Test you ability to pursue your spirituality

I have a simple test for you to try. Sit in the garden and just observe your garden for 5 minutes. Resist any temptation of your consciousness to stray back into past memories or concern itself with future events, Just keep observing the grass, plants and tree's in the NOW. If you found that as hard as I did, here is the dilemma.

If God exists in the now and our mind resists the now. Aren't we in fact, resisting God.

Past and Future veil God from our sight; burn up both of them with fire
- Jalalluddin Rumi

Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater obstacle to God than time
- Meister Eckhart

As we get older, time seems to speed faster and faster. But as we get older our consciousness spends more and more time in the past reliving past memories instead of living in the NOW, As we get older we experience less NOW.

A great book to help people live in the now is called "The power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. It was released in 2011 but stayed under my radar until recently.

a reply to: glend

Sounds like some “oh you gotta think outside the box” BS..

Some self help type stuff where they use a bunch of big words that sound good, but are really just peddling the placebo effect..

a reply to: glend

This is meditation is it not? A variant of.

God does not only exist in the now and certainly you don't have to be thoughtless to engage with god.

God only desires relationship with us, good relations, nothing more nothing less.

I ask you where the act of repenting comes into this theory as clearly thoughts are in the past to achieve repentance.

I'd say evil is the greatest obstacle to god and time is the evil doers best friend to turn themselves around.-
Meaning time is gods best friend to try and salvage back all gods souls as those souls are born omitted from thy kingdom and must find a way back.

a reply to: CthruU

Emptying the mind, stilling the chattering of the ego, embracing the present does shift consciousness into transcending false reality. Which is false because it exists only within our heads.

a reply to: glend

If you are looking for lessons in non-duality consider this book:

www.amazon.com...

originally posted by: CthruU
God only desires relationship with us, good relations, nothing more nothing less.

It seems to me nobody knows the mind of God. Are you pretending or are you talking to God directly?

originally posted by: dfnj2015

originally posted by: CthruU
God only desires relationship with us, good relations, nothing more nothing less.

It seems to me nobody knows the mind of God. Are you pretending or are you talking to God directly?

Where to start? Some clearly can't see the forest for the trees.

I am not disagreeing with your OP, but I have to add that in my experience, I have found God more so in the past than in the now.

For instance, when you are experiencing a painful event, suffering of some sort.... say being fired from a job. You can meditate, sure, but you also have to deal with it. You have to take the steps to figure out what to do about your livelihood and everything that dominos after losing a job. You question why, you experience emotions and worry, etc.

6 months down the road when you are sitting at your new job, perhaps one that has some benefit for you and your family that you did not previously have, perhaps just a deeper sense of purpose, or perhaps even the venue where you’ve met a great new friend or partner - it is only through looking back into the past experience that you can see the “why” and how “God worked it all out for the best”

You couldn’t see at the time, how Gods hand was actively working to move you to a better place through this “bad experience” but as you are now experiencing the future God has brought you too, you see him and his plans more clearly in your past.

At least, this is how life has always worked for me. I have hundreds of small little examples of this over my short 33 years.

My goal these days is when a bad situation presents itself and I feel overwhelmed and forgotten and forsaken by God, I try to have faith that the future will show me what it does time and time again... his presence in every moment.

But, without the past and the future, I admittedly have a hard time connecting to God in the now...

It is time, I guess what is meant to work against my relationship to God, that actually becomes my vessel for finding him in everything. I don’t know if I discovered this on my own, because the idea presented in your OP is the one that seems to surround me in topics like this, always making me feel like the odd man (woman) out- but nevertheless, I try to explain my perception and validate that I don’t think we all necessarily have to abandon “time” to reach God.... I think we can use “time” to our advantage so to speak.

a reply to: glend

If God exists in the now and our mind resists the now. Aren't we in fact, resisting God.

What in the world would be the sense of this? Time was created by the Creator for this creation. Time does not exist out of this creation and shall also cease after this creation is destroyed. The purpose of time is to give this creation references to eras within this creation.

No one truly knows what is outside of time but we are to assume, by scripture, that timelessness does not mean everything is frozen from motion or action. It means that death in all forms is done away with and we continue to exist forever in a environment of eternal existence. You should realize that death and time coexist but without death time ceases to exist. Read Isaiah's description of timelessness in Isaiah chapters 65 and 66. It is a continuous existence of building in a first class civilization forever. Too many people are watching picture shows and embracing make believe as truth. Get rid of the make believe movies and face reality.

You quoted Meister Eckhart " Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater obstacle to God than time"

Why would God create time and allow it to be an obstacle to Him or His creation? Makes no sense and is not true according to NT literature.

a reply to: Seede

If the attention is on past or future then it is just thought stories. Who is the star of the show?
Is it about what you did or about what you will do or what happened to you or what should happen for you?

Seeing and hearing now isn't about anyone or anything....... peace is here.... when there isn't anything to conflict.

Regardless of what is arising.... this actually is the One that is longed for.... but overlooked.

a reply to: JustJohnny

Meditation isn't a placebo effect. And placebo effects can be very strong. If you can learn to create "placebo effects" by will, then you will have some amazing ability.

But training your mind isn't a placebo effect.

a reply to: Seede

It is the sense of the separate self that dies if time is found to be an illusion.

Nothing is separate now!!

There are no things...... just 'happening'.

originally posted by: CthruU

originally posted by: dfnj2015

originally posted by: CthruU
God only desires relationship with us, good relations, nothing more nothing less.

It seems to me nobody knows the mind of God. Are you pretending or are you talking to God directly?

Where to start? Some clearly can't see the forest for the trees.

And a skunk can't smell his own stink.

a reply to: CthruU

"God does not only exist in the now"

Your past memories and future dreams are of the mind. God doesn't exist in your mind. God exists in the now. If you spend your life existing in the mind then you are turning your back on God. This is akin to sleepwalking. Walking through life like a zombie. Reacting to stimuli yes but not really existing in the now.

You speak as if you know evil but its only a word to you. Evil is not something you can point a finger too. Nor is it something that is external to yourself. Evil is the untrained egotistical mind that demands this and that for itself.

You need be the watcher of the mind. Become its master, instead of its slave.

a reply to: dfnj2015

thanks

a reply to: Seede

The Pirahã tribe of the Amazon rainforest, Hopi tribe of Arizona, aborigines in Australia have no linear concept of time. They see the present moment as the only window to reality. So time was not invented by the Creator. It was invented by the western mind.

But I am not saying that our minds construct of time is such a bad thing. I am saying that letting our minds eye continually dwell in past and future memories, is. We may need to work our responses to future events (a job interview for example). But once that is done we should return the focus to our only reality we have, the now.

When we were young we saw the world with open eyes. Our mind indexed all that new stimuli for expediency. But as we get older the mind has far less to index. It finds reality less stimulating. So the mind prefers to exist in past or future dreams where it has far better means to entertain itself.

Rather than being a slave to our mind. We need be its master. We need take control of the mind to ensure we are fully awake, fully in the now.

a reply to: JustJohnny

What if its not placebo. But the reason why the entire world is hell bent on destroying itself. If our minds were correct. This world would be correct as well.

a reply to: glend

This has nothing to do with god.

Mother nature perhaps, but god.....no.

Go to your garden and feel it without your god. It will still breathe life into your soul with warmth and love.

originally posted by: JustJohnny
a reply to: glend

Sounds like some “oh you gotta think outside the box” BS..

There is no box.

a reply to: Seede

"Makes no sense and is not true according to NT literature."...

Isn't our untrained mind like a roaring lion to our minds eye. Being alert (in the now) with a clear mind we can reduce the control it has over our being...

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
(Peter 5:8)

Without oil to provide light at night people would fall asleep...

Translated from the power of now...
Jesus speaks of the five careless (unconscious) women who do not have enough oil (consciousness) to keep their lamps burning (staying awake in the present) and so miss the bridegroom (the Now) and don't get to the wedding feast (spiritual awakening). These five stand in contrast to the five wise women who have enough oil (staying conscious).
(Matthew 25:1-13)

If we are not on guard (being in the now) we can never witness the second coming of Jesus.