is no past, there is no future, there is only now. Eternity can only be expressed or experienced in the now-ness of life.

When you live in the moment and not the past or the future, you live in that one moment, the whole of eternity. When you live in the whole of eternity, the totality of eternity is the moment.

Every moment is beautiful in itself. A moment becomes ugly only by association. You either associate with the past or you project yourself into the future and take that moment out of its context. You either magnify it or make it much smaller than it is. So the moment is lost and then the next moment begins, and the same thing happens all over again, all the time.

We are interested in Now, not what happened millions of years ago at the primal explosion, or what is going to happen at the dissolution of the entire universe, which might be billions and billions of years in the future. We are interested in today, and what we can do in the present to make our own lives happy and those around us happy.

Why waste time on abstract philosophy? Why waste time on the idea of, “After I’ve opened up all my chakras, then what?” Open them up first. We cross bridges when we come to them. What is the purpose of all this creation? We come from the black hole and re-enter the black hole. Let’s wait until we re-enter the black hole; it might not even be black anymore by the time we get there, who knows?

These black holes and white holes will always go on and on. It is the nature of the universe ever to remain in flux. But we who have come from that black hole will enter a black hole again; but not the same black hole. Then, philosophically speaking: Where are you traveling to? Where have you come from? Where goest thou? Nowhere. You progress from here to here.

The only thing that is non-fiction is the here and now of life, and all joy of life depends on the discovery of the here and now.

Thank God that you cannot remember your past lives. If you are not even willing to forgive and forget what Uncle Bob said three months ago, what would you do if you could remember what happened one or two lifetimes ago? Your mind would be driven mad.

You have many groups that talk of the hereafter. Why are the here and the after mixed up together? Let the after be after. While we are here, for this short span of life, let this “here” be really lovely, like a flower giving off its fragrance and yet asking no return.

Why should I remember what Doris said to me yesterday? It is because I am accustomed to two things: pain and pleasure. That very habit of being accustomed to the feelings of pain and pleasure is water in the sponge of the mind. Then we complain of being miserable! That water that is in the sponge of the mind can never remain fresh. It stagnates itself, and misery is nothing else than a great big stink.

God’s greatest gift to mankind is the ability to forget.

Negatives follow in the footsteps of memories: fear, inadequacy, insecurity.

There is no eternity in time. That is why we say eternity is timeless. And this very split second is a timelessness where you find the oneness with Divinity. That very split second gives you the realization that I and my Father are One. And that very realization in the split second is eternal: that’s eternity, that’s realization, that’s illumination, that’s awakening.

There is an existence, inseparable from that which you regard to be the Father. This can be practiced every moment of the day, in dreaming, waking, and sleeping.