NOW

Definition of Now:
At the present time or moment.

Synonyms of Now:
At present, right now, at this moment in time, here and now, etc.

These notes are from recovery in AA and/or related 12 step programs.
Readers are encouraged to click external links for more detail.
We hope you find them helpful.

Love in fellowship.

The only real hope for the alcoholic is to face the present.
Now is the time. Now is ours.

The past is beyond recall. The future is as uncertain as life itself. Only the now belongs to us.  –24Hours | More…

The simplicity of the present allows us to let go of the past and to ignore the unknowns of the future. Thus freed, we can set about the business of enriching our lives physically, emotionally, and spiritually. –One More Day | More…

Let me tell thee, time is a very precious gift of God; so precious that it’s only given to us moment by moment. –Amelia Barr | More…

Living in this moment is all we really have. The present is the only time when anything can happen, any change can occur. –Touchstones | More…

When we stop living in the here and now, our problems become magnified –Just for Today | More…

The root of all difficulties is a lack of the sense of the Presence of God. The art of life is to live in the present moment –The Golden Key to Prayer/Emmett Fox | More…

Live only in today; don’t worry about tomorrow.
Living in today means dealing only with what is at hand now and the available courses of action. –Day By Day | More…

Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday so live in the now –Wisdom of The Rooms
Goals and plans help us give more credit to the present than to the future. –Keep It Simple | More…

Alcoholics are unable or unwilling, during their addiction to alcohol, to live in the present. The result is that they live in a constant state of remorse and fear because of their unholy past and its morbid attraction, or the uncertain future and its vague foreboding.

We must stop dwelling on the impossibility of undoing the wrongs of yesterday. Instead, we must begin enjoying the “right things” that are now possible in recovery. –Easy Does It | More…

Hanging on to any moment, once it’s gone, deadens us to the joys and lessons of the present. We must learn to let go, to let go of persons, painful situations, and even meaningful experiences.

Life goes on, and the most fruitful lesson before us is to move with the vibrations, be in tune with them. Being open to the present is our only chance for growth.

Attention to now and to the persons here, now, is the only rightful response to life.  Not being here, now, invites others to turn away, just as we have turned away. –Each Day a New Beginning/Karen Casey | More…

Live only in today; don’t worry about tomorrow. Living in today means dealing only with what is at hand now and the available courses of action. –Day By Day | More…

The moment, realized, is like a bud blossoming.
We can rest assured; our higher power is caring for us.

Each breath we take is Spirit-filled, and the plan for our lives is an accumulation of necessary experiences that is helping us to grow and develop our special talents. This moment is sacred. All moments are sacred. They will not come again.

What is offered this moment for us to grow on will not be offered in exactly this way again. Our higher power knows our needs and is caring for them.

We can trust the goodness of today. Each Day a New Beginning/Karen Casey — | More…

Do not be in such a hurry to move on.
Relax. Breathe deeply. Be. Be in harmony today.

Be open. There is beauty around and in us today. There is purpose and meaning in today. There is importance in today – not so much in what happens to us, but in how we respond.

Let today happen. There is no hurry. Let the feelings go, breathe in peace and healing.–The Language of Letting Go/Melody Beattie 20/07 | More…

This day is not a rehearsal. It is real. What you choose to do with it will have lasting consequences for you and for those around you.

It is an awesome responsibility and a tremendous opportunity.
Give it the best that you have. –Ralph Marston | More…

Stay in this moment.
It contains the experience you need to have.

This moment contains your happiness.
Cherish the moment.

Feel all there is to feel.
See all there is to see.

Learn the lessons of today, and you will be prepared for the adventures and joys of tomorrow. –Journey to the Heart | More…

The secret lies in how we handle today, not yesterday or tomorrow. Today… that special block of time holding the key that locks out yesterday’s nightmares and unlocks tomorrow’s dreams. –Charles Swindoll | More…

Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared. –Mahatma Gandhi | More…

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. –Robert Brault | More…

We can’t hold on to time.
Right now is the only time we have.

It is the only time we can enjoy the season, hear a child’s laughter, feel the joy of sharing. This time, right now is the time to learn something.

And it is the time for us to know God.
Time is always moving on, but we can stay in the present.

To look back over our shoulder, trying to figure out how to change something we did is futile. When we look ahead, trying to predict the future, we are creating needless anxiety.

The present is where we exist. God speaks to us in the present. It is the only time we have to make a connection. –In God’s Care/Karen Casey | More…

Each passing minute is all that we are certain of having. The choice is ever present to relish the moment, reaping fully whatever its benefits, knowing that we are being given just what we need each day of our lives.

Time accompanies us like a friend, though often a friend denied or ignored. We can’t recapture what was offered yesterday. It’s gone.

All that stands before us is here, now. We can nurture the moment and know that the pain and pleasures offered us with each moment are our friends, the teachers our inner selves await.

They are the gift of the present. We can be grateful. The moment’s offerings are just, necessary, and friendly to our spiritual growth. –Each Day a New Beginning/Karen Casey | More…

We can only live now, this moment.
Now is what we have, and now is everything.

We can follow our plan now. We can abstain this moment. We can deal with the problems, which confront us today, as best we can, trusting God to guide us.

We can be in touch with our Higher Power only in the present. Whatever happens, now is all I can manage and all I need. –Food for Thought/Elisabeth L. | More…

My disease of compulsion is fuelled by my regrets of the past and my fears of the future. The more I try to rewrite the past, the more I try to devise a future plan, and the less I am present for my life.

When I consciously stay present for life — I am alive and living. In the present there is no worry, no fear, no regrets. –One Day At A Time | More…

Being present every minute of the day is impossible for anyone. Still, we can strive to be present for as many minutes as we can. We strive for progress, not perfection. –A Restful Mind/Mark Allen Zabawa | More…

Be present for life–But most of all, be present for yourself. –Journey to the Heart | More…

Our contact with God must be a living one. When we seek to live upon yesterday’s realization, we are actually seeking to live in the past, and to live in the past is death.

The art of life is to live in the present moment, and to make that moment as perfect as we can by the realization that we are the instruments and expression of God Himself. The best way to prepare for tomorrow is to make today all that it should be. –Sermon on the Mount | More… (p.135)

We can’t control the present by looking into the future.
We can only look back at the past.

The past can teach us how to get more out of the present.
But the past is to be learned from, not to be judged. –Keep It Simple 18/09 | More…

It is in living each day fully that we proclaim our worth and reflect it to our loved ones. –One More Day | More…

Just for today—it’s a comforting thought.
Living in the moment offers freedom.

In this moment, we know that we are safe.
We are not using, and we have everything we need.

What’s more, life is happening in the here and now.
The past is gone and the future has yet to arrive; our worrying won’t change any of it.

Today, we can enjoy our recovery, this very minute. –Just For Today | More…

The Power of Now
Your mind is your predicament.
The real problem is how you deal with the original problem.

What Are They Seeking:
The Native American chief said to Carl Jung; They are always seeking something. What are they seeking?

The white people want something. They are always uneasy and restless.
We don’t know what they want. We think they are mad.

Resistance to the Now as a collective dysfunction is intrinsically connected to loss of awareness on Being and forms the basis of our dehumanized industrial civilization Freud wrote about it in his book ‘Civilisation and Its Discontents. –The Power of Now/Eckhart Tolle | More…

It’s not what you think it is:
State of presence is not what you think it is. You can’t think about presence, and the mind can’t understand it.

Understanding presence is being present.
As long as you are in a state of intense presence, you are free of thought.

You are still, yet highly alert.
The instant your conscious attention sinks below a certain level, thought rushes in.

To stay present in everyday life, it helps to be deeply rooted within yourself; otherwise, the mind, which has incredible momentum, will drag you along like a wild river. To be ‘rooted within yourself’ means to inhabit your body fully.

To always have some of your attention in the inner energy field of your body. The feel the body from within, so to speak. Body awareness keeps your present. It anchors you in the Now. XXX –© The Power of Now/Eckhart Tolle | More…

Psychological Time #1
Letting go of ‘Psychological Time’ Clock time includes learning from the past so that we don’t repeat the same mistakes over and over.

The enlightened person’s main focus of attention is always on the Now.
Psychological time is always linked to a false sense of identity.

Non-forgiveness necessarily implies a heavy burden of psychological time.
If you set yourself a goal and work toward it, you are using clock time.

You are aware of where you want to go, but you honor and give your fullest attention to the step that you are taking at this moment. Clock time then turns into psychological time.

Your life’s journey is no longer an adventure, just an obsessive need to arrive, to attain, to ‘make it.’ The present moment is all you ever have

There is never a time when your life is not ‘this moment.’
Is that not a fact? –The Power of Now/Eckhart Tolle | More…

Psychological Time #2
Psychological Time is a mental disease if you look at its collective manifestations.

They occur, for example, in the form of ideologies such as communism, national socialism or any nationalism, or rigid religious belief systems, which operate under the implicit assumption that the highest good lies in the future and that therefore the end justifies the means.

The end is an idea, a point in the mind-projected future, when salvation will be attained.
Not infrequently, the means of getting there are the enslavement, torture, and murder of people in the present.

Belief in a future heaven creates a present hell.
Is there any doubt ‘psychological time’ is a serious and dangerous mental illness?

Usually the future is a replica of the past.
The past perpetuates itself through lack of presence.

The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future.
If it is the quality of your consciousness at this moment that determines the future, then what is it that determines the quality of your consciousness? –The Power of Now/Eckhart Tolle | More…

Psychological Time #3
All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present.

Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry – all forms of fear – are caused by too much future and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.

A state of consciousness totally free of all negativity is the liberated state to which all spiritual teachings point. Until you have dealt with the mind – its attachment to past and future and denial of the Now – problems are actually interchangeable.

Ultimately, there is only one problem: the time-bound mind itself.
There is no salvation in time. You cannot be free in the future.

Presence is the key to freedom, so you can only be free now. –The Power of Now/Eckhart Tolle | More…

Finding life underneath your life situation
Forget about your life situation for a while and pay attention to your life.

What is the difference?
Your life situation exists in time

Your life is now
Your life situation is mind-stuff

Your real life is real.
Find the ‘narrow gate that leads to life’

It is called the Now
Narrow your life down to this moment

When you are full of problems, there is no room for anything new to enter, no room for a solution Use your senses fully; Be where you are; Look around: Just look, don’t interpret.

Observe the rhythm of your breathing: feel the air flowing in and out, feel the energy inside your body. Allow everything to be, within and without.

Allow the ‘isness’ of all things.
Move deeply into the Now.

You are getting out of the insane mind that is draining you of life energy.
You are awakening out of the dream of time into the present. –The Power of Now/Eckhart Tolle | More…

Problems are illusions of the mind
Ultimately this is not about solving your problems.

It is about realizing that there are no problems
Problems are mind-made and need Time to survive

They cannot survive on the actuality of Now.
Focus your attention on the Now and tell me what problem you have at this moment.

I am not getting any answer because it is impossible to have a problem when your attention is fully in the Now. A situation that needs to be either dealt with or accepted – yes.

Why make it into a problem
All it takes is a simple choice, a simple decision: no matter what happens, I will create no more pain for myself.

You won’t be able to go through with it unless you access the power of Now.
If you create no more pain for yourself, then you create no more pain for others.

Problems are illusions As there are no problems in the Now, there is no fear either. –The Power of Now/Eckhart Tolle p.53-55 | More…

The Joy of Being
Is there joy, ease, and lightness in what I am doing?

If there isn’t, then time is covering up the present moment, and life is perceived as a burden or a struggle. If there is no joy, ease or lightness, in what you are doing.

It may be sufficient to change the how.
‘How’ is always more important than ‘what.’

See if you can give much more attention to the doing than to the result that you want to achieve through it. As soon you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease.

So do not be concerned with the fruit of your action – just give attention to the action itself. The fruit will come of its own accord –The Power of Now/Eckhart Tolle | More…

The Core Delusion
Intellectual agreement is just another belief and won’t make much difference in your life.

To realize this truth, you need to live it.
Loss of Now is 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.
When you have had your first few glimpses of the timeless state of consciousness, you begin to move back and forth between the dimensions of time and presence.

But to know you are not present is a great success: that knowing is presence.
So before you are firmly established in the state of presence, which is to say before you are fully conscious, you shift back and forth for a while between consciousness and unconsciousness, between the state of presence and the state of mind identification.

Most humans alternate not between consciousness and unconsciousness but only between different levels of unconsciousness. –The Power of Now/Eckhart Tolle | More…

Today is before us as an unformed experience. Yesterday took its own shape, and whatever it was has now gone.

Our only opportunities exist in what we will do this day. We have centered ourselves in this day by reviewing where we just came from.

We have taken a spot check inventory. Now we can let go of yesterday and move forward in the present. That means we build on the past by learning from our experiences and letting them shape our activities now. –Touchstones 31/07 | More…

We can’t hold on to time. Right now is the only time we have.
It is the only time we can enjoy the season, hear a child’s laughter, feel the joy of sharing.

This time, right now is the time to learn something.
And it is the time for us to know God.

Time is always moving on, but we can stay in the present. To look back over our shoulder, trying to figure out how to change something we did is futile.

When we look ahead, trying to predict the future, we are creating needless anxiety.
The present is where we exist.

God speaks to us in the present.
It is the only time we have to make a connection. –In God’s Care/Karen Casey | More…

Going Deeply Into The Body:
Sit on a chair, but don’t lean back.

Keep the spine erect.
Doing so will help you to stay alert

Make sure the body is relaxed. Close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths. Feel yourself breathing into the lower abdomen, as it were.

Observe how it expands and contracts slightly with each in and out breath. Then become aware of the entire inner energy field of the body. Don’t think about it -feel it.

By doing this, you reclaim consciousness from the mind.
If you find it helpful, use the “light” visualization described earlier.

Focus exclusively on the feeling.
All that is left then is an all-encompassing sense of presence or “beingness,” and the inner body is felt to be without a boundary.

Merge with the energy field, so that there is no longer a perceived duality of the observer and the observed, of you and your body. Stay in this realm of pure Being for as long as feels comfortable; then become aware again of the physical body, your breathing and physical senses, and open your eyes.

Look at your surroundings for a few minutes in a meditative way – that is, without labelling them mentally – and continue to feel the inner body as you do so. Having access to that formless realm is truly liberating.

It is life in its undifferentiated state prior to its fragmentation into multiplicity. We may call it the Unmanifested, the invisible Source of all things, the Being within all beings.

It is a realm of deep stillness and peace, but also of joy and intense aliveness. Whenever you are present, you become “transparent” to some extent to the light, the pure consciousness that emanates from this Source.

You also realize that the light is not separate from who you are but constitutes your very essence.  –© The Power of Now/Eckhart Tolle p.102-104 | More…

Living one day at a time means getting the most we can out of today. It also means we know today does not have to doom or dictate tomorrow.

When we have a bad day – and everyone does – we can slow down. We can be quiet. We can pray. And we can let go. How else will we be able to recognize a wonderful day? –Today’s Gift | More…

Before I came to The Program, I hadn’t the faintest idea of what it was to “Live In The Now.” Worse yet, many of my waking hours were spent cleaning away the “wreckage of the future.”

Let me carry only the weight of 24 hours at one time, without the extra bulk of yesterday’s regrets or tomorrow’s anxieties. Let me breathe the blessings of each new day for itself, by itself, and keep my human burdens contained in daily perspective.  –A Day At A Time 02/01 | More…

We pray for one more day. One more week. Just until the next marker of time or the next major event occurs. We pray and may not even recognize these silent, secret pleas as being prayers.

Most of us feel as though we have not completed our role on earth.
We have ‘time’ today, which is all that anyone — healthy or chronically ill — really ever has. Our acceptance of life’s unpredictability frees us of our preoccupation with more time and allows us to use this time — today. –One More Day | More…

I do not have to have courage for a lifetime, just for the moment.
I am helped by the philosophy that teaches me to live one day at a time, one hour at a time, one moment at a time.

It is too awesome to try to live my tomorrows today.
Life is a process to be lived not a future to be anticipated.

I can only take responsibility for my life a day at a time. I developed the courage to face the moment and I became a winner. –Father Leo | More…

Ordinary Unconsciousness and Deep Unconsciousness:
What do you mean by different levels of unconsciousness?

In wakefulness most people only shift between ordinary unconsciousness and deep unconsciousness. Ordinary unconsciousness is a state of an almost continuous low level of unease, discontent, boredom, or nervousness – a kind of background static.

You may not realize this because it is so much a part of ‘normal living’, just as you are not aware of a continuous low background noise until it stops. Many people use alcohol, drugs, sex, food, work, television, or even shopping as anaesthetics in an unconscious attempt to remove the basic unease.

The unease of ordinary unconsciousness turns into the pain of deep unconsciousness – a state of mores acute and more obvious suffering – when ‘things go wrong’, when the ego is threatened or there is a major challenge, threat or loss, real or imagined, in your life situation or conflict in a relationship.

It is an intensified version of ordinary unconsciousness, different from it not in kind, but in degree. In ordinary circumstances, habitual resistance to or denial of what is creates unease and discontent that most people accept as normal living.

When this resistance becomes intensified through some challenge or threat to the ego, it brings up negativity such as anger, acute fear, aggression, depression and so on. Deep unconsciousness often means that the pain-body has been triggered and that you have become identified with it.

Physical violence would be impossible without deep unconsciousness. It can also occur easily whenever and wherever a crowd of people or even an entire nation generates a negative collective energy field.

The best indicator of your level of unconsciousness is how you deal with life’s challenges when they come. You can use a challenge to awaken you, or you can allow it to pull you into an even deeper sleep.

The dream of ordinary unconsciousness then turn into a nightmare. So it is essential to bring more consciousness into your life in ordinary situations when everything is going relatively smoothly.

In this way you grow in your presence power. When you learn to be the witness of your thoughts and emotions, which is an essential part of being present, you may be surprised when you first become aware of the background ‘static’ or ordinary unconsciousness and realize how rarely, if ever, you are truly at ease within yourself.

You will find a great deal of resistance in the form of judgment, discontent, and mental projection away from the Now. On the emotional level, there will be an undercurrent of unease, tension, boredom, or nervousness.

Both are aspects of the mind in its habitual resistance mode –The Power of Now/Eckhart Tolle p.60-62 | More…

What Are They Seeking:
The Native American chief said to Carl Jung; They are always seeking something. What are they seeking?

The white people want something. They are always uneasy and restless.
We don’t know what they want. We think they are mad.

The undercurrent of constant unease was already there at the time of Jesus and it was there 600 years before that at the time of Buddha.
Why are you always anxious? Jesus asked his disciples

Can anxious thought add a single day to your life?
And the Buddha taught that the root of suffering is to be found in our constant wanting and craving.

Resistance to the Now as a collective dysfunction is intrinsically connected to loss of awareness on Being and forms the basis of our dehumanized industrial civilization
Freud wrote about it in his book ‘Civilisation and Its Discontents. XXXX –The Power of Now/Eckhart Tolle | More…

Dissolving Ordinary Unconsciousness:
So how can we be free of this affliction?
Make it conscious.

Anything unconscious dissolves when you shine the light of consciousness on it.
Once you know how to dissolve ordinary unconsciousness, the light of your presence will shine brightly, and it will be much easier to deal with deep unconsciousness whenever you feel its gravitational pull.

Ordinary unconsciousness may not be easy to detect initially because it is so normal.
Make a habit to monitor your mental-emotional state through self-observation. ‘Am I at ease at this moment?’ is a good question to sk yourself frequently.

Or you can ask: ‘What’s going on inside me at this moment?’
If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place. P

Primary reality is within, secondary reality without.
What kind of thoughts is your mind producing? What do you feel? Direct your attention into the body.

Is there any tension?
Once you detect that there is a low-level of unease, the background static, see in what way you are avoiding, resisting, or denying life – by denying the Now.

With practice, your power of self-observation, of monitoring your inner state, will become sharpened –The Power of Now/Eckhart Tolle | More…

When we were drinking, there was always “tomorrow.”
What a difference today! –Unknown

From the cradle to the grave it behoves us to enjoy every minute we can, for a minute lost is a minute gone forever. –Cumbria, June 1975/”The Great Art of Living,”/Emotional Sobriety II/Grapevine

Until we experience the healing that happens when we work the Twelve Steps,
It is doubtful that we can find a statement more true than the quote above.

Almost every experience causes us to remember something from the past or begin projecting into the future. At first, it’s difficult to stay in the moment.  It seems as though our minds won’t stop.  We have a hard time just enjoying ourselves.

Each time we realize that our thoughts are not focused on what’s happening right now,
We can pray and ask a loving God to help us get out of ourselves.

If we regret the past, we make amends by living differently today
If we dread the future, we work on living responsibly today.

When we work the steps and pray each time we discover we’re not living in the present,
We’ll notice that those times aren’t occurring as often as they used to.  Our faith will help us live just for today. –Just For Today | More…

Despite all evidence that we must live for today, some of us persist in trying to recapture the past. Our home is never in the past. It is in the time and place where we are today. –Walk In Dry Places | More…

It seems to me that I have always been waiting for something better. Gratitude for what is prepares us for the blessings just around the corner. What is so necessary to understand is that our wait for what’s around the corner closes our eyes to the joys of the present moment. –Each Day a New Beginning | More…

When you enter this timeless dimension of the present, change often comes about in strange ways without the need for a great deal of doing on your part. Life becomes helpful and cooperative. –The Power of Now | More…

God’s presence is within us, now and always, even though we feel alone, alienated, scared, and forgotten much of the time. We often overlook God’s presence because we don’t recognize it. The creative potential goes unrealized among so many of us, perhaps because we have a rigid definition of what creativity is. We are creative. We are all, each of us, creative. We must be because God’s presence is here now. Encouraging creativity, our own and someone else’s, may mean breaking old habits. It also means giving ourselves fully to the experience of the moment and trusting that God’s presence will prompt the deliverance of our special gift. –Each Day a New Beginning | More…

When we work the steps and pray each time we discover we’re not living in the present, we’ll notice that those times aren’t occurring as often as they used to. Our faith will help us live just for today. We’ll have hours, even days, when our full attention is focused on the current moment in time, not the regrettable past or fearful future. –Just For Today | More…