Presence

Ageless Body, Timeless Mind: The Quantum Alternative to Growing Old
By Deepak Chopra

Everything you think and feel reflects who you are. If you think and feel from a superficial level of awareness, that is who you are. To dive deeper into yourself and, hopefully, to get to that place where you are love, compassion, trust, and truth, you have to follow the path of your present responses.

Someone who feels unloved can still find love in its purest form, but he will have to work through the layers of resistance that block the feeling of pure love. Your present emotions reflect the present state of your nervous system with all its past imprints.

Whenever you have an experience, these imprints enter into your response, which means that most of your reactions are echoes from the past. You do not really live in the present.

However, at least you are reacting in the present, and that is where the search for your true self begins. Your emotions are the most present-centered thing you have. An emotion is a thought linked to a sensation. The thought is usually about the past or the future, but the sensation is in the present.

Your mind quickly links sensations with thoughts, but when we were infants, our first experience and emotions were much closer to physical sensations. We had no inhibitions or second thoughts about crying when we were wet, cold, lonely, frightened, etc. Our minds didn’t know those powerful words bad and no. Bad teaches you that certain thoughts are shameful; no teaches you to resist your own impulses.

More complex words and interpretations came later. As adults, when we deny ourselves the immediate experience of an emotion, a screen of words is out up by the mind, and this throws us out of the present and into either the past or the future. To feel an emotion fully and completely, to experience it and then release it, is to be in the present, the only moment that never ages.

A Piece of Peace

"Peace is not merely a distant goal we seek but a means by which we arrive at that goal."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

---

---

We cannot have peace tomorrow.  If we choose peace, it's a choice made now.  Right now.

Choosing a peaceful life is something you choose to embrace "now," and then all actions and thoughts from that moment forward are based in the preservation of that chosen peace.

We can't decide we want peace, but we want it right after we show these people who's boss, or right after we get our way.  We can't bring peace by force.

Peace, in my opinion, isn't something that IS, it's the lack of something.  When you take away the disagreement and hatred and violence and force, you are left with a calm, acceptance called peace.

---

---

Great Titles by Martin Luther King, Jr.

---

---

Leave the Past & Love the Future

Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret, and depression. Do not repeat them in the future.
– Swami Sivananda

---

---

We've all made mistakes.  We've all acted in a way in which we are not proud.  We've all failed.

Dwelling in thoughts of past wrongs serves no purpose.  You will never feel bad enough to undo what's been done.

You can, however, identify the mistake and move forward focused on the solution.  Focused on the future.  Focused on replacing the grief of failure with rejoicing in success.

---

---

Great Titles by Swami Sivananda

---

---

Space for God

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose.
– Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

---

---

Practicing the art of quieting my mind and being completely present in the moment has become one of my favorite things to do.  The space that fills the "empty spaces" takes on almost a solid quality.  The spaces in between become of substance and alive.


That solid, substantial, alive emptiness is God.

Maybe I'm crazy, but that's how I feel when I sit and become completely present with It.  And all things manifest come from the emptiness, right?  I mean, all THINGS began as NoTHINGS didn't they?

And scientists say that proportionately speaking, the distance between the atoms in our bodies is comparable to the distance between the stars and galaxies.  So I've come to think of God and the consciousness that exists in the spaces in between.  The intelligence responsible for pulling the pieces into an ordered form that I recognize, and holding it there.

A sock is a sock because the atoms and particles are all pulled together in THAT specific pattern and are held there, in suspended animation so that I may observe a sock with my sensory perceptions.

What is it in the space that tells the pieces where to go and stay?

But the funny thing is, the deeper into things scientists go; The tinier the particle, the more space they find inside.

So this has become my understanding of God.  God is in all things to the deepest extent, and yet all things are IN God at the very same time.  And I've formed this conclusion by sitting in complete silence and observing and occasionally contemplating the space in between.

And if at the root of my nature, my consciousness, my soul, I too am that space, that pulsing, aware, divine space, then I have much more control than I can realize.

I believe the true purpose of all things is to bring me closer to realizing.  To compel me to contemplate the Space until I Am.

Seems logical to me that once that point is reached, things lose their purpose and meaning beyond pleasure and happiness.  Once you've suffered enough to go into the Space, you realize that, only that could be the purpose.

---

---

Great Titles by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

---

---

In Divine Timing

Consciousness is the ability to release the old and embrace the
new with the awareness that all things end at the appropriate
time and that all things begin at the appropriate time.
– Carolyn Myss

---

---

To everything... There is a season... And a time to every purpose under heaven.



I, personally, have gained the greatest and most profound peace in my life by coming to the realization that; Everything that happens is necessary to the evolution of ME and has a perfect time and a perfect divine purpose.


I know.  Sounds like a run-on bumper sticker, but it's my truth.


It's a concept you hear over and over and over.  Then one day you hear it again, and it just sinks deeper.

And you FEEL its depth.  And then you hear it over and over and over and it brings you much happiness because you believe you understand, until one day you hear it again and it just sinks DEEPER.


And it's depth is astounding.  And It is beautiful and perfect.


And now, I hear it over and over and over, and it is bringing me much happiness because I believe I understand.  But one of these days, I know it's going to sink even deeper and I'm sure I'll explode from the pleasure of It and just float away on a lavender breeze into infinity ∞

---

---

Great Titles by Carolyn Myss

---

---

God's in the Laundry

My life will always have dirty dishes.
If this sink can become
a place of contemplation,
let me learn constancy here.

–Gunilla Norris

---

---

A place of contemplation to be sure!
I find meditating over dirty dishes one of the easiest things to do.  Now to make my brain stop insisting that she doesn't like washing dishes, because she insists rather loudly at times.

Maybe she's afraid I won't need her anymore if I do such mundane, daily chores in joy and contemplation.

Everything in life is Spiritual in nature.  Everything.  Don't stop thinking about your Spirituality and your connection to God just because you're not sitting in a pew or meditating in candle light.

Find God in your dirty dishes.  As a side note; He's in your dirty laundry too!

---

---

Great Titles by Gunilla Norris

Another Day in Paradise

You cannot avoid paradise. You can only avoid seeing it.

–Charlotte Joko Beck

---

We are born into paradise.  This planet is one of deep synchronicity, beauty, and balance.  Here we have everything we need to thrive.  The only thing that stops us from seeing the amazing Eden around us is our labels and expectations.

We spend every moment of our lives in the Now.  There IS no other time.

When we go into our minds, we leave Now.  Now is where the paradise is.

---

---

Titles by Charolotte Joko Beck on Amazon

---

MP3 Downloads on Amazon

Disc 1

Disc 2

We are Love

“We are love, and there’s nothing we can do about that. Love is our nature. It’s what we are without our stories.”
– Byron Katie

---

You can never find true happiness inside your story, or the roles you play.  Happiness lies in the seeing of what IS, because all that is, is love expressing itself for you.

No story.  No boundaries.  No exclusions.  Just love.

---

---

 

Stillness Speaks

~ When your attention moves into the Now, there is an alertness.  It is as if you were waking up from a dream, the dream of thought, the dream of past and future.  Such clarity, such simplicity.  No room for problem making.  Just this moment as it is.