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A journey more than it is a book, Here, Now addresses how to free yourself from addiction, how to develop a discipline of nonresistance, and how to catalyze greater peace. It teaches you how to use the breath as a tool for staying present and out of the mind's self-destructive faculties. It is designed to ignite the heart's knowing and the spirit's willingness to let go of fear in all its forms.
Its unique layout-containing only one message per page-reminds you to maintain a simple and grounded approach to spirituality. Here, Now is not about God, but rather it honors God and spreads God's message of love in the world. God is love, and that is all that matters.
God is co-author of this book. If you don't believe that, put it down right now.
If God wasn't the co-author, there would be no book and there would be no you to put it down.
If you believe you're "only human," and are not willing to budge.... you're thumbing your nose at enlightenment.
Nothing is more important than enlightenment.
Not romance,
not money,
not parenthood.
Nothing.
This book could be summed up in two words: Live Love.
Peace is not a state of mind. It is a state of being. There is no need to fight with your mind. Just simply breathe and step out of it.
Don't push down your feelings. Breathe and let them out. It's like taking out the trash. You wouldn't sift through the trash to see what's inside. It's trash!! Dump it or recycle it into something useful!! Either way, get it out of the house!
You can't think your way to higher consciousness, not with religion or meditative poses, yoga, or any thought process.
It's this simple:
Breathe in the love that is your birthright, exhale, and relax into it.
(If you are not free, you are still thinking.)
Simplicity. Simplicity. Simplicity.
The difference betweenthriving and surviving is found in the breath.
Breathe NOW.
Are you breathing yet?
Be still.
Close your eyes. Breathe deeply, and let the love that is in you surface. No matter who you are, love is there in you. Release it and know the joy of expressing it.
Do it now.
Choosing love is the key to wholeness because when you choose love you are automatically enrolled in service and in your own joy, in your own compassion. Once you choose love, you take the blinders and the limitations off. You see the innocence of yourself and others. Create a discipline of choosing love ...
... and choosing love ...
... and choosing love.
There's only one question:
What serves love here?
If you create the discipline to wake up in the morning and surrender to love, you continue to breathe that breath of love that you've been breathing all through the night in your sleep. There is no decision-making. There is just being.
Someone asked me how I could say that rape was not wrong. She went further to say that she couldn't believe that anyone would say rape is not wrong.
Having been raped in my life more than once, I could answer from an experiential rather than a philosophical perspective.
Rape is a fearful act of violence that perpetuates fear and violence. It does great harm both physically and psychologically. It is unacceptable behavior that requires addressing with a great deal of discipline.
Forgiveness is the key ingredient if one is to heal from the experience of rape.
That does not mean the rapist should simply walk away, undisciplined.
It does mean that if one does not forgive and heal, one will be forever chained to the experience and unable to know the joy of freedom, here and now.
Since here and now is all we have, why would you want to attach yourself to a right/wrong mindset that can only bring suffering and further unhappiness?
Are you willing to perceive your own innocence?
The greatest gift you can give anyone is to believe in their innocence.
You can only give what you've got.
When you are willing to distinguish the doer from the deed and see that love is the core of every person, forgiveness will become so natural that it will be yours in one simple breath. The inhale will be full of forgiveness and the exhale will contain the realization that the doer is innocent, that there is actually nothing to forgive.
The only way to see the innocence in ALL people is to decide to trust in the spiritual nature of life. There is no hardship, no calamity that is without spiritual purpose. Every so-called "evil" provides an opportunity for the love inside of us to demonstrate its power and its invincibility. Every person that is in fear gives us the opportunity to love the 'unlovable.' Every challenge allows us to show ourselves how big we are.
You will NEVER get from life more than you can handle.
When you make this truth your own, you will stop fearing the future based on your past experiences. Life will become fully here and now, unadulterated, playful.
You are used to being scared. You've been trained since childhood to be scared, taught by your parents that the way to be safe from danger is to be afraid of it. You can train a child not to walk into traffic with intelligent information about it. Scaring them with thought of death or injury is not necessary.
Often when you are taking offense to what someone said, if you go within, you will usually find that there is in it a grain of truth, a truth that you are resisting. Explore this courageously and you will find insight.
Whenever someone accuses you of a perceived wrong-doing, whether you've actually done the deed or not, your freedom lies in simply asking them to forgive you.
Love
Discipline
Forgiveness
How do you depersonalize people's treatment of you? Realize that people can only give you what they've got. If a person has filled himself up with disrespect for years, how's he going to give you respect? It's not about you. So step aside. Learn the art of spiritual aikido instead.
STEP ASIDE!!!
Grief is like bath water. When you first get in, it is really hot. When you relax and sit with it, it becomes a comfort and a cleansing. When it cools down, it's time to get out.
Without the connection of body, mind, and spirit, there can be no oneness.
So, how do you make that connection?
Be aware of when you are not feeling whole and peaceful and say, 'Yes.'
"Yes, I will allow myself to be connected to the sacredness of the body I've chosen, the mind that helps me manage that body, and the spirit that makes it all worth it."
Now, allow yourself to KNOW this experience from the inside.
Breathe in and be it.
Whether or not you are willing to say yes is not what makes you loveable. Being willing to say yes simply allows you to enjoy the truth that you are loveable.
Doubting your own doubt is a turning point.
To continually ask "WHY?" is to constantly resist taking full responsibility for what you're creating in your life. ("Why me?" "Why now?" "Why....?" "Why ...?")
Replace the word 'WHY' with 'YES.' There's power in yes. Yes says, "I see. I can deal with this 'what-is.'" Yes!!
Instead of Why.... say Wow!!
Instead of Why.... say Oh!!
Instead of Why.... say THANK YOU!!
"Yes."
(Keep practicing.)
We spend so much more time feeding ourselves nutritionally than we do feeding ourselves spiritually.
When you accept life on its terms, you step through the pain barrier and know peace.
Peace is found in the eye of the storm. Be courageous.
It's not about what you do. It's all about where you are coming from that counts.
Let this book become a roadmap to your heart. The answers are all inside you. The tendency is to look "out there" for the answers.
The answers are just not outside yourself.
Why then, says your mind, am I reading this book? Good question. Very good question. You're reading this book because your mind is programmed to believe that the answers are in books or with someone or something outside yourself.
At the same time, your spirit also brought you to this book because you have reached a point in your human journey that is giving you the opportunity to trust your own awareness. You can now start searching the inner knowings of your heart.
The answers that will lead you to the experience of joy and peace are beyond the human mind's understanding.
There is a vast difference between knowing something as an observation and holding on to it as a judgment.
A judgment keeps you separate and heavy and fearful of the future. There will usually be an emotional charge with it, often involving superiority or righteousness.
An observation is a tool that you use to be here and now with your decision-making. It is an assessment of what seems to be so, often triggering your compassion and desire to assist, comfort, or applaud.
It's amazing how people are willing to rise to your trust when you are willing to put it out there.
Change requires change.
Too simple? Here's the "how to."
Make a list of everything in your life you'd like to be different.
Beside each statement, write exactly what you'd be willing to do to achieve that change.
It is likely that what shows up is what you're not willing to do to achieve the changes.
Sit with that unwillingness. See how you feel about it. Notice if you're judging yourself. If you are ...
STOP THAT!
YOU'RE INNOCENT.
Don't wallow around in the dirt, saying, "I fell down! I fell down!" Get up! Just look at getting up. That is all that matters.
GET UP!
Learn the difference between an observation and a judgment and you've found one of the keys to peace and joy.
How busy we are probing other people's lives, finding all the ways they could change and be "better."
Mirror, mirror, on the wall ...
The heart mind says, "Totally trust that love works."
The intellectual mind says, "Well, maybe..... but....."
If you're not willing to get your 'but' out of the way,
you're thumbing your nose at enlightenment.
Get that 'but' out of the way!
You are safe because you choose to believe that you are safe and for no other reason.
One of the grand contradictions in life is that there are no rules. There are no rules and yet one of the rules happens to be:
"When in doubt, DON'T."
The mind is the architect of doubt. It will get on one shoulder and say, "Yes," then immediately be on the other shoulder saying, "No."
If you want to be sure you are making spiritually sound decisions, make them from your heart-mind.
Most people continually choose their beliefs (which are a product of the mind) over what they know (which comes from the heart).
We're taught from childhood to stay in "your right mind," which usually refers to the intellectual mind. Yet what we think is so often in conflict with what we know in our hearts. I would rather know from my heart than to think that I know.
The mind is the author of confusion.
Quick!
Get out of your mind.
If you let your life be controlled by your untrained intellectual mind, you'll be on a constant emotional roller coaster.
If you are willing to train your intellectual mind to be the servant of your heart mind, you'll be like a reliable smooth-sailing ship, strong enough to weather the waves and storms of life with little or no real damage.
The spiritually untrained intellectual mind is the servant of fear. The spiritually trained mind is the servant of Love.
The question begs: Why would you choose to serve a tyrant (fear) when you could serve Love and be free of the chains to which fear binds you?
Stop reading now and think about it.
If we are not in a space of loving when we leave any relationship, we take all that unhappiness with us. Your mind says, "If I leave, then I'll get some fresh air. It will give me a break."
It won't.
Are you willing to create a whole new dialogue and memorize it word perfect?
A dialogue of Love?
Truth is not far away. It is not hidden. It is planted deep in the center of your heart.
If you haven't uncovered it yet, dig deeper.
Be courageous enough to be yourself, to follow God's guidance even when it completely contradicts what the world has dictated is the RIGHT way to be.
So many people believe that anger can be constructive. They believe this because they think that anger is the best, if not the only, means of accessing their courage.
Thinking gets them into trouble.
Nothing needs to give us courage. It's something we already have in plenty. Draw on your courage. Use it to be free.
We come to this life with two minds: the intellectual mind and the heart mind. You can determine which mind you're using by the presence, or absence, of doubt.
If there is any doubt, you are using your intellectual mind. No matter how difficult the choice in any given situation, the heart mind trusts the direction it takes, while the intellectual mind will usually be influenced by fears based on the dead past or the imagined future.
Invite change.
Accept change.
Celebrate change.
Life is a big party and all you have to bring with you is ...
... YOURSELF.
Are you willing to show up and celebrate?
To resist change is to resist Life. Life is constant change. Welcome it.
Sing.
Dance.
Play.
What do you mean you can't?
Don't let anything or anyone become more important than your happiness.
Simplicity.
Simplicity.
Simplicity.
What distractions does your mind use to keep you from committing to loving yourself?
That moment when you want to be wanted by someone else: that's the moment to go in. Do you want yourself, exactly the way you are?
The bottom line of any spiritual path is Love.
Love takes all the blinders and limitations off so that you can see the innocence in yourself and others.
To take full responsibility is to let go of ALL blame. That's a hard one. There is in the universe a Divine order, a perspective of perfection that is known only from Love. Only Love can produce the knowing that is so far beyond the mind's willingness to stretch.
There is only one truth.
Love is the truth. The only truth.
Anything that is not said from Love is a lie, often a very convincing lie, yet nevertheless a lie.
Fear and love are not the same thing. They do not abide together.
Are you willing to welcome life's moment-to-moment opportunities, even if they are painful?
Choose love and you will learn the difference between pain and suffering.
Pain is an unavoidable part of life.
Suffering is a choice.
You have allowed your mind to be in control simply by believing what it tells you. The energy you put into supporting your mind's programs strengthens them, creating an abundance of fear that has you hooked.
Open your eyes and create an abundance of freedom. It's so simple that it sounds trite.
When you tell the truth, your mind wants to shut down on you.
Literally!
That's the extent of the power you've given the mind: to potentially make you sick. It can't do that without your permission.
You can even experience illness without becoming the illness.
Be the observer of your body.
When you're completely trusting the Holy Spirit of Love, there are no problems. Just an objective overview of what is going on in your world and the lives of the people around you.
Love will take you Home. Home to that quiet, peaceful place of your creation. Home to your innocence.
So many questions. Only one answer. Love. How simple it is.
Sometimes the mind refuses to notice the extraordinary ways that love is not present in our relationships because it's frightening to think, "I'm living nose to nose with somebody and yet I am not close to them." You may have gotten so used to being joyless that you don't even recognize what I'm talking about.
You need love to get clarity, not clarity to get love.
When you are willing to choose love, clarity will follow.
Love fills all the nooks and crannies of your heart, giving the experience of being whole:
One with your body, mind, and spirit.
Love generates energy. Fear creates fatigue. Are you energized ... or fatigued?
When you are choosing love, no one can take advantage of you. You are doing what your heart says, and you must do that no matter what. You are at the whims of no one.
Love has a chain reaction. So does hate.
How quickly we are programmed to forget why we are alive in this life. We spend so much time looking for our purpose. It's so, so obvious. We're here to love. Too simple. We just HAVE to complicate it.
Simplicity. Simplicity. Simplicity.
The only way to see yourself clearly as who you truly are is to take off the glasses of society and see yourself through the eyes of Love.
Freedom is the reward for unconditional loving.
Living a loving life creates the experience of utter humility and extraordinary power.
Love is the greatest treasure in life. It keeps its promise. It has no limits. It is beyond forever ... ... and even then.
Don't sit and wait for Love to happen. Love does not just happen. It's a choice.
Love is always a available to us.
It is not an intruder. It waits to be invited.
It will serve you tirelessly without ceasing if you allow it to.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Here, Now by Cinnamon H. Lofton Copyright © 2009 by Loving Life Foundation. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Overview
A journey more than it is a book, Here, Now addresses how to free yourself from addiction, how to develop a discipline of nonresistance, and how to catalyze greater peace. It teaches you how to use the breath as a tool for staying present and out of the mind's ...