The present moment has always been available to spiritual seekers, but as long as you are seeking you are not available to the present moment. "Seeking" implies that you are looking to the future for some answer, or for some achievement, spiritual or otherwise. Everybody is in the seeking mode, seeking to add something to who they are, whether it be money, relationships, possessions, knowledge, status.. or spiritual attainment.

The ultimate truth of who you are is not I am this or I am that, but I Am.

You are not IN the universe, you ARE the universe, an intrinsic part of it. Ultimately you are not a person, but a focal point where the universe is becoming conscious of itself. What an amazing miracle.

Work to recognize the primary importance of the present moment.

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?"

Especially for those of us living in the Western culture, death to a large extent is still a taboo subject. It's considered something dreadful that shouldn't be happening. It's usually denied. The fact of death is not faced. What we don't realize in Western culture is that death has a redemptive dimension.

The moment you put a mental label on another human being, you can no longer truly relate to that person. . . It then becomes possible to perpetrate any act of violence.