Live in the present. The past is gone; the future is unknown -- but the present is real, and your opportunities are now. You must see these opportunities; they must be real for you. The catch is that they can't seem real if your mind is buried in past failures, if you keep reliving old mistakes, old guilts, old tragedies. Fight your way above the many inevitable Traumatizations of your ego, escape damnation by the past, and look to the opportunities of the present. I don't mean some vague moment in the present -- next week or next month, perhaps. I mean today, this minute.

Work to recognize the primary importance of the present moment. A good little pointer toward that is to ask yourself, "What is my relationship with the present moment? How am I relating to it?"

The way you come to fully appreciate the infusion of the Spirit is to more and more come fully into the moment, where this moment is enough.

How do we preplan our bodies and our lives? Through our own karma. Every moment we do something, then the impression of that karma remains within us. The sum total of these karmic impressions directs us where to go and what to do. For example, going to a spiritual retreat was an aggregation of karma. First, the thought appeared; perhaps someone told you about it. Then the desire to go was manifest. Next you planned how to have a holiday from work, how to arrange money, how to travel, and what clothes you needed. You had to perform many karmas for just one desire, and the sum total of that karma and the aggregation of the planning is called prakalpita, pre-thought or previously planned.

This is the sleep: being absent, being not present to the present moment, being somewhere else.

Dying is the most important moment that exists in any incarnation

When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.

When effort is needed, effort will appear. When effortlessness becomes essential, it will assert itself. You need not push life about. Just flow with it and give yourself completely to the task of the present moment.

Only the present moment contains life.

If the fate of the universe was decided in a single moment at the instant of the Big Bang, that was the most creative moment of all.

Now is the moment that never ends.

When you have sealed off the mind in this way, challenge each emerging thought as it appears by asking, 'Where have you come from?' or 'Who is the person who is having this thought?' If you can do this continuously, with full attention, new thoughts will appear momentarily and then disappear.

Your memories are eroding away. The futures you anticipate, will mostly not come to pass, and the real richness is in the moment. And it's not necessarily some kind of 'Be Here Now' feel-good thing because it doesn't always feel good. But it always feels. It is a domain of feeling. It's primary.

In your world everything must have a beginning and an end. If it does not, you call it eternal. In my view, there is no such thing as beginning and end - these are all related to time. Timeless being is entirely in the now. Being and not-being alternate and their reality is momentary. The immutable Reality lies beyond space and time.

Let us take some event in the life of humanity. For instance, war. There is a war going on at the present moment. What does it signify? It signifies that several millions of sleeping people are trying to destroy several millions of other sleeping people. They would not do this, of course, if they were to wake up. Everything that takes place is owing to this sleep.

Brothers and sisters, the death of the body is taking place each and every moment. Open your eyes and see! Why are you crying like a crazy person? Crying for whom? For a body of bones, flesh, skin, and marrow? What value does it have? This body is taking you, all others, and me to the state of dissolution. Think about how you were twenty years ago, are you like that now? How much change has taken place?

This means if I am to pass through all these experiences, let it be. But let me never forget You; let my mind be always in You. With every breath, in every moment, try to be conscious of who You truly are.

The secret of awakening is to unconditionally accept this moment as it is.

I've never had a single moment of depression, because I know my cause will triumph.

Being aware of your breath forces you into the present moment - the key to all inner transformation. Whenever you are conscious of the breath, you are absolutely present. You may also notice that you cannot think and be aware of your breathing. Conscious breathing stops your mind.

If you want to have life, you have to die every moment for it. Life and death are only different expressions of the same thing looked at from different standpoints; they are the falling and the rising of the same wave, and the two form one whole.

The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future — which, of course, can only be experienced as the Now.

Accept people and situations as they are in life and then take action. The moment you do this, you'll see you are out of the confusion about anything in life.