what is now?
words of petros
In
the Now there is Truth.
Truth only exists in the Now, not in the
past or the future, which only is mind.
In the Now there is no
Mind, only Truth. Attention, consciousness exist only in the
Now.
When attention is in the Now, there is no mind, no bondage,
no delusions, only Enlightenment.
Only there is pure
Enlightenment.
To realize that is Awakening.
The Now is the
highest place of attention, the purest, the immortal, deathless,
perfect state.
It is the timeless state.
That's why to meditate
is not a waste of time but the creation of time itself.
No moment
exists; every moment is of infinite value.
There is only
Infinity.
It is not an individual program, it is not an
individualistic pursuit of superficial emotional satisfaction.
To
enter into the Infinite, in the Now, is to recognize God, to share
all with all.
There is no more individual self there, only the
Self that is universal.
(2/05)
* * *
Awakening
is a flowering of your innermost being.
It
is a revelation of your essence,
hidden
by long eons of self-delusion,
ignorance,
unbounded
desires.
Enlightenment
is an ending as well as a beginning:
the
ending of the old, veiled, dark ego,
its
longings, illusions, frustrations;
the
beginning of a vast expanse,
an
infinite field of the Unknown,
an
adventure in consciousness.
It
is a revolution:
it
represents danger to the old way of life,
to
old ways of thinking and living.
It
is freedom from the known and the unknown;
from
the real and the unreal;
from
any appearance of division between you and Truth.
It
is the abandoning of beliefs, disbeliefs,
presumptions
and stances,
self,
ego,
call
it what you will,
or
call it nothing,
what
it is.
It
is the Path of the golden Dawn,
the
Path out of the Night of Time
into
the Bursting daylight of Eternal Now.
It
is Arya
Marg,
the
ancient Path of the Noble,
called
out from all eras
into
Immortality.
It
is Amrit
Satsangha,
the
very Assembly of Immortals;
It
is the Ek-Radha,
the
One Soul-Spirit encompassing All that Is.
* * *
how?
Regular Practices
1. Dawn and Dusk devotions. Make a short greeting to the sun when it first appears and when it disappears from the sky each day. This may be silent or verbal at your discretion. At sunrise, the attitude should be one of positive expectation for the promise of a new day. At sunset, the attitude should be one of thanks for the day gone by and a sense of "cleaning the slate" or surrendering whatever psychic junk may have accumulated during the day, with the understanding that one may not see another dawn.
2. Libations. When outdoors, pour out the first few drops of liquid from a beverage onto the ground, preferably onto bare earth or grass, or the roots of a tree if possible. This should be done before you take the first sip from the drink. The attitude should be one of recognizing that your nourishment comes from the earth, and that your body, like the liquid, goes back to the earth again.
3. Attitude of Gratitude. Maintain an inner attitude of gratitude at odd times of the day, or whenever negativity threatens to arise. This is especially important at the end of the day before retiring, and upon rising in the morning.
4. The Fun Test. When in a stressful situation, come to a complete stop and ask yourself, "Am I Having Fun?" If not, find out why not. The answer is usually (90%+) a failure of practice on your part -- generally a lack of gratitude to the universe, or a forgetfulness of your impending mortality. "If you're not having fun, you're doing something wrong."
5. Letters to No One. Once in a while when you feel you have some burden you want to get off your spirit, compose a letter to God, your Higher Self, Spirit, some transitioned Saint or other, or whoever you most feel the need to communicate with. Bear your soul freely and without restraint or any regard for social niceties. Then destroy the letter -- burning is best. Throw the ashes to the winds, and your burden with them.
6. Journal. This is a critical practice for all devotees. The journal should contain things you find to be of importance to your spiritual development -- important events, inner experiences, dreams, significant encounters, and so forth. You should avoid negativity, gossip, and mundane routines. The regular writing of a personal spiritual journal is one of the most important investments you can make for your continued development.
The Bodhisattva Vow
Deluding
passions are inexhaustible; I vow to extinguish them all.
Sentient
beings are numberless; I vow to enlighten them all.
Truth
is impossible to speak; I vow to speak it.
The
Way is unattainable; I vow to attain it.
Digesting Negative Energies
It is important that one expand oneself in order to properly digest the powerful negative energies that one will encounter or indeed generate oneself in the course of one's journey, or even in day-to-day mundane life. It is crucial to not contract in the face of such energies. The fetus cannot be recapitulated. Transformation implies growth, not reduction. The common, unenlightened response to dealing with all the kinds of negativity that people and circumstances tend to put upon one each day is to merely react, to send them back from where they are perceived to come from. This is about as impossible as pushing water back up a river. It is also common to try to "pass on" this negativity like the proverbial hot potato. This works, but only perpetuates the pain. Life is a circle and eventually it comes back again; not to mention that what you are doing is habituating yourself to this sort of response, so that it becomes ingrained. One either trains oneself for growth and transformation, or one trains oneself for stagnation. Stagnation leads to death, both spiritual and physical.
Enlightenment has no Content
Enlightenment,
or emancipation if you please, has no content.
It is not a
"thing," it is not an object of study or of contemplation
or of discussion.
It is purely a matter of context,
a matter of how one habitually frames experience;
All experience,
including thoughts, sensations, and even unconscious movements of the
mind.
This
context touches upon the feeling of pure awareness, wordless
awareness,
in which one just rests in natural consciousness
without inner or outer verbalizations.
It may sound rather
"mystical" or esoteric but that is more a failure of our
words to express it
than a quality of this awareness itself.
In
practice there is nothing esoteric about it, but one must realize
this,
which in itself does not always come easy.
Practice and Enlightenment are One
Although
everything is already 'enlightened,' we practice because it is the
most sane thing to do.
Practice means bringing mindfulness to
every aspect of our waking lives, but it also means setting aside
specific times for non-activity, i.e. sitting meditation. It is not
meditation in the sense of attempting to 'attain' some state of
altered consciousness, but simply resting in appreciation of what
already is.
* * *
Words that remind:
Some selections from the teachings of Petros
Never doubt the inevitability of total perfect enlightenment, right here, right now, over and against any obstacle that might seem to place itself in your way. Never doubt the possibility of the self-recognition of your own perfection right now.
A problem cannot be solved from the same level of consciousness that caused it.
Work begins where your "comfort zone" ends -- not before. Before you're just passing time.
Peaks and Plateaus: We yearn for the peaks but we can't live on the peaks. We can only live on the plateaus: those seemingly interminable periods of time in which 'nothing happens.' Actually, they are important periods of consolidation in which we learn what we need to climb the next peak.
Your recognition of your identification with objects of sensation will liberate you from that identification. Thus, identification becomes self-liberating.
Awakening is not feeling less but feeling more.
You
can choose comfort or you can choose transformation.