As each of us awakens, it impacts human consciousness at a collective level. It is like dropping a tiny pebble of light into a dark pool of unconsciousness . Ripples of light!

In the awakened state, the mind is either perfectly silent or it is a perfectly clear instrument of expression.

When you are truly present, you illuminate everything around you.

If your commitment is to being present, then there will come a time when being present becomes your natural state. The present moment becomes your home. You will have short excursions into the world of the mind, but you never go so far into the mind that you get lost there.

You don't realize that if you stop looking backwards craving the love and acceptance which you didn't receive from your parents, then you might open your eyes to what is available for you now. But you won't let go. If only you could see that looking back into an incomplete and imperfect past, with regret, blame, guilt or resentment is keeping you from the treasures that await you here now. The past has gone. You cannot rectify something that is no longer with you.

The underlying motivation that drives all addiction is our insistence on avoiding pain. However, the pain you are avoiding is based in the past, and has nothing to do with the present moment.

In the awakened state of Presence, aloneness becomes all-oneness.