It has existed in its perfect state from the very beginning of time.

It is an invisible world waiting eternally to be discovered.

It is God’s world. Heaven on Earth.

It is a world of extraordinary beauty.

A world of wonder and amazement. A magical world.

It is a world which is Timeless. Eternal. Perfect.

It is a living world that reaches out and relates to you every moment.

The trees, the flowers, the birds, the animals and even the insects
are all experienced as loving friends sharing this perfect world with you.

Everything is experienced as a Living Presence, a divine expression of God.

This world I speak of is the body of God.

It is not a world of the imagination. It is absolutely real. It is here now.

It is hidden within the world you know. It is hidden within the world you live in.

And the doorway is within you. In a sense, you are the doorway.


~Leonard Jacobson

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~Leonard Jacobson

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You radiate love in the same way that a candle flame radiates light and it has nothing to do with who or what you love. Humanity has become hopelessly lost in love. We lose ourselves in the object of our love and in the process, we lose ourselves. We disconnect from the source of the love, which exists at the very center of our Being. Then we feel a certain kind of emptiness, because we have moved away from the center. We are afraid of the emptiness, and so we relentlessly pursue love outside of ourselves. We want to be loved. We fall in love. We lose ourselves in the object of the love, which takes us further from the center. Eventually, we become so lost in the pursuit of love and all the hope, pain, fear and attachments associated with it, that we can no longer be present. And if we cannot be present, we cannot find our way back to the source of the love, which is at the very center within us.

The truth is that if you love anyone or anything, it simply means that you are love. The one you are loving in the moment might be lovable, but the source of the love is always within you. If another loves you, do not take it too personally. It simply means that the other is love. If I am present and I am love, and you are present and you are love, then why do I need you to love me? Why do you need me to love you? The truth is that we do not need to be loved, for if we are present, we are love. So let us hold hands, and gaze together upon this wondrous world with love.

Love everything. Love the dogs. Love the children. Love the trees. Love your wife or husband. But remember it is because you are love.

~Leonard Jacobson

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There is a tendency to project the source of truth onto another. This often happens in our relationship with the teacher and it acts as a barrier to true awakening.

One Thursday evening, at one of my teaching sessions in Corte Madera, Laura raised her hand to speak. She is an earnest young woman who had recently attended one of my five-day residential retreats.

“I feel confused,” she said. “A part of me wants to give myself over to you completely. I can feel devotion arising within me. But another part of me feels afraid. I do not trust you and I want to run from you.”

“That is perfectly natural,” I replied. “When someone is very present with you, it is a beautiful experience. It is the most perfect gift we can share with each other. It is appropriate that you would feel love for me. But the danger is that you will project the source of that love onto me, and that you will lose yourself in your devotion.”

She confessed that she had done this with a guru she had been with several years ago.

“There are many people on this planet who happily encourage your projections and are supported by your devotion. They want you to give yourself over to them and it is not surprising that mistrust should arise as a byproduct of your devotion.”

I paused for a while to allow my words to be absorbed.

“A true teacher will not allow you to project the source of love onto him. He or she will be very skilled at reflecting the love back to you, until you recognize that the love you feel is arising within you, and that you are the source of the love. A true teacher will insist that you reclaim all your projections, both positive and negative. A true teacher will not allow you to lose yourself in devotion.”

I could see that she was relaxing.

“What are you feeling in this moment?” I asked.

“I am feeling very present,” she replied quietly. “And I am feeling very intense love for you.”

“That is beautiful,” I told her. “It is only natural that you would feel love for me if you are very present with me. Just as I feel love for you. Now turn from me and be present with these flowers.”

She turned and was very present with the flowers on the table next to me.

“What are you feeling now?” I asked her.

She looked quite radiant as she responded.

“I am feeling very intense love for the flowers.”

“Good,” I said. “And if you were to behold the distant mountain, you would feel love for that.   When you are present, you are love and everything that you are present with reflects that love to you.”

~Leonard Jacobson - Journey into Now

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One such example is Ramana Maharshi. When Ramana awakened, he did not participate in the world of time. He remained in the silence and an ashram developed around him. That is the beauty of India. The Indian culture allows for one to enter into that fully awakened state and remain there. They know how to respond to one who is fully awakened.

But it is time for many more of us to awaken. Enlightenment can no longer be for just a select few, who do not participate in the world. If there is to be an awakening at a collective level, we will have to find a balance between the timelessness of the fully awakened state and the world of time. This means that we must master the art of moving easily between those two dimensions.

To do so, we must know that the present moment is the truth of life. We must know that everything outside of this moment is illusory in nature and so we no longer believe in any of it as true. We must recognize that life at the level of mind is simply play. It is sometimes happy and sometimes sad, because it is a world of duality. We relax and accept the dual nature of life within time. We are no longer for or against anything. We have transcended judgment. Life is accepted fully and so too is death. Joy is accepted fully and so too is pain. But we are so deeply grounded in the moment of now, that we no longer get caught in the movements of the mind and its world of thought and emotion. We are no longer identified with the story unfolding within the world of time. We are no longer defined by that story. We are deeply grounded in Oneness. We can move easily into time and the world of thought, and we are able to return to silence and Presence at will. In fact, silence and Presence are always there as the foundation of our existence, even when we consciously choose to venture into the world of the mind.

-Leonard Jacobson

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