>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Hash: SHA1 > > > > >> Vernon Howard's >> SECRETS OF LIFE (R) >> >>"Living in the now is freedom from all problems connected with time. >>You ought to remember that sentence, you ought to memorize it, you ought to >>take it out, you ought to practice it, you ought to apply it. And most of >>all, you ought to rejoice in it because you have just heard how to not be >>wretched, miserable you any more >>but to be a brand new, and forever brand new man or woman." >> >> > > What this says is to not care about the future. > > Not clear to me that such a being will last long. > > One can do this as an OT, but not as a body. Taking care of a body >and others that one loves, even clearing people of such care, involves >living in the future with goals, purposes, intentions, desires etc. > > The greater trick is to do this with out getting caught >in total seriousness. All game playing is future oriented, >but can one play without NEEDING to win? > > That's the question. > > Homer > >Sat Jun 17 14:08:50 EDT 2006 > > > I read some of Vernon Howard's stuff maybe 15 years ago and while it sounded like something, I really couldn't make any sense of it - there seemed to be some missing pieces. There was no real method for change other than to recognize the truth, which wasn't defined. But there was no instruction on how to recognize it either. Now I see (believe) that this guy is speaking the truth from an enlightened viewpoint but like many others, J. Krishnamurti comes to mind, he is an awful teacher. Awful in the sense that he's not (as far as I can tell) getting his truth (New Life, Authentic Self vs false self etc) across to anyone effectively so they can get it too. As brilliant and learned as some teachers may be, conveying how to awaken to the Truth of Being requires something more. I understand V.H. now only because I have come a long way in understanding things myself. There is a lot of talk about living in the now, as if that is some kind of New Age self improvement technique, and as such it can be helpful. But this idea originated from enlightened beings who were actually trying to point at the truth beyond time and beyond the Dream itself. Most people don't get that. I think only characters in the Dream story are concerned with the past or future. Time is a mock-up, a total fabrication. NOW is considered to be a passing moment in "time" but this is not true. NOW is outside of and beyond time. So when V.H. suggests living in the NOW, he means something very different than we hear it. he's just no good at explaining it, so he uses unsatisfying (to me) parables. I'll give it a shot, not that I know anything. NOW is like the movie screen in a theater and life is like the movies that come and go. We wouldn't say the screen is a "moment" in the movie but every frame of the movie happens on it. The movie would not even exist without something to reflect it and support it. The screen serves the same function as NOW does in life, where everything that happens, happens IN it, in NOW. Like the movie screen, NOW is eternally present and is in fact eternity itself, not in the sense of neverending time but as the presence in which time exists at all. This is hard for the mind to grasp because the mind exists in, and functions as part of, the time stream. So NOW, as Eckhart Tolle and others have made clear, is actually YOU or PRESENCE or perhaps PRESENT-NESS. It is the ultimate stable datum. If you totally beyond all doubt KNEW that you are in a dream and that nothing is real in the sense of having any importance other than what you give it, I suspect you would not have the slightest concern for the future. BUT, this doesn't mean you wouldn't brush your teeth. You do things not because you care about the future but because you choose to participate in the illusion, perhaps out of compassion for others, perhaps for fun, or perhaps just because it it part of the story you have authored. Suggesting that such a being would not "last long" is a "time bound" statement in which "lasting" is important, and has NO meaning to that which is timeless. Such a being is, and knows it is, eternal, birthless, and deathless. It's very nature is transcendental to everything that is, was, or will be, or could possibly be. This is where the author of the story abides, not on the pages of the novel. The body won't last anyway, nor will the story, the planet, or the galaxy. Staying power is a game strenght perhaps, but only of concern to game players caught in the trance of the game. Once free from the game hypnosis, one can play without needing to win or even to play and without any need of any kind. But such a game, or life, is much different for a god than for a mortal human. Without needs, characters would be useless. Need serves to drives the plot. Pip _______________________________________________ Clear-L mailing list Clear-L@mailman.lightlink.com http://mailman.lightlink.com/mailman/listinfo/clear-l Mon Dec 20 21:28:45 EST 2010