By Dora Pappas, Life Strategist & Business Coach
Last month I wrote about how to stay focused and provided some strategies on how to achieve this more consistently. This month, the focus is on what we call “being in the NOW”, in other words, living in the present moment. Most of us are either caught up in the past or too worried about the future. The article below which is an extract from an excellent book called “You have chosen to Remember”by James Blanchard Cisneros. I hope this topic reminds everyone to appreciate the moment. Ask yourself the question have I been living in the “NOW”?
Allow the simplicity and truth of the moment to manifest itself, or choose to replace it with the complexity and confusion of what you think you wish to see. This is the one choice you make in every moment. The present moment simply is. It is freed from past judgments or future imaginings. You will find peace by allowing the present moment to be what it is. You will experience peace by simply doing two things:
1 - Having faith that the moment is perfect
2 - Being thankful for however the moment chooses to manifest itself in your mind
The present moment is perfect and your simple recognition is all that is asked of you in order for you to experience its perfection. It is in allowing the present moment to be what it is that you will find peace. And as you recognize the present as God’s gift, you will replace your judgment of it with gratitude.
If you do not experience peace in the present moment, it is because you have substituted the ego’s illusions for the present moment. The ego will invite you to believe in a thousand different ways in which you can lose your peace of mind. The ego will also offer you a thousand different solutions. Yet, if one of the ego’s illusions or solutions is unreal, then all the ego’s illusions and solutions are unreal. For the ego’s illusions and solutions in and of themselves are nothing. And regardless of how many times you multiply nothing, you will still get nothing.
You might ask for an example to clarify this point. The manifestation of that example might clarify a small number of similar illusions. This is exactly what the ego would offer, because it gives more than enough wiggle room to offer you a thousand different illusions and a thousand solutions to those illusions. And as long as you have use for the ego, it can remain alive, well and in control of your perceptions. And so I offer no specific examples to cloud your thoughts. I do offer that all illusions, regardless of their manifestations, will result in a loss of peace. There is really only one illusion, one problem, which is that you are experiencing the illusion as real. Call it your spouse’s impatience, your boss’ ruthlessness, traffic or your job. Call it what you will. If it takes away your peace, it is because you have seen the illusion as real. In their essence, all illusions are the same because all illusions are not real.
React as you will to illusions. Defend yourself against illusions if that rocks your boat Hate, fear and punish that figment of your imagination that does not exist if you wish to. Anytime that you relate to the present moment with anything but peace and gratitude, you have had a misperception brought on by a past judgment you thought had once served your purpose.
In order to live in the present moment, let go of past patterns that are inconsistent with the truth within you. Offer God the judgment of your brother or sister, the judgment that has brought you nothing but sadness, pain and regret, and in turn He will offer you eternal peace of mind and joy. Offer Him all your past perceptions and He will offer you the eternal present moment. If you put aside the unfruitfulness of judgment, you could easily lift the many veils you use to cover the present moment. Beneath the veils, you would rediscover the simplicity of faith, faith that the present moment is perfect. This rediscovery, that you need not add nor subtract or judge the present moment, will offer you total freedom and peace. And gratitude will become your only sane response to the offering of total freedom and peace.
Lay aside all judgment, and feel yourself lifted into another world, a world that you have not seen or experienced for a long time but one that has always been and will always be available to you. If you offer God a little willingness to put your judgments aside, he will in turn, offer you eternal peace of mind and joy. Do this for one moment in time and you will rediscover that this is all you desire. As you rediscover this, you will also find that this truth is available to everyone, at any time, and that a simple decision is all that separates those who have rediscovered their truth from those who are in the process of rediscovering their truth.
Knowledge that the perfection of the present moment is available to everyone all the time will fill your heart with an overflowing sense of gratitude and joy that even the most blind will see. Your heart will burst with rainbow-coloured love that will touch everyone and the judgment of your brother and sister will all but dissolve in its light. Your simple willingness to put judgment aside will result in the complete love of God flowing through your soul and not one cell in your body will be left untouched by His gratitude and love. You have dammed a free flowing river, and as a result, you have not felt God’s complete gratitude and love flowing through you. But by trusting the present moment, you are once again putting your trust in God. Once you have done so, thousands of illusionary bricks will fall, again letting the river flow free. The river will overflow its banks, and you too will overflow with God’s gratitude and love.
Source: You have chosen to remember, James Blanchard Cisneros.
