Principles Involved In “Operating In The Moment”

                                         Question and Answers with GOD

As follows are two questions I asked God through my spiritual sister Cris, in my willingness to stay in the moment and get His guidance in helping me to master this. Of all the hundreds of books I have every read, His answer given here have been the most clearly and insightful ‘direct guidance’ I have ever received. I hope through sharing this, you too will come to ‘feel, experience, your connection to God, and come to trust He too is Always with you!

My Question: 8/13/2002

God, I know staying in the moment is where I can completely ‘live your Will for me,’ but I find at times I just loose it and go into worry and questioning that you are always with me, and thus always there to help me move through a situation where I need your guidance. Can you please help me here so I can stay exactly where you want me to be?

God’s Answer:

Hello Christopher. I can explain a few of the principles involved in “operating in the moment” if you like. You are correct that operating in the moment is the natural state of affairs. Indeed, you cannot operate in opposition to the natural, or God-given, state of affairs. Since deviating from the will of God, or operating outside My laws, is impossible you must already know how to do it. Therefore all you are asking is how to become conscious of it. And becoming aware of something is much easier than learning to master it.

You asked how to allow this “skill” to unfold to its fullest. Well, you must remember that this skill is always unfolding to its fullest. That is the nature of itSelf. I am always “being” to the fullest in any given moment. If I am being the fullest in the present, what is left for the past or the future? Nothing. And that is what time spent there amounts to - nothing. You [all] are allowing yourselves to be distracted by nothing - a total and complete waste of time.

Since I am always being the fullest in any given moment, it stands to reason that for you to do the same you would have to join Me there - at being the fullest in the moment. This means that you will have to release your attraction to the past and the future. To the extent that you are able to do this and maintain it consistently, to this extent will you find yourself experiencing life to the fullest also.

So, a joining is required. Being in the present moment is not something that you can do on your own. Secondly, for awhile anyway, it will require effort to stay in that place. You [all] are used to jumping forward (future) and backward (past) at will. You are used to operating with the uncertainty such jumping in and out entails.

Living in the present moment will appear to engender uncertainty also but do not be fooled. Living there is different but not uncertain. It is the unfamiliarity that you will need to get used to and it is this that will appear as uncertainty to you. Faith, or trust, will get you through it. During that time when you are depending heavily on faith and trust it will seem like a lot of effort is involved. However, what is really required is a lack of effort, an allowing, so that what is “happening” might happen unimpeded.

Now, living in the moment consciously requires the knowledge, or at the very least, a willingness to believe that all is well, that I know what I am doing, that I am Love, that I am Peace, that I am Joy, and that this is all there is. In other words, it requires a belief that there is a God and that He is a God of Love. This must be a given or you will find yourself fighting a persistent need to try and control things. Control necessitates a future and a past. And then you are right back where you started.

Without Me, without a God of Love, the whole thing falls apart. That is why life as you know it, life lived from an ego perspective, never works. So, assuming you start by joining with Me, assuming you are willing to persist, and assuming that I am a God of Love, what is the next step? The next step involves abandoning an objective viewpoint. It means that you will have to let go of the one who judges what is happening. Who is that one?

Supposedly it is the objective voice, the dispassionate observer, the one who is un involved and can therefore make an “objective” judgement about what is happening. I will stop now and ask you to think about this: Where is the objective voice coming from?

Operating in the moment requires subjectivity. You must be solidly in the moment to experience it that way. To borrow an analogy, while you are riding the wave you cannot get off, even for a minute, to see how you’re doing. If you do you will lose it. You will break the flow and as a result the ride is ended. It is not that the wave has lost any of its original creation but you, as the rider, no longer experience it to the degree you did before breaking the connection.

Why would you want to break the connection if you are on the crest of a good wave? One reason, one of the most common, is to check your progress. Am I getting better at this? Am I doing it correctly? Am I meeting the goals I set for myself? But progress is an ego ploy. It is not about learning how to do it or how to get better at it. Waking up is all about learning to stay connected at all times. Therefore, breaking a connection cannot be considered an integral part of trying to stay connected. If you are riding the wave, you know it. You feel it. You are it! There is no room for objectivity!

A second common reason for leaving the present or leaving the crest of the wave is the thought that you might want to repeat this great experience some other time - in the future perhaps. But in order to memorize and analyze the experience so that it might be recorded and repeated later misses the point. It demonstrates a lack of faith and a misunderstanding of the reasoning involved in staying in the moment. What this amounts to is justification for imitation. It is like dissecting a frog to understand how it lives instead of watching and appreciating it live. There is no logic in destroying a connection to better understand a connection. If you feel you must “capture” the moment in order to preserve it then you do not understand the meaning of I make all things new. If you need to ride a wave again, the connection will be there - you do not have to make one of your own in imitation.

Now, I am not saying that you, specifically, have a problem in this area Christopher. Comparatively speaking, you are quite good at attempting to consciously stay in the moment. But your practice of it is not yet flawless and you do indulge, generally unconsciously, in the ego antics I just described. It is your willingness to trust and your willingness to have faith in the idea of a God of Love that will accelerate your remembrance of this natural way of being in the world. Hang onto these and value them. They are your salvation.

There is one more habit you indulge in that nurtures the objectivity I have been talking about. By no means is this a habit peculiar to you only. It is, again, an exceedingly common way of judging things that most of you cherish. And I do not mean that you consciously cherish it but cherish is the right word nevertheless because you [all] employ it so often that you depend mightily on it. You love it. It is your favorite measuring stick for judgement. What is it? It is expectation. Expectation, in order to be kept alive, must be believed in. If you believe that all is well and all is of God, there is no validation for having expectations of your own. I am speaking of fear-based expectations, of course. For if you expect and assume that all is well, that all is as it should be, where is the need for any other expectation or assumption?

I will give you a specific example using the idea for the JETTI complex so that you might personalize a new way of being with it. First of all, you do not own it. We do. My idea is flowing through you. You are not to grab onto it and manipulate it, but rather your job is to gently facilitate its expression and manifestation as it unfolds. You do not have to unfold it. It will unfold naturally because that is the nature of any idea. Taking too much responsibility for it weighs you down and usurps the joy from the natural unfoldment. You cannot foil its natural progression. You will never be guilty of that and thinking that perhaps you can speed up its unfoldment or slow it down is a guilt producing belief. And what will guilt do to you? At best, it will exhaust you. At worst, it will make you sick.

If you feel responsible, even a little, for the unfoldment of this idea you are putting excessive and unjustified strain upon yourself. When the timing strays from what you think is desirable, and it will, guilt or blame (a projection of guilt) must rear its ugly head. Guilt is the inevitable result of unmet expectations and invalid assumptions. You correctly feel the Movement of Spirit, Christopher. Continue to ride that wave. But do not get off of it even for a minute. There will be many, many moments when no wave is crashing or swelling. This is not a time to then assume you are no longer connected. Connectedness cannot be checked on with any external feedback.

I told you once that you know when you are in the moment because things will progress smoothly and without much effort on your part. This is still true. But when the waves are calm, when there does not appear to be much forward progression with the idea, this is not a time for worry or second guessing. This is where your faith and trust comes in Christopher. You must remember that your life is not about how successfully you complete this or that project. If that were the case, external checks would be the measure of a man, no? You will be unable to judge whether you are on the wave or in the moment based upon the completion or manifestation of the JETTI complex. You are going to have to look inward for that Christopher.

So, things may go smoothly and effortlessly for awhile on your jaunt down the road to the place you think you are heading and then it may feel as if progress has stopped. Is there something you are blocking when this happens? Not necessarily. Are you peaceful anyway? This should be your only measuring stick. When you are happy and at peace, you are not blocking your fulfillment. You must remember that although you are in possession of a grand idea of Mine, you do not own it and therefore are not responsible for making it happen. Your job is to stay in the moment so that you know what to do when or even when to enjoy not doing anything. Your job is to enjoy it all - to enjoy everything that unfolds in the moment and do not tarnish the moment with expectations about how it should unfold or assumptions about how it would unfold if you, or others, were doing it right or better.

You see Christopher, Staying in the moment requires doing less, not more. It requires peace, not unconscious frenetic movement. It requires an allowing attitude not a manipulative one. It does require paying attention though. To be present in the moment you can’t be in the past or the future. You can’t be busy trying to imitate a past success or check the progress of a present one. You can’t be busy planning your next move so as not to be caught unawares. This is not to say that you can never plan. But planning must not be fear-based. It must be a natural outgrowth of the flow of God’s ideas.

This answer is mostly a confirmation for you, Christopher. You do not consciously do any of the things I used as examples that appear to impede the flow of My ideas. You cannot truly ever thwart My will and that is why all is well and why you need not feel responsible or hold onto expectations of your own. But when you do take responsibility or expect certain outcomes, then you have lost the connection. You have stopped living in the present moment and gone somewhere else - somewhere you think is separate from Me. But a Mind in Connection cannot be separate from what it thinks. And that is the answer to the question I asked you earlier: where is the objective voice coming from? An objective voice is coming from somewhere other than the present moment, for in Connection there is only subjectivity. So remember that objectivity as a means of checking your connectedness already implies a disconnect. Stay subjective. Stay connected. In general you are moving in the moment very well. Of course, you can stay there more often and of course, it is a goal worth pursuing. Perhaps I should say a goal worth allowing. But do not become impatient. You are already a world class surfer.

The 2nd Question: 9/1/2002

I asked another time of God to please assist me in clearly knowing my direction, so I could trust what I was experiencing and become clear with His guidance, so I could serve Him to my fullest each and every day, being my fullest for Him.

God’s Answer:

Dearest Christopher, together We are in the process of Being all We can be. We are always in that process. The question is, are you aware or conscious of that fact? Nothing will get you out of your center and unconscious quicker than wondering if you are doing the will of God or wondering how you can do “it” (the will of God) more quickly. This is not to say that there isn’t a time and place for Thy will be done. Certainly that is an important step in the process. But at this point in time I am going to ask you to move forward a little. We are going to employ Our will be done in the place of Thy will be done and the reason is that the concept of the latter is beginning to enhance the idea of separation and We need to close that gap.

This question ties in directly with your last one about how to stay on the crest of the wave - on that leading edge. Now, you are wanting to get the mechanics of this down so that your life might flow more smoothly and, as a result, you are hoping that your goals and objectives might come together in a more recognizable and tangible manner. There is nothing wrong with this desire. However, I will caution you that this desire has a little snag in it and this is that you are still regarding You and Me as separate in the sense that you think there is a will out there that belongs to Me [and not you] and if you could only get more in tune with that THEN the results of your projects will fall into place as they should.

The problem is that in order to check and see if you are in alignment with My will, you have to come out of that place that is in alignment with My will. Once out of the place, you have, of course, severed the connection. And the thing that makes you come out of this place is the idea that there is a specific outcome that will confirm that My will has been done or is being done correctly. Let’s use your work with the Christ Light Beings Project as an example. Success in your mind, evidence that you are on the beam or riding the wave, would surely be confirmed if the web site were up and running and bringing in plenty of donations from thankful supporters, right? And this could very well be the outcome. There is nothing wrong with expecting it. On the other hand, it could be that despite your best efforts, the web site never does attract many viewers or donations. Would this mean that all your efforts have been wasted? Does such an outcome imply that you were not listening correctly or well enough? In other words, is either outcome confirmation that you were riding or not riding the wave?

I will answer that for you. If you believe that there is a will (or outcome) of God’s that is to be aspired to; one to be achieved in order to know if you are on or were on the wave, then you are mistaken. For how could you know if you are on the wave until and unless you have attained the specific outcome - the reward (or, God forbid, the punishment)? Doing or having done God’s will could only be confirmed by meeting or achieving one’s best idea of what “successful” is for God. And usually one interprets that to be his or her own best idea of what I want. This is how confusing things get at the point when Thy will be done needs to evolve into Our will be done. This cannot be attempted when an individual still thinks mostly of himself as an ego, if you will. However, once that hurdle is jumped, it is necessary to align oneself with God.

You see Christopher, there is no you separate from Me. The idea of trying to find out what My will for you is actually necessitates a separation, a falling off of the wave. The old way is to think that you are your definition of yourself, that you are your ego so to speak. The only other option that you have when you have given up that idea is to consciously and voluntarily realign yourself with Me. There is no other option. And it cannot be done by asking what My will is and then trying your best to do it. That method always employs time - a past and a future. It also ensures confusion for there is simply no way to check on yourself except to see if imagined outcomes and expectations are being met. Happiness is dependent upon these expectations being met or the outcomes being achieved. Another way to put it is that your happiness depends on form - and this cannot be.

What is the difference between Thy will be done and Our will be done? Consciousness, that’s what. Also, participation in and responsibility for your own happiness. Part of happiness, part of freedom, is not being dependent upon another for your good. Now, mind you I am not suggesting that you return to the days where you truly believed you (separate from Me) were responsible for your own good. That would throw you back into defensiveness, competition, and lack mentality. However, you must feel a part of the creative process in order to truly know happiness and freedom. You cannot know these things if you must always ask what it is I want - whether or not you are doing “it” right. This leaves you forever a teenager, one who will one day, if not now, yearn for his freedom.

What Our will be done says is that you have grown and developed to the point where it is time to leave the security [and confines] of the nest, what you are familiar with. Yes, you will be “responsible” for more but there is no more growth possible otherwise. It is simply time to take off on Our own. I often describe this shift as swimming with the flow rather than going with the flow. Swimming is a much more participatory and specific action. It requires involvement of a more definitive or conscious sort. It requires direction - not direction given to you but rather direction that We decide upon as you go. You are not creating the river you swim in but you are certainly deciding where you will go within it rather than simply floating along, wondering where and why you move as you do.

Now, back to the Celestial Realm Project work. Do I have a plan for this? Yes, I do. My plan is that you take it where you want it to go Christopher based upon how it makes you feel. You will not get extra points for turning it into a multimillion dollar operation that offers help and solace to thousands internationally. Neither will you get demerits for chucking the whole idea and removing the web site from the Internet. Instead, I am giving you a greater gift. This gift is greater than direction. I am giving you the gift of the entire river. Go in any direction that you wish. Play. Compete. Explore. Stop and start again. My only recommendation is this: do what makes you happy; what makes you truly happy at a soul level. You see, this is My will for you and only that. When you do this, you teach the rest of the world Our will. This is what saves the world.

When you began your work with the Celestial Realm you were happy and enthusiastic. It touched your soul. The activity of making it a business has dampened your enthusiasm somewhat. Circumstances in your life have changed. You are not here to be a slave to that which you create in joy, Christopher. That which you create in joy is here to serve YOU!   If it is no longer doing this for you, it is time to reevaluate your relationship. Do not look outside yourself to Me for the answer. I am in you and therefore your answer is there too. It is true that your will is Mine. But it is also true that My will is yours. What would you have Us do now, Christopher? Do not make your decision objectively. Be subjective! What do you feel like doing - the crawl, the breast stroke, the butterfly...?

Finding the Present. Teachings from A Course in Miracles. An audio of a reading from ACIM...