Contents

Now, now! 3

Other articles in this series

Now, now! 1

Now, now! 2

Now, now! 4

Now, now! 5

By Antraeus Voltage

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” - M. Kathleen Casey.

‘The time-tested Buddhist antidote to suffering.’ Mmm. Sounds good doesn’t it? According to the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron, ‘maitri’ “is very hard to come by, unconditional acceptance of oneself, unconditional friendship with oneself. It is much more common that we disapprove of ourselves, we denigrate ourselves” (From the DVD Good Medicine). This way of “feeling at home with your own mind and your own body,” she says, is “the basis of compassion” and “the seed of happiness, or well-being.” She goes on: “So where does it come from?...All of this has a lot to do with our relationship with pain, our relationship with difficulty.” Buddha said, “A certain amount of pain is inevitable...the fundamental teaching of the Buddha was not to struggle against the pain in our life. And that’s not the kind of news we really like to hear.” (ibid).

“Emotion from the pain-body quickly gains control of your thinking,” says Eckhart Tolle, “and once your mind has been taken over by the pain-body, your thinking becomes negative. The voice in your head will be telling sad, anxious, or angry stories about yourself or your life, about other people, about past, future, or imaginary events. The voice will be blaming, accusing, complaining, imagining. And you are totally identified with whatever the voice says, believe all its distorted thoughts. At that point, the addiction to unhappiness has set in. It is not so much that you cannot stop your train of negative thoughts, but that you don't want to. This is because the pain-body at that time is living through you, pretending to be you. And to the pain-body, pain is pleasure. It eagerly devours every negative thought. In fact, the usual voice in your head has now become the voice of the pain-body. It has taken over the internal dialogue. A vicious circle becomes established between the pain-body and your thinking. Every thought feeds the pain-body and in turn the pain-body generates more thoughts.” (A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, Dutton Adult, 2005, p.143).

Tolle explains that the ‘pain-body’ is a psychic parasite developed through the ego which arises from thoughts of limitations. The human ego includes "the emotions that are the body's reaction to what the voice in the head is saying." (ibid, p.135). The pain-body’s behaviour is ‘emotional vampirism,’ he says. It feeds on our thoughts and on drama: “If there are other people around, preferably your partner or a close family member, the pain-body will attempt to provoke them - push their buttons, as the expression goes - so it can feed on the ensuing drama. Pain-bodies love intimate relationships and families because that is where they get most of heir food. It is hard to resist another person's pain-body that is determined to draw you into a reaction. Instinctively it knows your weakest, most vulnerable points. If it doesn't succeed the first time, it will try again and again. It is raw emotion looking for more emotion. The other person's pain-body wants to awaken yours so that both pain-bodies can mutually energise each other. Many relationships go through violent and destructive pain-body episodes at regular intervals. It is almost unbearably painful for a young child to have to witness the emotional violence of their parents' pain-bodies, and yet that is the fate of millions of children all over the world, the nightmare of their daily existence. That is also one of the main ways in which the human pain-body is passed on from generation to generation.” (ibid. p.143). The pain-body, says Tolle, is an ‘addiction to unhappiness,’ (ibid, p.145). It allows negative energy to flow in so that people are able to find the negativity, or potential openings to trigger it, in others they are looking for. “Hurt people hurt. No-one is unkind unless he is in pain,” as someone else once said.

‘The Mechanics of Mind Control. Tools for the Awakening.’ Notes from a lecture by Joe Marshalla PhD (recorded live at Brave New Books, Austin Texas, 9 October 2008. Source: Google Video).

“When you know who and what you are you are uncontrollable,” says Joe Marshalla. If you don’t know who you are, he says, if you believe you are your thoughts, then people can control your mind, that is, influence you. We are weak, including physically weak, when we have negative thoughts about either ourselves or others. “Regardless of the target, you are depleted...Bring it on!” A man in the audience asked: ‘Does that mean if you’re going to fight with someone you should think about how awesome you are and not about how much you hate them?”

A hero is fully in the here, now, says Marshalla. This means that he/she is positive and not weakened by his or her own negative or limiting thoughts, or affected by others’ projections. He/she just is and just knows who he/she is and cannot be persuaded otherwise, or influenced. Perhaps one is feeling intimidated, or afraid, and needing a solution to the situation, but ultimately one will find the solutions within oneself. And, the best way is to be here, now where you feel most powerful and positive, and to express that energy, and also in the other person’s direction.

“Either you’re focussing on the dark or focussing on the Light,” adds Marshalla. That’s where your free will lies, he says, but the key is not to create a change to either polarity. If we raise one thing up high, we’re not being ourselves so we have put ourselves down. Marshalla distinguishes between the spiritually-driven reality which united all that is divided and the psychologically-driven reality (with a spectrum of shades between) which divides all that is united. Sounds like the fifth dimension versus the fourth.

“Reconnection means merging with EVERYTHING, not just the light bright and the fun things...COMPLETION……..includes ALL OF IT.......... fun, trauma, drama, mystery, history and joy.  It’s all there, and all available.” - Daniel Jacob, 2006, www.reconnections.net/concerning_the_middle_east.htm).

“’The ability to do what you need to do when you need to do it’ – that’s abundance, period…And, so, in moving forward, now with your new understanding of following your excitement, can you apply this definition to the idea and trust that whatever form of abundance needs to be there to allow you to ‘do what you need to do when you need to do’ will be alright even if it doesn’t come in the form that you expect it ought to?...

Well, that’s the paradox – and it goes back to the issue that you don’t want to waste time going through the process: the more you enjoy the process itself, the faster it will go. That’s the paradox. The more you’re alright with the process itself of discovering what your beliefs are as an act unto itself that’s worth having, the faster it will go because the faster you will be using it up by staying with it by being excited about having that process. So, that in and of itself is an art form. The first art form to master is simply being here and now with what is happening, trusting that what is happening is happening for a reason. Otherwise it wouldn’t be happening.

So, if you are willing to accept that whatever part of the process is happening is happening for the purpose of putting you in touch with more of yourself, so that you can expand and get that reflection back from reality of your expansion, then you will be excited about anything the process has to show you. It will actually be experienced as a piece of performance art. And, by getting into it and diving into it and being the performance artist and the art piece itself, then you will allow it to move very rapidly through you, to process very rapidly, because you’re willing to accept everything that’s happening as necessary, as a part of the piece, as a part of the art, as something to look at, as something to investigate, as something that will increase your understanding of who and what you are as a co-creator. If you look at it that way and stay in that energy, believe me, very quickly, you will explode in many different directions and your reality will explore toward you with many different things that will support you.” – Bashar (channelled through Daryl Anka, YouTube video, ‘Bashar on Abundance and Trusting What Is,’ posted by newrealities, 5 October 2006, www.bashar.org).

“Some individuals regard guidance to ‘live in the `now'’ to conflict with instructions for manifesting what they want in their lives. We say to those who think they cannot handle responsibilities of the moment and simultaneously create future developments: You have been doing this lifelong! The law of attraction is set in motion by your ‘now’ thoughts and feelings. When you have positive, or optimistic, thoughts and acknowledge with gratitude your ‘now’ blessings, that is what gets attached to energy streamers that shoot out to the mass consciousness, attract similar energy attachments and bring back to you more to feel thankful for. In like manner, when thoughts and feelings are focused on stressful situations and ordeals, you manifest new hardships and worries to deal with. The natural laws that govern life throughout this universe are simple, straightforward and effective. One of the limitations of third density mentality is its tendency to see complexities where none exist. As your consciousness continues to expand, you shall see for yourselves the simplicity and purity that prevails in higher densities. However, you need not wait until Earth reaches fourth density, her Golden Age beginning, to experience this - you know the laws and can apply them to your advantage now!” – Matthew (channelled through Suzanne Ward, 11 September 2010, www.matthewbooks.com/mm/anmviewer.asp?a=125&z=2).

“Beloved Lightworkers, the most effective way to experience the blessings of Grounding and Connection is through the experience of Presence. This is the way in which you center your energy clearly into your present material reality, that you have created, and open yourself to receiving the blessings that exist within that Reality Creation. To be 'present' in your own life means to take the time to experience each moment and each action as a miracle and as a blessing of love. To be Present means to value and deeply bless all that is in your life as a gift from the Creative Source." - Archangel Michael (channelled through Celia Fenn, 'The Diamond Prism and the Planetary Awakening. The Energies for June 2009,' www.starchildglobal.com/june2009.html).

“Please stay with us in the now moment where you will find peace. This feeling is what will carry you through to the magnificent changes and life ahead.” - Mira from the Pleiadian High Council (channelled through Valerie Donner, 10 August 2009, www.thegroundcrew.com/channeled_messages.htm).

A brief review of Stevan Davies’ translation of The Gospel of Thomas (“a Coptic document containing sayings attributed to Jesus…discovered deep within an ancient Egyptian cave” in 1945) explains: “These new sayings offer an original perspective on Jesus’ message. Most notably, they emhasise that the Kingdom of Heaven exists right before us in the present moment, and all that we have to do is recognise it.” (The Watkins Review, Issue No.21, Spring 2009, p.19). [Footnote: Adama, channelled through Aurelia Louise Jones, says that Jesus was the last incarnation of Sananda, one of the first Lemurians who came to Earth from the ‘land of Mu,’ which exists in another universe].

“The rainbow is more beautiful than the pot at the end of it, because the rainbow is now. And the pot never turns out to be quite what I expected." - Hugh Prather.

“We think of time as a one-way motion, from the past through the present and on into the future. But, the past is the result of the present. In other words, you’re getting rid of the habit of thought whereby you define yourself as the result of what has gone before and, instead, get into the more plausible and more reasonable habit of thought. In terms of which you don’t define yourself in terms of what you’ve done before but in terms of what you’re doing now. And that is the birth of responsibility.

            We are no longer this poor little stranger and afraid...But that you are this universe and you are creating it at every moment. Because, you see, it starts now. It didn’t begin in the past. There was no past. You see, if the universe began in the past, when that happened it was now, you see. But, it’s still now. It begins here. And the universe is still beginning now and it’s trailing off like the wake of a ship from now. And, as that wake of the ship fades out, so does the past. You can look back there to explain things but the exploration disappears. You never find it there. Things are not explained about the past. They’re explained by what happens now.

            Because, otherwise, you can always look over your shoulder and say, ‘Well, I’m the way I am because my mother dropped me. And she dropped me because she was neurotic because her mother dropped her. And away we go back to Adam and Eve, or two disappearing monkeys or something. We never get at it.” - Alan Watts.

“The Taoist recognises the eternal alternation between yin and yang and says ‘out of great darkness will come great light’ (as surely as day follows night) and carries on practising being exclusively in the moment, resisting all urges to project into an imaginary future based on information gathered from a past that is no longer. The Taoist would say that in this present moment (and the next one and one after and so on), you are, if internally still enough, able to create reality around you any way you choose. Hence, theoretically with enough focus, intent and chi (energy), a single person - you for instance - is able to actually effect substantial change in external circumstances just by seeing it so. This is also the basis of not only Western magic, but Western religion, too.” – Barefoot Doctor (Dear Barefoot. Taoist Wisdom for Everyday Living, Atlantic Books on behalf of Guardian Newspapers Ltd, London, 2004, p.293)

“The truth is now; the truth is right here: the truth is this minute, and this minute we exist. Yesterday you cannot prove yesterday happened today, it would take you all day and then it would be tomorrow, and you can't prove last week happened. You can't prove anything except to yourself. My reality is my reality, and I stand within myself on my reality…I look at the projection that comes from this witness stand often to the defendants. It isn't what we said, it is what someone thought we said. A word is changed: ‘in there’ to ‘up there,’ ‘off of that’ to ‘on top.’ The semantics get into a word game in the courtroom to prove something that is gone in the past. It is gone in the past, and when it is gone, it is gone, sisters. It is gone, brother. You can't bring the past back up and postulate or mock up a picture of something that happened a hundred years ago, or 1970 years ago, as far as that goes. You can only live in the now, for what is real is now…You see, it is what happens inside the now that ... the words just lose meaning. A motion is more real than a word. The Indians spoke with it. They could explain to you with motions what they felt. This is what I intended to do if I could represent myself…You tell me something and, tomorrow, I try to repeat it, if I didn't write it down, I couldn't tell you what you said. Let alone a year ago, let alone eight months ago, let alone a week ago. I am forgetful. I forget one day to the next. I forget what day it is or what month it is or what year it is. I don't particularly care because all that is real to me is right now. But then, the case is real to me, and I say, ‘What do I have to do to make you people let me go back to the desert with my children?’ You have your world. You are going to do whatever you do with it. I have got nothing to do with it. I don't have the schooling in it. I don't believe in your church. I don't believe in anything you do.” – Charles Manson (to the Court, 19 November 1970, www.mansondirect.com/transa.html).

"Love the moment. Flowers grow out of dark moments. Therefore, each moment is vital. It affects the whole. Life is a succession of such moments and to live each, is to succeed." ‑ Corita Kent.

“So, Beloved Family of Light, we ask that you hold the intention for a graceful transition into the New Earth without catastrophe or suffering. We ask you to expect the absolute Joy of the New Earth Rising, and nothing less! Release the Past, Live in the Present Moment and embrace what will come, for it will be an expression of Divine Grace and Love and will be Perfect in itself, as is all Life.” - Archangel Michael through Celia Fenn (‘The reconnection and recalibration of the new ‘centre’ for joy and radiance in the light body. The new earth energies May and June 2010,’ www.starchildglobal.com).

“As you know, there can be no separation from what is Real, for separation is the basis of duality, of illusion, of all those things that you know are not the truth. Yet it has been hard to find this deep experience of ecstatic joy, as you have waded through the processes of life on Earth because life on Earth, beloved ones, is ego mind. What I am asking of you, what I am leading you into, what I am awakening you for is to stand firmly in the Real, so firmly that the illusory world of ego mind is magnetised to truth, and all that is not Love begins to fade away.

            So how, you may ask, do you stop the ego mind from its continual evaluation and reporting on anything and everything that you encounter in your days, and how it feels to you, how it looks to you, how your little mind thinks it is. How you do this, beloved ones, is come to centre and find the way to live the feelings of the heart.

The feelings of the heart are the vibrations of the Real, not the broken heart of the illusion, but your Real heart of Love. And yet, doing this, beloved ones, will take commitment from you, commitment to truly live each moment as if each moment were the only moment that you get that each moment is your one chance to love, that each moment is a precious jewel, a gem beyond all price, and must be cherished if you are to experience the gift of your life and your reason for appearing here on Earth.

            All of you have come to know the potency of your Christed heart. Your hearts, beloved ones, are fully functioning. They are open to the Real and they are ready to be the conduit for the Moment of Creation, to be the embodiment of Twin Flame Love on Earth, that Earth may truly be the expression of Heaven. Yet knowing your hearts, awakening them, touching into the experiences of the living moment is far different from learning to be present there, moment after moment in your life. By resonance it is only when your moments have become the expression and the experience of what is Real that the abundance, the great eternal Now and the expression of the most amazing Twin Flame Love can be present and then reflected as the world.

            So let us practice the experience of the Vertical, not only the Vertical breath but the decision to be fully present. You can do this through feeling as your heart and through being fully present to the moment, allowing everything that is around you to fully register as it is perceived by your heart, experiencing every nuance of vibration, of light, of the chills of truth, of the awareness of the Now, and allowing your presence in a moment to become the opening into the pulsing ecstasy of the Real, your Twin Flame heart right here, right now, again and again.

In other words, bring your attention into your heart and focus. Extend the heart beam to all that surround you, and in deep silence, allow your heart to remember its interactions with the atoms that make up the world. Let it remember that there are no barriers to the truth that the atoms that make up the seeming physical are the same atoms that make up the Real, and therefore, life is undivided and continuous, and its experience is one of ecstasy and joy.” - A message from God (channelled through Yael and Doug Powell, ‘Joy and Abundance Come From Living Without the Ego Mind,’ 12 October, 2006 at Eureka Springs, AR, www.circleoflight.net).

“Embrace your choice to be here. Here is not inferior or profane. Here is the Now. Here is where your experience of the Now is. Here is where you realise you are God. Here is the most wonderful place you could possibly be. Here is where you are choosing to be. Here is where you are reading this book, and with these words you are being welcomed into your divinity. Here is Now, and Now is where everything you have ever wanted happens." – Story Waters (You Are God. Get Over It!, Limitlessness, 2005).

"All right. So, as you become more anchored in your Now, as you can allow the stories of past to be simply that, then indeed you may bring to your Nows more joy, more exhilaration, more peace, more harmony, more excitement, or whatever it is that you want in that now...

Our desire for you is that in each moment you will make for yourself a beautiful story so that the moment itself is your history, not what happened yesterday. Do you understand? So that your life is an area of play, is of the most beauteous resonance, full of colour, light and shade, laughter, tears, everything, everything.

You are here to experience it all and one experience is not more valid than another. But as you can allow yourselves to unfold, as you can allow yourselves to embrace every facet of who you are, as you can allow yourselves to embrace your old stories and let them be, then indeed this is your opportunity to spend more and more time in that resonance of joy, of allowance, of laughter, of peace and tranquillity, of wonderment, of fun, hmm? [Speaks softer and lovingly]. After all, that is really what you all want, is it not?" - Bashar (channelled through Darryl Anka, www.bashar.org).

“No, baby, no, not now. Just leave it. That’s the trouble with people today: all uptight about tomorrow. Hanging onto yesterday. It’s no good. No good at all. There’s only one time that counts: now, right now. If you don’t live for now, why, you might as well just roll over and take the full count.” – The Heavyweight Philosopher (and bully) in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (directed by Russ Meyer, 1970).

“Let us look also at how you so very often look at someone else's life and say, ‘Lucky them! Look how they were born with everything. Look at how they do not have to struggle for everything.’ Well, you know, each of you created yourselves exactly where and how you did at your birthing because you desired certain experiences in this focus or lifetime. This you may call the Master Game Plan. However, within this framework of your now-life, you have a choice in every moment of how you will perceive it to be, how you will transform it, if that is your desire, and how you will recreate what is now not desirable.

So, back to the now. The reason you are exhorted to live in the now is because that is where your power lies. Your power of manifestation and transformation cannot lie in your past or you would already have accomplished it. It cannot lie in your future because you create your futures from your perceptions, beliefs and emotions of this now. The more you pay attention and are focused on the now, the easier it is to identify and transform those old beliefs and patterns and negative feelings about who you are and what your perceived reality is which keeps you on the treadmill.” – P’taah (‘Isness of Manifestation,’ channelled by Jani King, 2001, www.ptaah.com/page/page/3979892.htm).

“Until you learn to live in the present moment, you cannot appreciate that moment; therefore, you cannot truly glean the joy that is in the moment. As long as you are concerned for the future or holding on to the past, whether you consider it to be a positive or negative in your life, you are not able to truly move into the essence of what you are living in this ‘now moment.’ That does not mean you do not have memories or you do not plan for the future but it means you detach from both. You detach from the past and all of the perceptions that limit this moment. And you detach from the future because how you live today spills into tomorrow determining your future. If you do not live today richly and fully, you then take into tomorrow all that now limits you; therefore, you repeat the same life patterns over and over, and wind up not truly enjoying your existence on the planet.

To enjoy your existence, you need to detach from the need to control what is. As long as you have a need, you cannot enjoy because your needs will always seem not to be fulfilled. If you fulfil one need, you will immediately create another because that is how you perceive you live. You are busy fulfilling your perceived needs. In doing that, you then expend a tremendous amount of energy controlling what you are creating. As long as you have needs and are attached to needs, you are then also attached to the outcome of those needs and therefore cannot truly enjoy life. So to enjoy life, you must richly and fully live this moment detached from the need to dominate your existence instead of flowing with your existence.” – Salem (from ‘Six Steps To Truly Enjoying Life,’ channelled through Diandra, July 2009, www.inwardjourney.com/articles/arttemp.php?article_id=1996007).

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” - Mahatma Gandhi.

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, or not to anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.” - Buddha.

Click to donate