We are in some difficulty because we don't know how to stop thinking. Can you stop thinking and just be here in silence and Presence? And if you cannot stop thinking, then you cannot be present, for all thinking takes you into the mind.

There is nothing wrong with thinking. There is nothing wrong with entering the world of the mind, as long as you know that you are entering a world of illusion, and you know that only the present moment is the truth.

Then you can play in the world of time, with your thoughts, memories, and concepts. Enjoy yourself, but be careful! It is easy to get lost there.

If you identify with any of it, or take any of it too seriously, you will separate yourself from the present moment and the truth, you will be abandoning love, truth, and the present moment for the illusory world of the mind, filled with distorted memories and false promises.

To be fully awake and enlightened simply means to be fully present in the moment of now. To be present is the simplest thing. It is your natural state.

Every moment, you have a choice. Will you be present in the truth and reality of this moment or will you allow yourself to be seduced into the world of the mind? All thoughts take you out of the present moment. And then if you believe in those thoughts, which most of us do, you get lost in the world of the mind.

For most of us, we have become so habituated to thinking, that now thoughts never end. They have a life of their own. We are not even choosing to think. Thinking is happening all by itself and we are simply pulled from one thought to another, never really experiencing the sacredness of this moment.

The present moment is free of memories of the past and imaginings into the future. And so the pain and limitations of the past magically disappear when you are present. Anxiety about the future also disappears. You are just here now, fully present in this moment.

When you are fully present, your inner experience is one of peace, love, acceptance, power, truth and compassion. Separation and fear dissolve. You exist within Oneness.

When you bring yourself fully present, thoughts stop and your mind falls silent. But there is an even deeper level of silence waiting to emerge. As your mind becomes silent, an inner door is opened, allowing an infinite and eternal silence to emerge.

This infinite and eternal silence is the very essence of your Being. It is your true nature. It is the essence of all existence. It is the eternal silent presence of pure consciousness. It is the "I AM" of you. It is that dimension of you that exists in Oneness with all that is. It is your true unborn nature.

To be present is to awaken into that dimension of your self and that dimension of life which is transcendent of the thinking mind. You are silent and you are fully present with what is actually here now. If you are fully present, there is no moment other than this moment.

That is what it means to be awake in the truth of life. You are so fully present that you exist in this moment, and only in this moment. You are awake in the eternal now. At the very deepest level of awakened Presence, the past and future have disappeared and only the present moment is available to you.

You cannot function within the world of time, for the simple reason that there is no time. There is no sense of your self outside of this moment.

This does not mean that one who has awakened is always functioning at the deepest level of Presence. It is possible to function at a more superficial level of Presence so that the world of time becomes available. Even when you participate in the world of time, you are still deeply grounded in Presence and the present moment is always recognized as the truth of life.

If you are fundamentally awake in Presence you live without judgment, fear and desire. You live in a state of acceptance. You live as Love in the world. The illusion of separation has dissolved. You live with a strong sense of the Oneness of all things and a continuing awareness of the impersonal or eternal dimension of existence. You see others as equal and enlightened, even if they are unaware of it.

You are compassionate and you always act with integrity. You cannot be dishonest. There is something inside you which simply will not allow it. When you are fundamentally awake in the truth of life, you are substantially free of ego motivations and reactions.

This is not to imply that one who is awake is somehow perfect. At times, you can react like any one else, and experience fear and uncertainty, or feelings like hurt and anger.

The difference is that now, you know that you are caught temporarily in the illusion of separation. You do not believe in the story that is presenting itself to you. You know that the past is somehow projecting itself into the present. You do not identify with the experience or any emotional reactions arising out of the experience. And yet, you take full responsibility for whatever you are experiencing.

The experience is owned and accepted, but not acted upon as if it is the truth. In the midst of constant change, you know yourself as the One who never changes.

In truth, there is no life outside of the present moment. Sooner or later, we must all come to terms with this simple fact.

If you are to awaken fully into the present moment, and remain fundamentally grounded in Presence, then you will have to liberate yourself from entanglement in your own past. It is not the true past. It is the remembered past, which you access through the mind whenever you think. You will also have to free yourself from the imagined future, which is nothing more than the past projected forward. It is simply a fantasy.

The true future does not exist in the world of the mind. The true future unfolds through the doorway of the present moment, just as the true past is accessible through the doorway of the present moment.

To free yourself from the past, there are a number of steps you will have to take.

1. If there are feelings from the past, which have been repressed within you, will have to allow these feelings the opportunity to surface into conscious and responsible expression. You are not trying to get rid of these feelings. You are simply allowing them to express. Everything in existence has a right to exist, including the feelings of need, hurt and anger. If they were denied the right to exist when you were young, because they were too painful then or simply not allowed expression, they will have to be restored into the flow of conscious expression that was once denied them.

2. Forgiveness is a powerful force, which can release the past from you and you from the past. Forgive all those who have hurt you and seek the forgiveness of everyone you have hurt. The forgiveness must be authentic. Sometimes, the pain and the anger at those who have hurt you must be experienced fully, before forgiveness can occur.

3. With some people, healing of the past is necessary before forgiveness and release can truly arise. The good news is that, through the power of acceptance, which is a state of Oneness with your true self, emotional and soul healing is possible in a way that defies all reason and is beyond belief. To be successful bring to your awareness and accept the experience from the past which has been unconsciously projecting into and affecting your current experience of life.

4. To the extent that you maintain yourself in resentment, guilt or blame, you cannot be present, simply because these feelings keep you imprisoned within the past. You must bring these feelings to the surface. Bring them to consciousness in a loving and accepting way. Identify, own, confess and express these feelings, but do not project them onto anyone. Do not believe in them. You are allowing them into consciousness, simply so that they are no longer hidden and so they can no longer control you unconsciously. Feelings of resentment, blame and guilt are an indication that you are not taking responsibility for your life or for yourself. It is easier to blame someone, than to take responsibility for yourself.

5. This next point is the most difficult to understand and is the most easily resisted. If you continue to generate good feelings by remembering happy experiences from the past, you will remain in bondage to the mind and ego forever. Identification with happy memories holds you in the world of the mind and locks in place all those unhappy and painful memories you would rather avoid. This is because the mind is a world of duality, and there is no way to avoid duality, other than by becoming so fully present that Oneness is revealed as the fundamental ground of your existence. It is the same with deriving pleasure from the anticipation of a future event. Only the present moment can fulfill you. It is only when we awaken fully into the present moment that duality is transcended and Oneness is revealed.

The key to becoming present is remarkably simple. However remaining present is not so simple. Even if we are present for a short time, most of us are quickly pulled back into the past and future world of the mind.

There are a number of obstacles which we must become aware of if we are to awaken fully into Presence and remain fundamentally present in our daily living and in our relationships.

The first obstacle is the ego itself. The ego wants to become more spiritual. It wants to acquire spiritual knowledge. It would love to become enlightened. It will have you visiting many spiritual teachers and reading many spiritual books. But it will back off very quickly if you find your way into the truth of life through the doorway of the present moment.

This is because the ego needs to be in control of your life. It is addicted to its position of power and control. But it can only be in control of what it knows and it only knows the past, which it remembers, or the future, which it imagines. It does not know the present moment, and so it will desperately resist your entering into and remaining in the present moment. In fact, as you begin to awaken into the present moment, it has a bag of tricks to seduce you or tempt you back into the world of the mind.

The second reason that it is difficult to remain present, is that most of us have a lot of emotions repressed within us from the past, particularly from our childhood relationship with our parents. These emotions are continually being activated or triggered, which brings the past flooding in, making it impossible for us to remain in the truth and reality of the present moment. To the extent that you are caught in the emotional pain and traumas of the past, you cannot be present.

The third reason that it difficult to remain present is that there are a number of very powerful hooks that pull us out of the present moment into the world of the mind. Looking to others for acknowledgment, approval or acceptance is an example of such a hook. Fearing rejection or judgment from others is another hook. Anything that entangles you in the mind of another is a hook that pulls you out of Presence.

To awaken fully into the present moment involves disentangling yourself from others so that you are fully with yourself.

To free yourself from the above obstacles and hooks, there are a number of steps you must follow.

The first is that you must awaken to the dimension of Presence within you. It opens up the possibility of true healing. Then you must come into right relationship with the ego, so that eventually it surrenders its need to be in control of your life.

From a state of Presence, you bring the ego and all its so called negative aspects into the light of consciousness, in a way that is acknowledging, loving and accepting. All judgment of the ego and all attempts to annihilate the ego must cease. As long as you judge or reject any aspect of yourself, the ego will prevail as the dominant inner force, simply because the ego thrives on judgment, condemnation and rejection.

The only thing that will bring the ego to a place of surrender is the energy of love and acceptance. If you love and accept every aspect of yourself at the level of mind/ego, particularly those aspects of yourself that you have been hiding, judging or trying to change, the ego will eventually surrender.

The next step is to allow into conscious expression, all those emotions repressed within you. It does not mean that you are identified with the feelings. You are simply allowing them to surface into conscious expression. The fact that the emotion is arising is of this moment and so you must be present with it as it arises and expresses through you. But the story associated with the emotion is not of the present moment, and so it is important that you do not become identified with the story.

You will have to express the story as a part of expressing the emotion, but the story itself is not the truth. It is of the past or future. It has nothing to do with this moment. Do not believe in it and do not act upon it as if it is true.

The third step is to clearly identify the hooks that pull you out of Presence. These hooks only have power over you to the extent that they are allowed to function unconsciously. If you bring these hooks to conscious awareness, then they have no power over you. You can gently disengage from them as they are activated.

These steps will liberate you from the world of the thinking mind into the world of NOW. I do not mean to imply that you will always be present. But the present moment will become the very foundation of your life. You will come to know yourself as the one who exists in the moment of NOW, and only in the moment of now. This is the truth of who you are. And your life will be transformed.

Awakening is simple. There is nothing complicated about being present. It is our natural state.

But remaining present in our day to day life is not so easy. We are constantly pulled back into the world of the mind where the ego prevails. Once again we are limited by our past emotional wounds and limiting beliefs. Once again, we become entangled in our remembered past or imagined future. Once again, we become entangled within relationships.

If you want to become permanently established in freedom and Presence, you will have to do the work.

What is the work?

1. Learn how to be present. Remember to be present whenever you can each day. Deepen into Presence. Become more and more grounded in Presence, so that the present moment becomes the very foundation of your existence.

2. Bring consciousness to how and when you are pulled out of Presence.

3. Get to know your own ego. How does it function? What is its role in your life? What are its patterns of control and manipulation? What are its strategies of survival? How does it trick or seduce you out of the present moment and keep you imprisoned within the past and future world of the mind? How can you remain awake and present if the ego is still in control, and allowed to function unconsciously!

4. Who have you become at the level of mind and ego? You must be willing to own, acknowledge and confess every aspect of your ego, with an attitude of love and acceptance. If there is any judgment of any aspect of yourself, or others, you cannot awaken.

5. Bring consciousness to the energy of judgment, blame and guilt within you.

6. You must come into right relationship with your feelings. Learn how to express your feelings responsibly and in a way that leads to true healing. Allow all those feelings repressed within you to surface into conscious expression, for healing and release. If you have feelings from the past repressed within you, they will constantly be triggered.

You will be pulled out of the truth and reality of the present moment, over and over again. A painful and unhealed past, and all the limiting beliefs you learned in childhood about yourself, others and life, will continually project onto the present moment, distorting it.

7. Bring consciousness to the hooks that get you entangled in others. To be awakened means that you have disentangled yourself from your own past and future and you have disentangled yourself from others.

There are many lessons to be learned over many lifetimes. But the master lesson is that Oneness and the Eternal is already here and has always been here. That which you seek is already here, and has always been here.

Almost all of the decisions and choices we make at the level of mind are motivated at a deep unconscious level by fear and the illusion of separation. Develop the art of looking deeply to see whether the choice you are making is being driven or motivated by fear.

If it is, then you are going further into the mind's world of illusion.

You are going further away from the truth of who you are. You are going further away from the place where life is abundant. You are going further into separation. Do not let fear lead you astray. Find that still and silent place within where love abides. Know that the essence of your Being is Love. Let the silent voice of love be your guide.

The most fundamental key to awakening is to become more present in your life. Then you can be unconditionally loving and accepting of yourself at the level of personality. This includes all those things you would like to change about yourself. Jealousy, possessiveness, control, judgment, helplessness, inadequacy, blame, guilt, uncertainty, arrogance, expectation, resentment, anger, sadness, frustration, dependency, just to name a few.

To want to change any of these qualities in yourself is a subtle rejection of them, which is not unconditional acceptance. Just identify and own all of these qualities, as they arise within you. Hide absolutely nothing from yourself. Own all of these things. Be willing to accept that at the level of mind and ego, this is who you have become. The more you own and accept, the more will be revealed to you.

The more you are loving and accepting in this way, the more you will become grounded in watchfulness and in Presence.

The second key to awakening is to allow your emotions full expression. There are many emotions from the past which you repressed, for good reason then. But they want to be released, so it is necessary to find an opportunity to release old emotions like anger and sadness. Once released, they will be gone forever. And as new emotions arise, allow them full expression. If you are angry, then yell and shout, or beat up a cushion. If you are sad, then cry. But it is important to take full responsibility for your emotional reactions. No one is to blame for them.

They are coming from your past which you are projecting onto the present situation. Do not express your anger at the one you believe has angered you. Just beat up a cushion imagining it is the one who has angered you. And if you are total and unconditionally loving and accepting of your anger, it will reveal its secrets to you.

The third key to awakening is confession. If you confess these qualities to some one who is absolutely non-judgmental, and who is fully present, it helps you to own the quality to which you are confessing.

In your confession, you are saying "This is me. This is who I have become. I am possessive and controlling." Or "I am blaming." Or "I always get angry when I don't get my own way." Or "I will not allow myself to get too close to people because I am afraid I might be rejected."

By confessing it and owning it, it is released. And you are freed to the level of Presence, where none of these qualities exist. They cannot exist because they are not a part of your true nature. They exist only at the level of mind.

The fourth key to awakening is to accept full responsibility for yourself. This will release you from the world of expectation, resentment, blame and guilt. It will lead you into total freedom.

The fifth key to awakening is to let go. Dance. Lose control.

It is your seeking that leads you astray. It takes you further into the mind.

Lost within the mind, you are trying to find answers there and this takes you even further into a world of illusion and separation.

You are here to remember who we are. You are here to awaken out of the illusion of separation. You are here to know and experience yourself in Oneness. You are here to find your way home.

The present moment is the doorway home. The present moment is your home. If you can master the art of being fully present, then you have learned the master lesson.

You will have liberated yourself from the prison that is the world of the thinking mind. You will have overcome the illusion of separation. You will be restored to Oneness.

As you become fully present, thoughts stop. But the ego exists within a framework of thought. If thoughts stop, the ego feels like it is disappearing. It feels like death to the ego.

Do you think the ego is going to stand by and let you kill it off? Not likely!

And even if you reassure the ego that it is not being annihilated, it will still not allow you to be present. The ego does not exist in the present moment, and so it is not in control when you are present.

It is not in control until you think your way back into the world of the mind. And the ego has no intention of relinquishing control. After all, it has been in control since you were just a small child.

A part of this process of awakening and becoming permanently established in presence is to come into right relationship with the ego, and with every aspect of whom you have become at the level of mind ego. No longer trying to change or fix yourself or get rid of anything, you enter into a deep and ongoing process of accepting, acknowledging, expressing and confessing every aspect of who you have become.

This is only possible when you are awake in Presence.

It is as if the Godly dimension of you, which is a silent and awakened Presence of love, acceptance and compassion, encounters and embraces the human dimension of you, which has been journeying through time and has had to endure all the pain of separation that is an inherent part of that journey through time.

If you continue to condemn the human dimension of yourself, which is less than perfect, then who is the one condemning? It is not the awakened Presence, for that dimension of you is completely without judgment. It is just a part of the ego, splitting off to condemn itself.

It might sound somewhat self defeating, but actually, it is exactly what the ego wants. The energy of judgment keeps you bound within the world of the mind, where the ego is in control. The ego thrives on judgment, condemnation and rejection. It gets stronger in the face of such negative energy.

But if the ego is embraced with love, acceptance and compassion, it has no defense to that. It does not know what to do. Eventually it will simply relax and surrender.

There is no greater power than the power of love, which arises from Presence. It overcomes all resistance and aggression.

Being present is ultimately quite ordinary. Occasionally it opens up and reveals the extraordinary, but that only occurs through grace. We must be willing to accept the present moment as ordinary, before the present moment will reveal its hidden treasures. And you must be willing to allow those extraordinary moments to pass, without trying to hold onto them, if you want to remain present and in the truth of life.

This approach will allow you to become more and more grounded in presence. You will keep deepening into presence.

Until one day, you will declare,

"It is accomplished. I am awake. At last, I am here, now."

That is when the Seeker is turned off.