The Power of the Aha Moment
The Unfolding Now: Realizing Your True Nature through the Practice of Presence
From the Editor’s Preface
The hidden richness that rests in our life, heart, and experience is here—not over there, in some better life, in some other house, in some other career, in some other relationship or country or spiritual school. Perhaps we knew that one time—and then we forgot. Occasionally, we are reminded by others of that richness, or we rediscover it ourselves. But over and over, we forget.
When we lose touch with the fullness of who we really are when we cannot recognize or appreciate it, when it is invisible to us or seems inaccessible, the knowledge that we are the location and source of what we are seeking is only abstract information, irrelevant to our personal situation. It cannot affect who we are or how we live if we can’t find this richness in our immediate experience, can’t feel it, taste it, or sense it directly. Almost everything in our life works against our turning that knowledge into the currency of personal inner richness.
Contents
- Loving the Real
- Learning to Be Real
- Hands Off Your Experience
- Making Space for Everything
- Opening to Ourselves
- Cultivating a Bold Vulnerability
- Following Truth to Meaning and Harmony
- Finding True Acceptance
- Hatred and the Power to Be
- Ignorance and Direct Knowing
- Freedom from the Filters of the Mind
- The Trap of Identification
- Lighting Up the Now
- A Mercurial Sense of Self
- The Personal Thread of Meaning
- Being without Mind
- To Be and Not to Be
- The Preciousness of Each Moment
A profound realization occurs when we are fully present and recognize the inherent value in each moment of experience. True Nature is always revealing its essence in the unfoldment of each moment. When we can see this clearly, we discover that every moment has its own value and meaning. There is a “heartfelt, intuitive sense of appreciation,” an “aha moment” that arises spontaneously when we contact the realness of the present moment.
The “aha moment” is when we directly recognize that the value of existence is intrinsic, not caused by anything else. It is a revelation beyond mental concepts, flooded with treasures the mind cannot fathom. We realize in our heart-of-hearts that True Nature itself is self-existing worth and value. Its presence is the source of all value. This insight fills us with a natural, sweet fullness and deep fulfillment. We come to experience that the supreme value is to be here now with awareness, understanding, and truth. The “aha moment” is recognizing that value and meaning are not somewhere else waiting to be found – they are here in the nowness of reality, perfectly being what it is.
The Unfolding Now examines the obstacles that veil us from seeing the truth and value that is always here to be recognized. Almaas investigates the beliefs, assumptions, judgments, positions, and habitual patterns that keep us locked in the ego-self, unaware of our True Nature. The book is a road map back to a life of “aha moments.”
When was your last mind-blowing ‘aha moment’? If you’re struggling to recall or yearn for more of these transformative moments, you’re not alone. The good news is that these moments of clarity and profound realization are not as elusive as they seem. They are waiting for you in the here and now, hidden only by the veils of our own perceptions and beliefs. To lift the veils and awaken the power of now in your life, consider diving into ‘The Unfolding Now.’