The Eternal Present Quotes

What you think of as they past is a memory trace, stored in the mind, of a former Now. When you remember the past, you reactivate a memory trace
and you do so now. The future is an 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 are past and future only pale reflections of the light, power, and reality of the eternal present. Their reality is "borrowed" from the Now. ~ Eckhart Tolle

In the soul there is only the eternal present. ~ Earnie Larsen

Pain obliterates everything else. In pain, there is only the eternal present. ~ Jacqueline Carey

The yogi learns to forget the past and takes no thought for the morrow. He lives in the eternal present. ~ B.K.S. Iyengar

When trying to remember my share in the glow of the eternal present, in the smile of God, I return to my childhood, too, for that is where the most significant discoveries turn up. ~ Herman Hesse

Have no age, transcend both past and future, and enter into the eternal present. ~ H.E. Davey

The young should not think of themselves as immature and the elderly need not view themselves as feeble. Our minds control our bodies. Have no age, transcend both past and future, and enter into naka-ima - the eternal present. ~ H.E. Davey

The eternal present is the space within which your whole life unfolds, the one factor that remains constant. ~ Eckhart Tolle

In the radiance of His light the world is not commonplace. The very floor we stand on is a miracle of atoms whizzing about in space. The darkness of sin is clarified, and its burden shouldered. Death is robbed of its finality, trampled down by Christ's death. In a world where everything that seems to be present is immediately past, everything in Christ is able to participate in the eternal present of God. ~ Alexander Schmemann

Let the clock and the earth do their own thing ... Let the comings and goings of life continue ... But YOU stay HERE and NOW. This exercise is to bring you to the Eternal Present where it all is. ~ Ram Dass

One million light years from now it will still be now. ~ Marty Rubin

Clear sight has nothing to do with trying to see; it is just the realization that that the eyes will take in every detail all by themselves, for so long as they open they can hardly prevent the light from reaching them. In the same way, there is no difficulty in being fully aware of the eternal present as soon as it is seen that one cannot possibly be aware of anything else - that in concrete fact there is no past or future. ~ Alan W. Watts

Perhaps if they all remained silent for as long as possible, they'd slip out of this moment into the next one, and then the next one, until all the preceding moments were erased from memory and everything could start all over again. The ultimate American dream: the eternal present, where nothing has ever happened before what is happening now. ~ Aleksandar Hemon

ETERNAL PRESENT
Do not invest your energy in something that is going to die, but invest it in something which will be forever. Invest your time and attention in attaining that which is permanent; which is only in the eternal present. ~ Sirshree

The abundance Jesus offers is a spiritual abundance that transcends circumstances, like income, health, living conditions, and even death. The abundant life is eternal. ~ Charles R. Swindoll

All would wish to be saved and to enjoy the glory of paradise; but to gain heaven, it is necessary to walk in the straight road that leads to eternal bliss. This road is the observance of the divine commandments. Hence, in his preaching, the Baptist exclaimed: Make straight the way of the Lord. ~ Alphonsus Liguori

There she sits in the corner of the carriage - that carriage which is travelling, not from Richmond to Waterloo, but from one age of English literature to the next, for Mrs. Brown is eternal, Mrs. Brown is human nature, Mrs. Brown changes only on the surface, it is the novelists who get in and out - there she sits and not one of the Edwardian writers has so much as looked at her. They have looked very power- fully, searchingly, and sympathetically out of the window ; at factories, at Utopias, even at the decoration and upholstery of the carriage ; but never at her, never at life, never at human nature. ~ Virginia Woolf

Do not plan to die, do not plan for the death of your name or your influence - rather, plan for the resting of a life well lived. Make an eternal mark. ~ Archibald Marwizi

All of us must walk the same strait and narrow path, know the same kind of experiences as those we would seek to lead and to serve. There is not one strait and narrow path for the officers-the chosen-and another for the enlisted men. We are all to experience life "according to the flesh"; there is no other way, for it is the way to immortality and eternal life. Given the resplendent riches of the promised kingdom, why would anyone wish to walk another path than the one that leads us back to our gracious and merciful Father in Heaven? ~ Neal A. Maxwell

Who would not shudder if he were given the choice of eternal death or life again as a child ? Who would not choose to die ? ~ Saint Augustine

I was supremely happy, for I had seen. Nothing could ever be the same. I have drunk at the clear and pure waters and my thirst was appeased ... I have seen the Light. I have touched compassion which heals all sorrow and suffering; it is not for myself, but for the world ... Love in all its glory has intoxicated my heart; my heart can never be closed. I have drunk at the fountain of Joy and eternal Beauty. I am God-intoxicated. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Sometimes I believe that love dies but hope springs eternal. Sometimes I believe that hope dies but love springs eternal. Sometimes I believe that sex plus guilt equals love, and sometimes I believe that sex plus guilt equals good sex. Sometimes I believe that love is as natural as the tides, and sometimes I believe that love is an act of will. Sometimes I believe that some people are better at love than others, and sometimes I believe that everyone is faking it. Sometimes I believe that love is essential, and sometimes I believe that only reason love is essential is that otherwise you spend all your time looking for it. ~ Nora Ephron

This is the most precious answer God can give us: wait. It makes us cling to him rather than to an outcome. God knows what I need; I do not. He sees the future; I cannot. His perspective is eternal; mine is not. He will give me what is best for me when it is best for me. ~ Vaneetha Rendall Risner

All forms of beauty, like all possible phenomena, contain an element of the eternal and an element of the transitory - of the absolute and of the particular. Absolute and eternal beauty does not exist, or rather it is only an abstraction creamed from the general surface of different beauties. The particular element in each manifestation comes from the emotions: and just as we have our own particular emotions, so we have our own beauty. ~ Charles Baudelaire

Faith is primarily a process of identification; the process by which the individual ceases to be himself and becomes part of something eternal. ~ Eric Hoffer

In less than an hour I have to hold class for a group of idiot freshmen. And, on a desk in the living room, is a mountain of midterm examinations with essays I must suffer through, feeling my stomach turn at their paucity of intelligence, their adolescent phraseology. And all that tripe, all those miles of hideous prose, had been would into an eternal skein in his head. And there it sat unraveling into his own writing until he wondered if he could stand the thought of living anymore. I have digested the worst, he thought. Is it any wonder that I exude it piecemeal? ("Mad House") ~ Richard Matheson

To reject the notions of the eternal feminine, the black soul, or the Jewish character is not to deny that there are today Jews, blacks, or women: this denial is not a liberation for those concerned but an inauthentic flight. ~ Simone De Beauvoir

So, to meditate is to purge the mind of its self-centered activity. And if you have come this far in meditation, you will find there is silence, a total emptiness. The mind is uncontaminated by society; it is no longer subject to any influence, to the pressure of any desire. It is completely alone, and being alone, untouched it is innocent. Therefore there is a possibility for that which is timeless, eternal, to come into being. This whole process is meditation. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Surely we should love the cross, and, instead of shrinking from it, count it very dear, when it works out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Hope burns eternal in the human heart. ~ O.R. Melling

Whatever you see, hear or experience in the world is ephemeral. Get in touch with the eternal substratum of everything. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi

The first symptom of true love in a young man
is timidity; in a young girl, boldness. This is surprising, yet nothing is more simple. It is the two sexes tending
to approach each other and assuming, each the other's
qualities.
That day, Cosette's glance drove Marius beside himself,
and Marius' glance set Cosette to trembling. Marius went
away confident, and Cosette uneasy. From that day forth,
they adored each other.
The first thing that Cosette felt was a confused and profound
melancholy. It seemed to her that her soul had become
black since the day before. She no longer recognized it. The
whiteness of soul in young girls, which is composed of coldness
and gayety, resembles snow. It melts in love, which is
its sun.
Cosette did not know what love was. She had never heard
the word uttered in its terrestrial sense. She did not know
what name to give to what she now felt. Is any one the less ill
because one does not know the name of one's malady?
She loved with all the more passion because she loved ignorantly.
She did not know whether it was a good thing or a
bad thing, useful or dangerous, eternal or temporary, allowable
or prohibited; she loved. She would have been greatly
astonished, had any one said to her: 'You do not sleep? But
that is forbidden! You do not eat? Why, that is very bad! You
have oppressions and palpitations of the heart? That must
not ~ Victor Hugo

It is impossible to read the daily press without being diverted from reality. You are full of enthusiasm for the eternal verities - life is worth living, and then out of sinful curiosity you open a newspaper. You are disillusioned and wrecked. ~ Patrick Kavanagh

The other day a little girl in the fifth grade put me in an awkward spot by stating: 'Is it fair that Jesus created seven sacraments and only six of them are available to women?' She was referring, obviously, to Holy Orders to which -- according to eternal tradition -- only males are admitted. What could I answer? After looking around, I said: "In this classroom I see boys and girls. You boys can ask: 'Is anyone among the males of the world the father of Jesus?' The boys' answer: 'No, because Saint Joseph was only the putative father.' But you girls" -- I went on -- "can ask: 'Was one of us women the mother of Jesus?' And the answer is: 'Yes.'" Then I said: "You are right, but think this over. If no woman can be pope or bishop or priest, this is compensated for a thousand times over by the divine maternity, which honors exceptionally both woman and motherhood." My little protester seemed convinced. ~ Pope John Paul I

Man is a little world--a microcosm inside the great universe. Like a fetus, he is suspended, by all his three spirits, in the matrix of the macrocosmos; and while his terrestrial body is in constant sympathy with its parent earth, his astral soul lives in unison with the sidereal anima mundi. He is in it, as it is in him, for the world-pervading element fills all space, and is space itself, only shoreless and infinite. As to his third spirit, the divine, what is it but an infinitesimal ray, one of the countless radiations proceeding directly from the Highest Cause--the Spiritual Light of the World? This is the trinity of organic and inorganic nature--the spiritual and the physical, which are three in one, and of which Proclus says that 'The first monad is the Eternal God; the second, eternity; the third, the paradigm, or pattern of the universe;' the three constituting the Intelligible Triad. ~ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

impossible; a word which, in common conversation, is often used to signify not only improbable, but often what is really very likely, and, sometimes, what hath certainly happened; an hyperbolical violence like that which is so frequently offered to the words infinite and eternal; by the former of which it is usual to express a distance of half a yard, and by the latter, a duration of five minutes. And thus it is as usual to assert the impossibility of losing what is already actually lost. ~ Henry Fielding

The belief among almost all religions that our default existence after death will be one of eternal pain and suffering is genesis of evangelism and the reason why "Savior-centric" religions even exist. ~ Al Stefanelli

My mother, without a doubt, occupied the center of our home. Universal respect surrounded her in the entire village. Certainly she had many cares. I myself was only a child in this home. If I reverently recall my mother, I see her before me as one who served. She served me and the other children. She served not only while I was a helpless babe in arms. (That indeed I cannot remember.) She served even when I already had strength for work. She served always. She served till the day of her death. And, my Lord, still I never thought in terms like this: Though my mother enjoyed universal respect, she did not think it beneath her to serve me. The only way I can think of her is that she served me, for she was my mother. My Lord! Thus I no longer want to say about you: ALTHOUGH you were clearly conscious of your dignity, still you did not think it beneath your dignity to perform the task of a servant. After this I should like to put it this way: BECAUSE you were the fully authorized son of the God of eternal love, THEREFORE you served. You served not only here in this biblical scene. You always served. ~ Lajos Ordass

The desire for sudden change and the thought of their realization by force often appears among men like a disease and gains ground mainly in young brains; only these brains do not think as they should, do not amount to anything in the end and the heads that think thus do not remain long on their shoulders. For it is not human desires that dispose and administer the things of this world. Desire is like a wind, it sifts the dust from one place to another, sometimes darkens the whole horizon, but in the end calms down and leaves the old and eternal picture of the world. Lasting deeds are realized on this earth only by God's will, and man is only His humble and blind tool. ~ Ivo Andric

The plea of necessity, that eternal argument of all conspirators. ~ William Henry Harrison

When you stop all thought, the battle is won. Everything is still and peaceful. You will come to see the eternal voidness of all things. You will see that nothing is, really. ~ Frederick Lenz

The leaves did not stir on the trees, cicadas twanged, and the monotonous muffled sound of the sea that rose from below spoke of the peace, the eternal sleep awaiting us. So it rumbled below when there was no Yalta, no Oreanda here; so it rumbles now, and it will rumble as indifferently and as hollowly when we are no more. And in this constancy, in this complete indifference to the life and death of each of us, there lies, perhaps a pledge of our eternal salvation, of the unceasing advance of life upon earth, of unceasing movement towards perfection. Sitting beside a young woman who in the dawn seemed so lovely, Gurov, soothed and spellbound by these magical surroundings - the sea, the mountains, the clouds, the wide sky - thought how everything is really beautiful in this world when one reflects: everything except what we think or do ourselves when we forget the higher aims of life and our own human dignity. ~ Anton Chekhov

a life

a journey
a play
a sojourn

a challenge
a gift
a curse

a chance
a choice
a recess

a struggle
a stride
a voyage

a puddle
a stream
a sea

a pain
a pleasure
a penance

a prayer
a sport
a search

it's all about
living in an eternal presence,
in the moment,
right here and right now. ~ Chandrashekar

I was dead
I came alive
I was tears
I became laughter

All because of love
when it arrived
my temporal life
from then on
changed to eternal

Love said to me
you are not
crazy enough
you don't
fit this house

I went and
became crazy
crazy enough
to be in chains

Love said
you are not
intoxicated enough
you don't
fit the group

I went and
got drunk
drunk enough
to overflow
with light-headedness

Love said
you are still
too clever
filled with
imagination and skepticism

I went and
became gullible
and in fright
pulled away
from it all

Love said
you are a candle
attracting everyone
gathering every one
around you

I am no more
a candle spreading light
I gather no more crowds
and like smoke
I am all scattered now

Love said
you are a teacher
you are a head
and for everyone
you are a leader

I am no more
not a teacher
not a leader
just a servant
to your wishes

Love said
you already have
your own wings
I will not give you
more feathers

And then my heart
pulled itself apart
and filled to the brim
with a new light
overflowed with fresh life

Now even the heavens
are thankful t ~ Rumi

Some historians subsequently said that the twentieth century actually started in 1914, when war broke out, because it was first war in history in which so many countries took part, in which so many people died and in which airships and airplanes flew and bombarded the rear and towns and civilians, and submarines sunk ships and artillery could lob shells ten or twelve kilometers. And the Germans invented gas and the English invented tanks and scientists discovered isotopes and general theory of relativity, according to which nothing was metaphysical, but relative.And when Senegalese fusiliers first saw an airplane they thought it was a tame bird and one of the Senegalese soldiers cut a lump of flesh from a dead horse and threw it as far as he could in order to lure it away. And airships and airplanes flew through the sky and the horses were terribly frightened. And writers and poets endeavored to find new ways of expressing it best and in 1916 they invented Dadaism because everything seemed crazy to them. And in Russia they invented a revolution. And the soldiers wore around their neck or wrist a tag with their name and the number of their regiment to indicate who was who, and where to send a telegram of condolences, but if the explosion tore off their head or arm and the tag was lost, the military command would announce that they were unknown soldiers, and in most capital cities they instituted an eternal flame lest they be forgotten, because fire preserves the memory of some ~ Patrik Ouředník

One of the eternal mysteries of ballet is how untalented choreographers find backers for their work, and then find good dancers to perform in it. Is it irresistible charm? Chutzpah? Pure determination? Blackmail? Or are so many supposedly knowledgeable people just plain blind? ~ Robert Gottlieb

Life on earth may be limited, but grandchildren were the promise of the eternal. ~ Nancy Thayer

In Fyodor Dostoyevsky's great novel The Brothers Karamazov, there is a scene in which two people are talking about suffering. Ivan Karamazov is talking about there being any possibility that we can make sense of suffering, and here's what he says: "I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened."11 ~ Timothy Keller

We who are given the fullness of true Christianity are obliged to be working on ourselves, to be watching the signs of the times, and to be extremely joyful, as St. Paul is constantly saying: 'Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say: Rejoice!' (Phil. 4:4). We rejoice because we have something which all the death and corruption of this world cannot take away, that is, the eternal Kingdom of Jesus Christ. ~ Seraphim Rose

To me, Calvinism means the placing of the eternal God at the head of all things. ~ Charles Spurgeon

When in love or inspired,
An eternal kiss from the divine
Awaits us all. ~ Scott Hastie

Fathering imposed an obligation that was more than your money, your body, or your time, a presence neither physical nor measurable by clocks: open-ended, eternal, and invisible, like the commitment of gravity to the stars. ~ Michael Chabon

From Lehi's vision we learn that we must take hold of this safety railing-this iron rod, found alongside our individual straight and narrow path-and hold tight until we reach our ultimate goal of eternal life with our Heavenly Father. Nephi promises that those who hold fast to the iron rod"would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction" ~ Ann M. Dibb

[B]eyond hiding our need and neurotically pursuing self-esteem, there is a third way our neurotic anxiety about death interferes with love. And this is the darkest manifestation of all, as it makes us violent.

Because our worldview is the source of our significance and self-esteem, we want to defend it from the criticisms of out-group members. Those who are different from us implicitly or explicitly call into question the things we hold most dear, the cultural values that ground and shape the contours of our identity and self-esteem in the face of death. In this, out-group members become a source of anxiety, an existential threat. To cope with the anxiety, we rush to defend our worldview and become dogmatic, fundamentalist, and ideological in regard to our values, culture, and way of life. We embrace our worldview as unique and exceptional, as superior to other worldviews, which we deem inferior, mistaken, and even dangerous. This mindset begins the process in which out-group members are denigrated and eventually demonized, sowing the seeds of violence. The point to note here is how this violence is fueled by an underlying neurotic fear that the cultural projects that we've invested in and sacrificed for are not actually immortal, eternal, timeless, or immune to death. ~ Richard Beck

Hope is a gift of the Spirit. It is a hope that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the power of His Resurrection, we shall be raised unto life eternal and this because of our faith in the Savior. ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf

I wanna stay an eternal girlfriend. I want to have my boyfriend's children, but I don't think we need a piece of paper to regulate the game, and we don't have to go through the whole stress of a wedding and suffering to throw a good party. ~ Shakira

I have no philosophy, I have senses ...
If I speak of Nature it's not because I know what it is
But because I love it, and for that very reason,
Because those who love never know what they love
Or why they love, or what love is.
To love is eternal innocence,
And the only innocence is not to think . ~ Fernando Pessoa

The distance runner is mysteriously reconciling the separations of body and mind, of pain and pleasure, of the conscious and the unconscious. He is repairing the rent, and healing the wound in his divided self. He has found a way to make the ordinary extraordinary; the commonplace unique; the everyday eternal. ~ George Sheehan

Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know - and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance. It is better to know - even if the knowledge endures only for the moment that comes before destruction - than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and swinish lack of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder. That was the choice of Achilles, and it is mine, too. ~ Isaac Asimov

All existence for a man turned away from the eternal is but a vast mime under the mask of the absurd. Creation is the great mime ... it is itself an absurd phenomenon. ~ Albert Camus

For what are in reality the things we call 'Wisdom,' 'Virtue,' 'Heroism,' 'sublime hours,' and 'great moments of life,' but the moments when we have more or less issued forth from ourselves, and have been able to halt, be it only for an instant, on the step of one of the eternal gates whence we see that the faintest cry, the most colourless thought, and most nerveless gestures do not drop into nothingness; … ~ Maurice Maeterlinck

The Lord, creator of life, has given us information to act upon that is guaranteed by him to guide us to our goal of life eternal. ~ Elaine A. Cannon

We are not saying that final salvation is unconditional. It is not. We must meet the condition of faith, for example, in Christ in order to inherit eternal life. But faith is not a condition for election. Just the reverse. Election is a condition for faith. It is because God chose us before the foundation of the world that he purchases our redemption at the cross, and then gives us spiritual life through irresistible grace, and brings us to faith. ~ Christian Focus Publications