Originally Posted By: Revlgking
OF THIS I AM CERTAIN NOW
At this point there are only a few things--physical, mental and spiritual "things"--which I hold to be, self evidently, The Truth. One of them is as follows:

1. I am at one, now, within the space/time cosmos and so are all other physical, mental and spiritual beings, known and unknown, with me at the same time.

The Truth. One of them is that I am in the mystery of NOW, now--not a minute ago; not a minute from now, but now.


The now you are referring to carries much baggage.
It carries all of your beliefs, your desires, and your past impressions of the subject and all of the responses.
This is not the now that Tolle speaks of it is the now the ego understands. It is the best that one can do when not knowing the absolute now which Tolle speaks.
The nervous system carries with it all of the memories and all of its impressions of reality in any given moment and does not forget them, even if the mind does not draw them into conscious activity of thought.

There are times when two people get together and one starts drifting into thoughts while the other person is speaking and the other person might say, "where are you?" If the person says I'm right here then the response might be that your body is but your mind isn't.
Focus then tends to derive its identification and definition from having the mind here and now, but we all know that the mind carries with it the beliefs and the past impressions of life.
When we are in deep contemplation we draw from the past, we project into the future, we set parameters for the limits of thought and idea automatically based on our experiences so that if thoughts wander outside of the box we draw them in.
The older we get the less innocence we have when being present because we carry so many ideas and beliefs about our world and our experiences we have a difficult time accepting new ideas and tasks that are foreign to our habitual way of life.

A simple example is learning a new language.
Adults have a difficult time learning a new language because of their belief in the difficulty. Habit has by the collection of experience determined that some things are difficult and others not. We have found through the process of trial and error and in the way we have been told that life is difficult in some respects and that some things are always a certain way.
Typically the average adult strains to learn new languages from being habitually attached to one they have found commonality with.

(This also applies to spirituality by the way in knowing the presence of now)

The typical child however does not have these programs of difficulty or habit running in their nervous system. They have not been programed to believe life is a certain way. For a child it is easy to absorb complex languages and in a multilingual environment a child learns easily to speak many languages at the same time.
This is innocence of being in the now. It also is a reflection of the scripture describing the innocence of children and how an adult must be in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as was spoken of by Jesus.

Jesus saw some babies nursing. He said to his disciples, "These nursing babies are like those who enter the kingdom."

They said to him, "Then shall we enter the kingdom as babies?"

Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]."

Jesus said, "Do not fret, from morning to evening and from evening to morning, [about your food--what you're going to eat, or about your clothing--] what you are going to wear. [You're much better than the lilies, which neither card nor spin.

As for you, when you have no garment, what will you put on? Who might add to your stature? That very one will give you your garment.]"

His disciples said, "When will you appear to us, and when will we see you?"

Jesus said, "When you strip without being ashamed, and you take your clothes and put them under your feet like little children and trample then, then [you] will see the son of the living one and you will not be afraid."


When you strip the habit and the past from the mind and body, the central nervous system by immersing it into the absolute now, then the mind is fed and the body is clothed with the wisdom of what he termed as that very one, which he also called the Father, Universal mind and wisdom, the mind of omniscience and not the ideals and limiting beliefs of the ego.

When Socrates spoke of the limited knowing of reality he spoke to the heart underlying the ego to not be so quick to make any assumptions based on the philosophies derived from shadows. To take the mind into the stillness of God rather than the surface waves of the ocean of thought and memory, to know God.
He also spoke in such a way as to indicate that regardless of what he said one would not know of Truth even if he spoke of it because their minds would have to be set aside from doing the listening so that the heart could engage the Truth.

This was symbolized by the words of Jesus also when he said, "When you strip without being ashamed, and you take your clothes and put them under your feet like little children and trample then, then [you] will see the son of the living one and you will not be afraid."
The clothes he spoke of are the ideas, beliefs and philosophies derived from the ignorance of the ego.

So Dear Reverend, You have more to learn and experience to understand the full meaning of the Now.
Simply saying you are in the now does not resonate with the innocence of a child that has no prejudice, no preconceived ideas and no understanding of being persecuted within the structure of your own beliefs of safety, spirituality and freedom of expression which are laced by your rules and expectations of dialogue in its form.

You expect too much and also feel too much of your past in the present moment, to be in the Now.


I was addicted to the Hokey Pokey, but then I turned myself around!!