The Power Of Now – Glenn's Preview

Welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the Now,

The present moment.

You dive right into it.

Yeah,

That's where we'll find the power in the Now.

That's what we're talking about today,

Everyone.

We're talking about the power of Now,

Which is an amazing book,

One of my favorites.

Written by?

Written by Eckhart Tolle.

And I've learned more from his teachings than any other spiritual teacher,

Definitely.

Who is Eckhart Tolle?

I know the name,

And I know that he wrote this book and probably many others,

But I don't know who he is.

He hasn't written that many.

I mean,

He's written this one,

And he's written A New Earth.

I believe those are the only books he's written,

Not positive,

But they're just so powerful that,

You know,

Arguably,

Of course,

Because we can argue anything,

He's the number one spiritual teacher in the world.

Is he still alive?

Yes.

Okay.

So how long ago was this book written?

I don't know.

I'm guessing somewhere around 10,

15 years.

Well,

We have it in front of us.

So you can take a gander.

I'll do that while you introduce them to the concept.

Yeah.

The Eckhart Tolle just really gets to the core.

You know,

My father said years ago when I wasn't listening,

And then he said more recently when I was listening,

He said,

To get closer to the truth,

Simplify,

And to get further from the truth,

Complicate.

And this is a good example of that,

Because Tolle gets so close to the truth because he simplified it.

And it's just the power of now is really about getting into the present moment and finding out that that's truly all there ever is.

And there was a quote that I thought from Tolle that put a good perspective on it.

It says,

Most humans are never fully present in the now,

Because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one.

But then you miss your whole life,

Which is never not the now.

And that's a revelation for some people,

To realize that your life is only ever now.

So that's kind of the concept of the book and his teachings.

It's the now.

The first chapter is you are not your mind.

Yes.

What the heck does that mean?

Yeah,

What is that?

Well basically,

It means that when we hear all that chatter going on in our heads,

That's not us.

That's just the voice inside of us.

So like Tolle had a major spiritual awakening years ago that gave him the ability to see the truth at the level that he sees it.

So his spiritual awakening came about when he was in a very low place in his life.

He had been suicidal.

And he was laying there and he thought,

I can't live with myself anymore.

And right after he thought that,

He noticed that there must be two of him.

If he can't live with himself anymore,

There must be the him and then the self that he can't live with.

So that was really what spawned his spiritual awakening.

He just,

The reality of that jumped out at him and kind of captured his consciousness.

And this type of experience doesn't happen to that many people,

But he described it as basically contemplating that thought and getting sucked into a void and then waking up the next day and having everything shifted inside of him.

So that's what he's talking about with the mind chatter and you are not your mind,

Because we have these thoughts going around through our heads all the time,

Just judging everything,

Looking at the plant going,

Oh,

That's a specific type of plant,

Looking at the tissue box and going,

Oh,

That's the kind that has the lotion in it.

And then that magazine is this and that's a table.

And we're constantly labeling everything and we're taking it into,

We're putting a label on it so we feel safe,

So we can identify what it is.

And that's not the reality of it.

That's just a mind-made label that we're placing on things.

I mean,

A table is not actually a table.

I mean,

It's a mass of electrons and protons and there's all kinds of stuff.

It looks solid,

But there's a bunch of stuff going on in there that we're complete,

The word table doesn't take into consideration.

Same with a tree,

Same with a person.

I can look at you and say,

Okay,

That's Ben.

Well,

Does that describe who you are?

Pretty much.

No.

And I knew you were going to do that.

But there's a lot more to you than a label.

And that's what our mind does.

Our mind runs around labeling things so we can feel safe.

And that's not us.

A lot of teachers,

One of the reasons why I like this book so much is because since this book has come out,

You can see this teaching in almost every other spiritual teacher out there.

Of course,

If they're focused on specific topics,

Sometimes you might not.

But if they're talking about general spirituality,

They all mention being in the present moment,

Being in the now.

Deepak Chopra does and Michael Singer does and Michael Bernard Beckwith does and Wayne Dyer did and so does a lot of the other spiritual teachers who are not as well known as those.

But it's because it's the basis for things.

Coming back to the present moment is where you can find peace because you can get away from that mental chatter that's constantly going on.

Right.

There are little sub-chapters,

But I'm not going to go into that.

Consciousness,

The way out of pain,

I think that we talk about that a lot on this podcast about being present,

Being like mindfulness,

Accepting what is so that you don't suffer.

So I think that we've discussed that a lot.

Yeah.

Tole's little slant on it though is he describes it as a pain body,

Which is a cool concept because what I like about it is it takes the pain,

It disconnects the pain from you.

So if you envision the pain that you're experiencing as a pain body,

Like a separate entity that's attached to you,

Then it's easier to deal with.

Instead of saying I'm angry,

Thinking of it like I have anger that's attached to me because it's an energy.

It's not you.

You are divine perfection underneath it all.

You are a creation of your creator.

There's nothing wrong with us.

The reason that we feel different emotions and we think these different thoughts is because we're too identified with our mind and our feelings.

We are not our thoughts.

We are not our emotions either.

So to understand that they're separate from us and they are not us,

So we're not walking around like I'm an angry person,

I'm a sad person.

No,

You have sadness attached to you.

There's some energy that's attached to you because of an incident that you need to work through and get on the other side of.

That's one thing as opposed to judging yourself as something negative,

Like angry or sad.

The next chapter is moving deeply into the now.

There's actually two points in this that I'd like to ask you about.

One,

Don't seek yourself in the mind.

That's pretty much what we're talking about.

You are not your mind,

So don't confuse yourself with the thoughts that you're having.

You're the observer of the thoughts.

If a thought is going through and you go,

Wow,

I just thought about walking in the woods and I'm nowhere near the woods.

I don't know where that thought came from.

You didn't do it.

That thought was not you.

You didn't bring that thought in.

Your consciousness did.

Well,

Not your consciousness,

But your mind brought that thought in.

You are the one who noticed it.

You are,

Like Michael Singer says,

The observer.

You're observing the thoughts and your brain is actually having them.

Your brain has this thought and you're the one that notices it.

It's like,

Oh,

Wow,

Where'd that thought come from?

That's who you are.

What about ending the delusion of time?

Yeah.

That's a big one.

I feel like that could be its own podcast.

Yeah,

It kind of could.

The time is a mental construct.

That's what he's talking about there.

There's no such thing as time,

Actually.

We just create it.

We go,

Okay,

Well,

This is a week and I have to be to work at a certain time.

The way our society is set up,

It helps.

It helps us have structure and things like that.

But oftentimes,

We put too much importance on it.

We think all of reality is time-based and it's not because there is no future.

Future is just a mind-made thought form.

It doesn't exist.

Nobody can go to the future.

Nobody can go to the past.

It doesn't exist anymore.

The only thing we have is now.

We can say,

Oh,

Next week,

I'm going to start a new job.

Well,

Maybe not.

We can never say anything is definitely going to happen in the future because we don't know what the future doesn't exist yet.

It's not in existence yet.

Once we get into the future,

It's the now.

Once we get there,

We're standing in the now.

It's not the future.

It's the present moment when we're there.

So we never get to the future because as soon as we get to what we labeled as the future,

It's the present moment.

It's the now.

So that's what he means by there's no time because there's no past and there's no present.

The past,

When we think about the past,

All it is is a thought form.

We're thinking about something that happened in the past.

It's a memory.

But we can't go back there and make it the present moment again.

We can't go back there and physically experience it again.

So that's what he's talking about with the time as an illusion.

That next chapter is mind strategies for avoiding the now.

I'd like to talk about the loss of now,

The core delusion,

He calls it.

What is the core delusion?

The core delusion.

I'm not sure what he's referring to right there.

I mean,

I don't have the book memorized.

I know that the.

.

.

Read the title of the chapter again.

Mind strategies for avoiding the now.

Yeah,

Okay.

So like one aspect of that can be busyness.

Busyness can be something that can keep us out of the present moment.

So we'll say,

Okay,

I'm busy right now,

But I'm going to be in the present moment later.

Well,

Then you just missed it.

Yes.

Even if I completely accept that ultimately time is an illusion,

What difference is that going to make in my life?

I still have to live in a world that is completely dominated by time.

I still have to pay the bills tomorrow,

And I'm still going to grow old and die just like everybody else.

So how can I ever say that I am free of time?

So what's his response?

That's perfect.

And that's a good point.

As you just read that out of the book,

This book is in a question and answer format.

That's another thing that's so cool,

Because just like you just did,

He brings in real life situations that you put right in front of him,

And he answers it for you.

So I'm not going to answer it better than him.

So what's he say?

Maybe I can expand on it a little bit.

He says,

Intellectual agreement is just another belief and won't make much difference to your life.

To realize this truth,

You need to live it.

When every cell of your body is so present that it feels vibrant with life,

And when you can feel that life every moment of the joy of being,

Then it can be said that you are free of time.

Tomorrow's bills are not the problem.

The delusion of physical body is not a problem.

Loss of the now is the problem,

Or rather the core delusion that turns a mere situation,

Event or emotion into a personal problem and into suffering.

Loss of now is loss of being.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

So that's it.

We're always looking to put something off and find a reason why we shouldn't be in the present moment.

We can use time to structure our lives a little bit,

But other than that,

We should be letting it go.

I think one of the most common problems that we do now is multitask.

We're constantly multitasking,

And we're never focused on what we're doing.

Now we've gotten to the point in our society that doing something,

If you're constantly doing something,

That's not enough.

We need to be doing two,

Three things at once,

Otherwise we're not good enough,

We're not active enough,

We're not productive enough.

What's happening is we're losing the quality of the things that we're doing because we're doing three things at once.

You can't do something as well if you're not focused on it.

So being in the present moment,

You'll feel its own rewards when you start experimenting with it.

People think that if I'm always in the now,

Then I can't handle my life that's coming.

It's like,

No,

You can still use your mind.

Your mind is a tool.

You can still use it to set goals for the future,

To walk in a direction of something.

You can use it for all that stuff.

Let's say I'm going to use my brain to put together some sort of business plan to move forward with my business.

That's fine.

I can play around with the future and write out a business plan and have goals and all that stuff.

But if one of my goals is to research marketing,

That's going to expand my business.

That's my goal.

When I start researching marketing,

I need to be focused.

I need to be in the present moment,

Focused on that task at hand.

If I'm focused on that task at hand,

Then I'm going to be doing it to the best of my ability and I'm not going to miss things.

You can be in the present moment while you're taking action,

Doing things.

If you are,

It's going to be the best action you can take.

The state of presence.

It's not what you think it is.

It's the first report.

It's that aliveness that he was talking about.

At one point,

I don't know if it's in this book or not,

But he said that if he had gotten hired for a job,

Like if he went on a job interview and somebody was asking,

How could you benefit my business?

He says that the thing that he could say that would most benefit the business is that he has the ability to not think.

Most people would be like,

What?

No,

I need you thinking.

What he does is he uses his brain as a tool.

You can engage it to figure out what two plus two is,

But then you need to turn it back off because the brain is running us.

We're not running it.

We're not using our brain as a tool.

The tool has taken over us,

And it's running our lives incessantly,

Constantly chattering.

We're never present.

We're never in the moment.

We're never alive.

When you are in that present moment,

There's a peace inside.

All the religions have talked about it and all the sages over the thousands of years that creativity,

True creativity,

Einstein talked about it,

All this stuff,

The peace,

Creativity,

Real ideas,

Everything comes from a place of quiet.

That's where true creativity comes from.

If you're still and quiet,

Then new thoughts can come to you.

Otherwise,

It's just brain chatter.

Yeah.

That's page 79,

Beauty arises in the stillness of your presence.

I think he uses Einstein as an example,

And he says that his ideas,

And Einstein said this,

That his ideas came in moments of quiet and stillness.

He said that all the learning that he did,

Scientific learning that Einstein did,

Was basically to be able to take the idea that came from the spiritual realm,

The creator,

God,

Whatever you want to call it,

The universe,

That the idea came to Einstein from the other side.

And then Einstein has this idea,

Well,

He needs to bring it into our material world and be able to explain it to us in a way that we'll understand.

That's basically what all his training was for,

Was to be able to take an idea,

A true creative idea that came from the other side and explain it and give it birth into this world in a way that we would understand.

So there.

Chapter six is the inner body,

Connecting with the inner body,

Transforming through the body,

Having deep roots within,

Creative use of the mind,

The art of listening.

Yeah.

So a lot of spiritual teachings,

Especially years ago,

Used to try to deny the body.

And we found out that denying the body doesn't help us.

It's part of us.

So pretending that it's not there doesn't help.

So Tole uses the body.

Just simple breathing exercises,

Focusing on your breath,

That can bring you to the present moment because you're focused on one thing in that present moment.

So you don't,

You know,

It can slow down the mind chatter and get you into that present moment.

Also if you pay attention to your body,

You know,

You can just sit there and focus on your hand.

And over,

After a short period of time,

You'll start noticing a sensation in your hand just because you're focused on it.

There's an aliveness there.

There's an aliveness that's going through our entire body.

There's energy going on through our entire body,

And if we're still and focused on it,

We can feel it and experience it and connect with it.

Yeah.

Last week I was about to go into a meeting and I was a little upset about something and Dave sent me a message that said,

Um,

Close your eyes and take 10 breaths.

Nature's reset button.

He's like,

I don't know.

Sounds like it would work.

And I did it.

It was great.

Uh,

Yeah,

I went to a,

I went to a,

Uh,

What was it called?

Last night I went to a breathing class.

It was like a full motion breath.

I believe it was called.

It was awesome.

You know,

You can really connect to yourself,

To your body.

You can feel the energy going through.

You relax,

De-stress,

You know,

All that stuff.

That's,

And that's the gift that you get when you come into the present moment.

Half of the headspace meditation app is,

Uh,

Just focusing on your breath.

I'm sure all meditation is,

But well,

No,

A lot,

You know,

A lot of it is,

But,

But it's,

You know,

Meditation can be anything.

But if,

You know,

A lot of that one specifically is connecting with your body,

Feeling like the point of,

Uh,

Touching like your feet on the ground and where's the,

Where's the point of impact.

Right.

That's the same idea that Tole is talking about.

It's just a matter of when you bring your consciousness to parts of your body and things that you're doing and you focus on it.

It's just,

We're usually running around all the time and we don't know this stuff.

We've never been taught this stuff.

Right.

Okay.

Now it starts to go maybe a little bit off the deep end for me.

Oh,

Good.

Portals into the unmanifested.

We're talking about the source of chi,

Dreamless sleep,

Other portals,

Silence,

Space,

The nature of space,

The true nature of space and time,

Conscious death.

Yeah,

You can tell that's getting towards the end of the book.

Huh?

Yes.

Yeah.

And there's a reason for that.

You know,

You kind of have to absorb some of the,

Honestly,

I listened to,

I got this book on CD and I listened to it.

Well,

This had to been 10 years ago,

Maybe more.

And I started listening to it and it's seven CDs and I listened to it over and over and over again.

And there was things that I read in there.

Now granted this was a long time ago,

But where I was,

I was like,

There's no way he's right on this one.

There's no way.

This doesn't make any sense.

I know it.

And then later on I would go back to it and I'd be like,

Oh man,

I get it now.

Oh,

Okay.

So some of it is really deep,

But that's the,

You know,

That's the,

That's the reality of it.

That's the truth of it.

You know,

The truth has to be profound.

I mean,

Otherwise it wouldn't be the truth.

And,

You know,

Let's,

Let's move on a little bit so we can finish.

And if you want more information on all of this stuff,

Come to the class that we're going to talk about at the end.

Chapter eight enlightened relationships.

Enter the now from wherever you are,

Love,

Hate relationships,

Addiction and the search for wholeness,

Relationships as a spiritual practice.

So there's a whole chapter on the enlightened relationships.

Right.

Which is cool because it,

You know,

It teaches about not being able to fix things in other people and seeing them for who they are and,

And even just holding space for people sometimes.

And there's a story that who knows,

I may have mentioned it before,

But it's,

It reminds me of that when,

When,

When we think about holding space,

Like if you're present and you're just holding space for somebody,

It sounds like you're really not doing anything,

But you're doing a lot more than you think you are.

And the,

The short story that I,

That I've heard that I think is a good example of is this,

This old man loses his wife and he's sitting on his front lawn and a chair and he's just sitting there and the family next door comes home and the little boy all of a sudden just walks over,

Climbs up on his lap and sits there with him.

And the old man starts crying and they sit there.

And then after about 15 minutes,

The little boy climbs off his lap and goes back home and his parents like,

You know,

What,

What did you say to him?

What did you do?

And the little boy said,

I didn't do anything.

I just helped him cry.

That's holding space.

He didn't say anything to him.

He didn't do anything.

He was just there with him in being present in the,

In,

In that old man's emotions that he needed to go through.

And that's one of the most loving acts you can do for somebody.

You know,

That's how the power of now can work in your relationships.

If you start understanding things like that,

That's some of the most powerful things that you can do.

And that's where you get the power of now.

Chapter nine,

I've heard,

And I heard this recently somewhere else,

Beyond happiness and unhappiness,

There is peace.

I heard that somewhere recently that like everybody searches for happiness and I don't think that they know exactly what it is and the,

You know,

Real happiness comes from peace.

Right.

So if you're,

If you're at peace with and it's,

You know,

What,

Your surroundings and stuff and what you just said too is the,

The dichotomy of it all.

It's like we say we search for happiness.

Well,

We're never going to find it.

As soon as we say we're searching for happiness,

The one thing that's sure is you'll never ever find it because happiness is in the present moment.

So you can't search for it.

You either experience it in the now or you don't,

You know,

It's the same thing with peace.

So,

You know,

We're,

We're looking for,

You know,

I want peace.

Well,

You know,

When,

When I,

When I buy a house,

Then I can,

I can settle down and be at peace.

You know,

When I get married,

Then I can be at peace.

When this happens and I can be at peace.

When I make a certain amount of money,

Then I can be at peace.

So you won't because it's peace doesn't come,

You know,

You can,

You can relax a little bit.

You can even experience moments of happiness or joy during those times,

But you're not going to find peace or happiness there.

You know,

That peace can only come in the present moment because peace has to be experienced.

Right.

So,

You know,

Like peace isn't a thing out there that we can go get.

It's,

It's a feeling that's going on within us,

You know,

That way that we need to be present for and be,

You know,

The only way you can experience peace is if you're sitting there and you go,

Oh,

I'm at peace.

I feel peace in my heart.

I feel peaceful.

Right.

That's peace.

We can't,

We can't do anything to get it.

We either experience it in the now or we don't.

I think that we should do,

Cause this is our 52nd,

53rd show.

This is one year.

This is our two years.

This is going into the third year now.

The first show we ever did was on happiness.

I think we should do another one soon on happiness again.

Peace versus pleasure.

Yeah.

You know,

What people look for in happiness is pleasure.

Right.

And,

And,

But they should be going for peace.

That's why,

Like one of my favorite quotes is happiness is not a destination.

It's a means of travel.

And the end of the book,

The last chapter is the meaning of surrender.

Which and that's,

That,

That's really where you,

You know,

You can experience moments of peace and moments in the now,

You know,

At any given time,

But to have it long term is the surrender.

You know,

That's when you really have to surrender.

You know,

Everybody thinks that surrender is like,

You know,

Putting your head down and rave waving a white flag and just going,

Oh,

I give up.

And it's not,

It's,

It's surrender is the greatest thing that you can do.

When I surrendered,

When I let go of everything that I thought and surrendered to a power greater than myself,

That's the only time I've ever experienced true peace.

When you know,

Long lasting life shifting peace is when I let go of trying to control everything and surrendered to life and the way it's flowing,

You know,

And you know,

Actually that'd be awesome podcast surrender.

Yeah.

You know,

Just on the whole one.

Okay.

So the reason why we went through the power of now is because you are doing a class on it.

Right.

Can you talk a little bit about the class and where people can reach you to wrap up?

Yeah.

So the,

I always have a book going,

Or at least that's how it's been.

We did the four agreements and then we did the untethered soul.

And then now we're doing the power of now,

Which is my,

Not in any particular order,

But those are my top three favorite spiritual books.

So the power of now,

We're just starting the beginning of February.

We're doing it in February.

We're taking March off for a spiritual finance month,

And then we're getting back to the rest of the book in April.

So and however long it takes us to get through it.

But yeah,

We read some of the book,

Usually a chapter or so,

Then we discuss it.

And it's such deep spiritual truths that are in this book.

It's really important to discuss it and have other people's opinions and some guidance.

You know,

What do you mean by that?

What's that mean?

So that's basically what the class does.

And it's really nice getting other people's perspectives.

And just so you take in the chapter,

But you also get clarity on it so you can implement it into your life when you leave.

So we do that on Thursday nights here at the Life Enhancement Center.

So we'll be doing that.

And you're welcome to join us.

You can stop in for one class or you can come to all of them.

It doesn't matter.

There's spiritual truths contained in different places throughout the whole book.

So even if you just come for one,

You're going to get something out of it.

So yeah,

That's why we did the power of now,

Because we're launching that class this Thursday.

So we'll have one or two maybe under our belts by the time this airs,

But jump on in with us.

So you can reach me at life-enhancement-services.

Anytime shoot me an email or give me a call.

And if you need any information or stop on by the Life Enhancement Center in Coventry,

Rhode Island.

And that is going to do it.

So thanks for listening,

Everybody.

Thanks Ben.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

I kind of got the deuces.

So thanks everybody for listening and we'll talk to you soon.