The Power of Now
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Why is Eckhart's book called "The Power of Now"?
Because your true nature is always right now in the present moment.
That's all that really exists, is the present moment.
The past is just a bunch of memories that can only be recalled "now", and the future is just a bunch of thoughts projected into an imaginary future.
Let me ask you a question.
The awareness that is streaming through your eyes right now, that is taking in this post.
How old is it?
What sex is it, male or female?
Has this awareness changed at all since you were an infant?
Your thoughts about who you are and what the world is certainly have changed, but has awareness ever changed?
Could you say that the awareness is unchanging, always there, always present right now.
Does it have an eternal quality about it?
Let me ask you another question.
What do you think of this moment right now?
Is it particularly good? Or bad?
You will need to refer to your thoughts to answer this question because you are moving away from your true nature.
You are moving into the story of being a separate human being that has needs and wants and is always moving in time.
So, the present moment, which is your true nature, is glossed over, and you instead identify with the story of becoming, of solving the myriad problems you have as a separate individual, of moving forward in time hoping one day to finally "arrive" and find true happiness.
But you and I know that day will never come, because as soon as you solve one problem, another problem will pop up to replace it.
One could say that being a separate person is in fact a state of perpetual problem. Because it is "you" against the world.
However, if you rested in your true nature, which is awareness, which is pure consciousness, which is spirit, which is the present moment, then would there be any problems?
How can you have a problem when you are all that is?
How can you have a problem when you have let go of the story of what you thought you were?
What do you end up with then?
Just the simplicity of this moment.
Which is all there really is.
Which is everything.
Which is what you are. -
The ‘Now’ has no identity, no image and no sameness. Not a background and is not a container for things to manifest. When free of concepts, free of the bondage and the need for a background, the ‘that’, the ‘it’, the arising and subsiding phenomena is the presence.Originally posted by JonLS:Why is Eckhart's book called "The Power of Now"?
Because your true nature is always right now in the present moment.
That's all that really exists, is the present moment.
The past is just a bunch of memories that can only be recalled "now", and the future is just a bunch of thoughts projected into an imaginary future.
Let me ask you a question.
The awareness that is streaming through your eyes right now, that is taking in this post.
How old is it?
What sex is it, male or female?
Has this awareness changed at all since you were an infant?
Your thoughts about who you are and what the world is certainly have changed, but has awareness ever changed?
Could you say that the awareness is unchanging, always there, always present right now.
Does it have an eternal quality about it?
Let me ask you another question.
What do you think of this moment right now?
Is it particularly good? Or bad?
You will need to refer to your thoughts to answer this question because you are moving away from your true nature.
You are moving into the story of being a separate human being that has needs and wants and is always moving in time.
So, the present moment, which is your true nature, is glossed over, and you instead identify with the story of becoming, of solving the myriad problems you have as a separate individual, of moving forward in time hoping one day to finally "arrive" and find true happiness.
But you and I know that day will never come, because as soon as you solve one problem, another problem will pop up to replace it.
One could say that being a separate person is in fact a state of perpetual problem. Because it is "you" against the world.
However, if you rested in your true nature, which is awareness, which is pure consciousness, which is spirit, which is the present moment, then would there be any problems?
How can you have a problem when you are all that is?
How can you have a problem when you have let go of the story of what you thought you were?
What do you end up with then?
Just the simplicity of this moment.
Which is all there really is.
Which is everything.
Which is what you are.
There is no changing thing, there is only change. Things are cognized.
The ever becoming has no end and does not begin. No one particular moment is all of it and yet, no moment isn’t it. Neither is there an ‘All’ to this stream as ‘All’ has no meaning in an endless stream of becoming.
Look, see and point to the mountain, listen to the drumbeats of footsteps, hear the chirping birds; without overlaying symbols, free of concepts, delimited not by a body, not affect by the imprints of senses, undefined by languages, all is and are the Pristine Awareness.
Yet the entire beauty, richness, fabric and texture of this so lucidly clear and real, does not remain even for a moment, instantaneously it is gone. Embrace "this instantaneously gone" and embrace “let arise”, this is its nature, simply so. -
Pure awareness, which I have experienced momentarily and then was gone, is not something that will become a permanent state?Originally posted by Thusness:The ‘Now’ has no identity, no image and no sameness. Not a background and is not a container for things to manifest. When free of concepts, free of the bondage and the need for a background, the ‘that’, the ‘it’, the arising and subsiding phenomena is the presence.
There is no changing thing, there is only change. Things are cognized.
The ever becoming has no end and does not begin. No one particular moment is all of it and yet, no moment isn’t it. Neither is there an ‘All’ to this stream as ‘All’ has no meaning in an endless stream of becoming.
Look, see and point to the mountain, listen to the drumbeats of footsteps, hear the chirping birds; without overlaying symbols, free of concepts, delimited not by a body, not affect by the imprints of senses, undefined by languages, all is and are the Pristine Awareness.
Yet the entire beauty, richness, fabric and texture of this so lucidly clear and real, does not remain even for a moment, instantaneously it is gone. Embrace "this instantaneously gone" and embrace “let arise”, this is its nature, simply so. -
There is continuity but there is no permanent changeless state. This distinction is important because it prevents us from experiencing the 3 most important aspects of our nature -- conditioning momentum, no-self (non-duality) and our emptiness nature.Originally posted by JonLS:Pure awareness, which I have experienced momentarily and then was gone, is not something that will become a permanent state?
Edited:
What happen if the luminous clarity of our pristine awareness posses this quantum entanglement characteristic (Emptiness).
http://www.boloji.com/buddhism/00119.htm
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Pure awareness has no particular state. A permanent state is being cognized out due to the power of the mind to “abstract”. Direct experience requires no such postulation. The permanent state is the 'holding factor' that prevents the experience of the self-liberating nature of the mind. If we were to direct the experience to the manifestation and only the manifesation alone, the beauty of Presence is in its manifold will be experienced. It is needless to hold on to a 'changeless' source. In each moment of the flux, Be; all moments are equally pure, rich and identity-less.
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Nathan Gill uploaded these two weeks ago:
http://www.nathangill.com/pages/readingroom/going-beyond.html
Going beyond.
So there's an awareness of this room right now, but what about the unmanifest level?
What unmanifest level? Isn't what's appearing enough?
The appearance is merely a pointer to what is beyond Consciousness.
Why do you want to go beyond?
Because that's where all the action is, for creating this manifestation.
This manifestation isn't created - it spontaneously appears.
But ultimately there's nothing more important than what is beyond Consciousness.
When there's exclusive identification with the content of awareness, with the story of 'me' as an imagined entity, there's a tendency for the awareness aspect of Consciousness to be objectified as 'the beyond', a state or realm which once attained will offer oneness, lasting peace.
But in actuality there is no beyond, nothing to be attained 'ultimately'. There's simply this as it is: simple presence. This is already that 'realm'. Consciousness (awareness and the presently appearing content of awareness) is already one or whole, and when the story of 'me' - of identification - is seen as just a play, a movie, then all pursuit of oneness, all pursuit of the beyond or whatever, quite naturally becomes obsolete.http://www.nathangill.com/pages/readingroom/cosmic-entertainment.html
The cosmic entertainment.
Are you saying that thought doesn't make a difference, that nothing makes a difference in the sense of cause and effect? Everything just arises?
Everything just arises, including the idea of cause and effect.
But doesn't that idea itself make a difference? Doesn't the idea create an effect at a local level?
Only apparently so, as part of the play or movie of life. In actuality there's no cause and effect. Everything - all of this imagery - arises entirely spontaneously, immediately. Within the movie of life, there is the impression of cause and effect, but in actuality there is no separation, so nothing that can act upon anything else.
So it all just happens to arise and it just looks as though there's relationship?
Yes, the imagery that arises merely suggests separation.
And so somebody who identifies with an 'I' or with a body -
Well, it's not that there's 'someone' who identifies - rather it's more accurately described by saying 'Where identification arises Â…'.
OK, so where identification arises, that is something that nothing can be done about?
Precisely so. If anything changes it does so entirely spontaneously - because there's no one here who can effect any change. Cause and effect, action and reaction, are appearance only, the imagery of the movie of life, the cosmic entertainment. -
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
Yes and very well said.
Nathan Gill uploaded these two weeks ago:
Going beyond.
So there's an awareness of this room right now, but what about the unmanifest level?
What unmanifest level? Isn't what's appearing enough?
The appearance is merely a pointer to what is beyond Consciousness.
Why do you want to go beyond?
Because that's where all the action is, for creating this manifestation.
This manifestation isn't created - it spontaneously appears.
But ultimately there's nothing more important than what is beyond Consciousness.
When there's exclusive identification with the content of awareness, with the story of 'me' as an imagined entity, there's a tendency for the awareness aspect of Consciousness to be objectified as 'the beyond', a state or realm which once attained will offer oneness, lasting peace.
But in actuality there is no beyond, nothing to be attained 'ultimately'. There's simply this as it is: simple presence. This is already that 'realm'. Consciousness (awareness and the presently appearing content of awareness) is already one or whole, and when the story of 'me' - of identification - is seen as just a play, a movie, then all pursuit of oneness, all pursuit of the beyond or whatever, quite naturally becomes obsolete.
There is no beyond and therefore there is no "ultimate unchanging state". -
Thank you.. it's very beautifulOriginally posted by JonLS:
Why is Eckhart's book called "The Power of Now"?
Because your true nature is always right now in the present moment.
That's all that really exists, is the present moment.
The past is just a bunch of memories that can only be recalled "now", and the future is just a bunch of thoughts projected into an imaginary future.
Let me ask you a question.
The awareness that is streaming through your eyes right now, that is taking in this post.
How old is it?
What sex is it, male or female?
Has this awareness changed at all since you were an infant?
Your thoughts about who you are and what the world is certainly have changed, but has awareness ever changed?
Could you say that the awareness is unchanging, always there, always present right now.
Does it have an eternal quality about it?
Let me ask you another question.What do you think of this moment right now?
Is it particularly good? Or bad?
You will need to refer to your thoughts to answer this question because you are moving away from your true nature.
You are moving into the story of being a separate human being that has needs and wants and is always moving in time.
So, the present moment, which is your true nature, is glossed over, and you instead identify with the story of becoming, of solving the myriad problems you have as a separate individual, of moving forward in time hoping one day to finally "arrive" and find true happiness.
But you and I know that day will never come, because as soon as you solve one problem, another problem will pop up to replace it.
One could say that being a separate person is in fact a state of perpetual problem. Because it is "you" against the world.
However, if you rested in your true nature, which is awareness, which is pure consciousness, which is spirit, which is the present moment, then would there be any problems?
How can you have a problem when you are all that is?
How can you have a problem when you have let go of the story of what you thought you were?
What do you end up with then?
Just the simplicity of this moment.
Which is all there really is.
Which is everything.
Which is what you are.
-
Originally posted by Thusness:
Understood.
Pure awareness has no particular state. A permanent state is being cognized out due to the power of the mind to “abstract”. Direct experience requires no such postulation. The permanent state is the 'holding factor' that prevents the experience of the self-liberating nature of the mind. If we were to direct the experience to the manifestation and only the manifesation alone, the beauty of Presence is in its manifold will be experienced. It is needless to hold on to a 'changeless' source. In each moment of the flux, [b]Be; all moments are equally pure, rich and identity-less.[/b]
Thank you. -
Hi AnEternalNow,
I LOVE Nathan Gills' stuff, he is wonderfully clear and pristine.