This actually does not work. And it is what we will do because that is how our mind works. As Eckhart says, “The mind loves to make a problem out of things.” So, if you are practicing being in the NOW you will soon find, as I have, that it now becomes your new problem - getting to be in the NOW. My ego gets in there too telling me all the good reasons why I should be in the NOW. The big ego way of looking at it would naturally be, ‘ I want to be in the NOW so I can feel superior to others, or to be better.’ or ‘Wow, won’t I be so great when I am in the NOW all the time!’

These are all mind tricks. And if you try to just stop thinking, that will not work either. Eckhart teaches that all we really need to do is become aware of what is. Even just becoming aware that we are lost in our heads is the process of coming more into the NOW.

In each moment, with the constantly changing forms running through, we can become aware of something. Our awareness never leaves us. It (or should I say, the real us) is always present. Thus, all we need do is become aware of what is and be with that.

The present is our friend and ally.

If you have read any of Eckhart Tolle’s books, you are familiar with what he calls the pain body. Essentially it is that part of our ego that lives on our pain and the pain of others. It is what we are identified with when we are upset about something. The more I observe my own pain body the more I realize how it operates and I am developing a greater awareness of when I am in my pain body. It is really a gift to be able to catch myself going into my pain body and stop it before it goes on with its tyrannical ranting. I caught myself just this morning. What triggered it in this case was that our yard man trimmed back more of our fruit trees than I wanted. The fear of not having enough fruit this season was all it took. I am sure glad I caught that one. I could see it was leading to a fight (verbal).

The cards can be a great help in identifying the triggers and nature of our individual pain bodies. It is really a good thing to get to know your pain body and all its triggers, manifestations, and behaviors. This sort of awareness is the only way to rise above it. The first Karma Card is a good place to start. For example, my first Karma Card is the 3 of Diamonds. For all us Queen of Diamond people, this 3 of Diamonds first Karma Card often means an underlying and hidden fear of not having enough. This can translate as not enough food, money, love, sex, or possessions. It can manifest as just some of these or all of these, depending upon the individual. But what is true in the case of all Queen of Diamonds is that this Karma Card can be the trigger of a pain body activation and further expression.

If you know your card, get to know your first Karma Card. This is a key to understanding your link to your pain body. There are other cards in our Life Spread that are also connected to our pain body. The Saturn Card, the Pluto Card and perhaps the Mars Card too. Actually pretty much any card can have some connection to it but some are much more likely than others.

What is so cool about practicing the Power of Now is that we can actually rise above the manifestations of our Birth Card and its associated Life Spread and Karma Cards. People have often asked me if our Birth Card is a ‘life sentence’ so to speak, like a box from which we can never escape. I have always answered that this is true in most cases, and it is. However, when any of us connects to the NOW, we are immediately free from all of the Karma represented by our Birth Card, or astrological chart. All Karma is dissolved in the NOW.

The trick is getting there. Which is funny, because it is here, right now. But our minds and egos have become so strong that we struggle to have even a few seconds of now-ness. That’s why you will find me, and mostly likely forever more, practicing being in the NOW.

This question comes up for many who study the cards and also study Eckhart Tolle’s work as I am. Personally I see no conflict. Eckhart says in the Power of Now that in dealing with our ‘life situation’ it is good to use our mind to make predictions about the future using our experience and the knowledge of cycles and patterns. He certainly wasn’t referring to the cards or astrology. But these two sciences are the best at the analyzing of one’s patterns and cycles.

Of course one could also use the cards to completely stay out of the now. If you or I are caught up in fear of the future, as it appears in the cards, or waiting for something great to happen because the cards depict it, we are in that way using the cards to avoid the now and strengthen our sense of a false identity. This is very common and it will happen to everyone who studies the cards sooner or later.

The truth is that only being in the NOW will bring us a happy future. If I am unable to enjoy myself now, I will not be able to enjoy something in the future that the cards may be predicting. As Eckhart puts it, our current state of consciousness will ultimately create our future. No matter which way we look at it, we have to get back to NOW to have anything that we really want in life. It is all HERE and NOW anyway!

1. I am fixated on the past or future.
2. I am ignoring the present moment.
3. I am imagining some horrible future event or reliving some horrible past event.
4. I am stuck in my thoughts like a hamster on a wheel.
5. I am the victim of my thoughts and imagination.
6. I see no possibility of success or happiness.

1. I am watching my mind as it goes crazy, from one thought to the other.
2. I catch myself being defensive when someone’s comments or actions threaten my false identity, which is mostly about being a know-it-all.
3. I see how hard it is to enjoy any given moment and how afraid my mind is of being here and now.
4. I see how my ego constantly wants to compare myself with others and make them seem lesser than me so I can feel okay about myself.
5. I catch myself when my pain body is awakened and am able to stop myself from reacting or going into ‘getting others back’ mode.
6. I have more compassion for others and can see how they, like me, are the victims of our egos. This allows me to accept them on a very deep level.
7. I can take more responsibility for myself, knowing that I always have a choice when I am confronted with a difficult situation, or one that I do not like.
8. I can see all the ways in which my mind/ego habitually escapes from the now and thus perpetuates my own suffering.

My little talk on Life and Being in the Now:

The Key To Everything

This only happened recently, around the middle of March 2008. I have often gotten meaningful messages from fortune cookies that I get at Chinese restaurants. But this one was very different. It read, “You will be compelled to manifest self-transformation.” Maybe we just get out of something what we put into it. But for me, messages like this are ones that I take seriously. I took it to heart. A self-transformation is what I felt in the depths of my soul I needed. Approaching my 55th birthday, I had been feeling that my life needed something, something that I could not describe. But I took that little fortune and taped it to the bottom front of my computer screen. As I write this, it is still there and I read it every day. Though I did not know what I would do or how I would achieve this transformation, I kept the notion in front of my thoughts. Within a week, answers began to appear.

Over four years ago a girlfriend handed me the book, The Power of Now, by Eckart Tolle. At that time I had the habit of telling everyone that “I don’t read books anymore.” But because she insisted I sat down one day and began to read it. After reading only four or five pages I had to put the book down. The message there was so powerful, I could not continue reading until I had put into practice what I had already read. I could tell that the book was profoundly spiritual in the deepest sense of the word. But for whatever reason, I wasn’t ready to practice something so profound at that time. I put the book away, lent it to friends and at some point lost it. The book would reappear often after that. A friend would mention it or someone I knew would show up at my house with it. But I had already decided I was not going to read that book, not until I was ready to give it the attention it deserved.

Then, this year, my new wife Desiree came home from the bookstore one day with a copy of Eckhart’s newest book, A New Earth. Because of my little fortune on my computer’s monitor I took it aside one day when she wasn’t around and began reading it. Soon I wanted a copy of my own and Desiree picked one up. As I read this book, I began to see things about my life very clearly. I also began to yearn for the experience of being in the NOW and free from my mind and ego. The book was so profound to me in those first days of reading that I would usually have to take a 20-30 minute nap after I had read just a page or so. I felt like my psyche needed those little sleeps to digest what was being said on those pages.

Reading A New Earth got me wanting to go back and read The Power of Now again. But instead of buying the book again I acquired the books-on-tape version of Eckhart reading the book in audio form. And just at that time I had planned a cross-country road trip, from California to North Carolina and back. This would be a perfect opportunity, I thought, to really focus my attention on Eckhart’s teachings. With 30 hours of driving each way ahead of me, I got the audio forms of both books as I prepared for my trip.

I want to digress here for a couple of minutes to just explain my relationship with books. This may be a common way of relating to books but I don’t think so. All of my life certain books have had a profound and positive impact on my life. I sum this up to my having Jupiter in the sign of Gemini in my natal astrological chart. But whatever the case, I have been able to attract certain books that were so great for me at that time, that my life was positively changed by them. I have also kept copies of most every book that has affected me this way, starting with books I read while still in my teens. I was always reading self-help books. Those have always been my favorites. But I have also had very good fortune with just practical books like books on how to program computers or do maintenance on my cars. Somewhere along the line I learned and realized that I can usually find a good book to help me accomplish any goal in my life. I could spend pages telling all the different books I have read and how great they were, or are, but I want to continue.

Another thing about me and books is that I don’t think a book is just something to read. For the most part, if I read something, I think that this is something that is intended for me to make real, not just another thought or new idea to think about and later forget. Books have always told me what to practice, what to do. And I always knew that I needed to do those things so that I could achieve the results I wanted. I say this because I see so many people today who just read book after book and their lives never change. This, for me, is somewhat unfathomable. Why read a book that could change your life, but never put it into practice? A quick anecdote here will explain it better.

When I was around age 30, two good friends of mine met me for lunch. They were very excited and told me they had something really exciting to share with me. They showed up at lunch, both of them carrying a stack of 3-ring binders full of some sort of information and forms. They told me they had just returned from this really cool weekend seminar on how to make a lot of money. They had each paid $500 to attend, and back then that was a lot of money! Their course was all about how to become a real estate investor. As they talked I was noticing their piles of books and binders. I caught the title of one of the books. It was called No Money Down by Robert Allen. After lunch I rode to my local bookstore and purchased a copy for about $9. When I read this book, I got very excited too. This was something I could sink my teeth into. Within 3 months of reading that book I had purchased my first two rental properties using the methods taught in that book. I went on from there to purchase ten more buildings over a period of about 2 years. I literally became rich overnight. As for my friends, though very excited that day, they never did purchase their first rental property, and as far as I know, they still haven’t. I hope you are getting my point here but just in case, here it is: Knowledge is worthless unless it is somehow put into practical purpose, or made real. This is why I could not read any more of the Power of Now back a few years ago.

I have a deep respect for books. I keep a small bookshelf of all my favorite books. I honor books and feel that it would be a dishonor to read a book and not practice it or make it real. Now I am reading both of Eckhart’s books and practicing them.

To realize something is to make it real. Another way of saying it is that to realize something is to have the direct experience of it. When people use the term, realized master, they are referring to someone who has truly come into the world, as it is, and fully accepted it in its true form. They are also referring to someone who has made his or her true self real.

I didn’t waste much time getting into listening to Mr. Tolle on my cross-country road trip. As I chugged along in my Volkswagen Jetta Diesel I had the CDs cued up and started listening from the beginning of The Power of Now. I had some initial concerns since earlier I would have to nap so much when I read his books. “How will I be able to stay awake for driving?” I would ask myself. And, I was on a tight time schedule. I had to really make some miles to get to the Atlanta area of Georgia in time to do a book presentation at a local healing center. But I just dropped my concerns and decided that I would drive till I got sleepy and then pull over and sleep if I needed to.

Even so, I found I could not listen a long time to Eckhart reading. He would say something so significant that I would have to turn the CD player off and just be with it. His voice also comes from a very deep place and just listening to it would evoke a deep state of stillness and peace.

As I listened I became increasing aware of my mind and it’s attempts to get carry my attention away from NOW and into the past or future. Past things were often past sexual experiences or emotionally charged experiences that would elicit either passion or sorrow. Future things were also often sexual fantasies but also rotated into future work ideas and plans. All were quite interesting but all took me away from the present moment and into my mind. I saw this more and more as I was hearing Eckhart describe the very inner workings of the mind/ego identified self. At first I would have the tendency to become dismayed at just how little control I have over my attention. But Eckhart offers many gentle reminders that this is how it often is in the beginning along with encouragement for better results with practice.

I can’t say that the miles went by any faster. In contrast, the trip seemed painfully slow as I realized just how habitually unhappy I am about the present. Being locked in my car, in one seat, with no distractions like television and the internet made me want to jump out of my skin. But a growing awareness had me just watching all of that, without judgment. In addition I was very hungry at some core level, for the things I had been listening too. I realized that more than anything else in my life, I wanted to experience the ‘peace that passeth all understanding.’

I had been driving now for four days. I had just left my sister’s house near Atlanta, GA and was driving up to Asheville, NC. Again listening to Eckhart I had to turn off the CD player at one point to digest, to make real what he had just said. I was focusing on the moment in front of me, being on the interstate and driving my car.

Just then I felt a feeling come over me. It was something difficult to describe. It was peace but much more than that. It was a fleeting glimpse of the now but ever so powerful that it stunned me. In that moment a flood of realizations occurred. I felt completely satisfied and content, a sense of peace that defies description. But along with that came the realization that this experience I was having held within it everything I had ever wanted in my entire life. I felt the urge to cry, to cry out of joy of having been given such a blessed experience. I had gone into the NOW and saw for myself what it was really about. It reminded me of an experience I had when I was 19 years old and I took some LSD. I had visited the NOW at that time. And that one visit got me on the path to get there naturally. This experience today was the fulfillment of that desire.

In the NOW I realized that everything I ever wanted was HERE and NOW. There was nowhere to go, nothing to want, nothing to get. It was all HERE NOW. As I write these words, I realize the paradoxical nature of what I am saying. It sounds like a riddle to be solved. But those are the only words that describe the experience. It was an experience of having everything I ever desired. So in that sense, it was the experience of EVERYTHING. And it was so simple. It was just WHAT IS.

I am the prodigal son who has left his father’s home, struggling to find peace and happiness when it was always right there. I am make believing that I need to do something, to accomplish something, to acquire something or someone in order to be worthy of happiness and joy. And yet, those were all assumptions that I made up from my imagination. It was never true that I had to do anything to be worthy of the highest experience of love and joy. It was never denied. It was only denied because I decided it was. And, it is always HERE anytime I wish to experience it.

Our mind/ego would have us believe that everything good lies in our future. It never says, “you can have that NOW.” Happiness, joy, love, fulfillment, prosperity, and good health are always somewhere in the future. It is our mind’s job to keep us focused on something that is not real. It is not real because it is something contrived and imagined. It is not NOW or HERE. It is always later and somewhere else. And that is our biggest problem. We can never accept that it is all HERE and NOW. If we did, our mind/ego would have to die, would cease to exist.