determines who we are, as well as how we perceive and behave in the present. And our future

goals determine which actions we take in the present. You haven't yet grasped the essence of

what I'm saying because you are trying to understand it mentally. The mind cannot understand

this. Only you can. Please just listen. Have you ever experienced, done, thought, or felt

anything outside the now? Do you think you ever will? Is it possible for anything to happen or

be outside the now? The answer is obvious, is it not? Nothing ever happened in the past that

happened in the now. Nothing will ever happen in the future. It will happen in the now. What

you think of as the past is a memory trace starting in the mind of the former now. When you

remember the past, you reactivate a memory trace, and you do so now. The future is imagined

now, a projection of the mind. When the future comes, it comes as the now. When you think

about the future, you do it now. Past and future obviously have no reality of their own. Just as

the moon has no light of its own, but can only reflect the light of the sun, so our past and future

are the pale reflections of the light, power, and reality of the eternal present. Their reality is

borrowed from the now. The essence of what I'm saying here cannot be understood by the mind.

The moment you grasp it, there's a shift in consciousness from mind to being, from time to

presence. Suddenly, everything feels alive, radiates energy, emanates being.

Eckhart Tolle - the power of now