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This John-Roger article was originally published in the Movement Newspaper, March 1987.

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“If you want to realize your highest potential for joy and fulfillment, then you must pledge to yourself that, from this moment, you will become more and more aware of what you are doing now.” – John-Roger

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Those of us who are optimists recognize that the next good thing is always coming our way. If you want to be an optimist, if you want your energies to be lifting, if you want to realize your highest potential for joy and fulfillment, then you must pledge to yourself that, from this moment, you will become more and more aware of what you are doing now.

When you live in the now, you can bring yourself into full awareness of the moment. You bring yourself into awareness of your body. Should you be hanging up your clothes? If so, move your physical body to hang them up now. If you don’t, an hour later they will still be there, waiting to be done now.

Perhaps you have prayed for a better job. Maybe you can’t have that because your sloppiness is blocking you. If you can’t adequately handle your responsibilities now, how can you hope to handle greater responsibilities? So be aware of the responsibilities you have physically and fulfill those. Prepare yourself physically to complete what you say you will complete.

As you increase your awareness of now, look at the level of your emotions. You have no responsibility to past feelings or probable future feelings. Your responsibility is to now. All you need to do is accept your emotions in the moment, work within that present structure, and continually let go and move freely to the next moment. This method automatically handles past feelings as you always keep yourself up-to-date. It’s all now. No moment of awareness is not now.

To achieve an action that is fulfilling, that leads to joy, you need to match thoughts, feelings and physical response. When those three areas match, you act and the result is success. Failure often results if you attempt to act when all three areas are not in harmony. For example, in your inner dialog, your mind may say, “This seems right to do.” But if you act based upon the thought alone, you may find yourself isolated in your ivory tower someplace, holding back the things you don’t want to handle – putting out intellectual statements to justify your position, while feeling very insecure about the validity of that position.

A thought without a feeling is half-alive. For instance if a thought comes to you-“It would be a good idea to go back to school and get my degree” – check out the feeling level. You must have a feeling to match that thought. If you’re happy with your job and your present life style, you may find that the thought of going back to school creates funny feelings, maybe a little doubt, maybe a great deal of “butterflies” in the stomach. You could change the thought a little – “It would be a good idea to take a leave of absence from my job in six months and go back to school.” Check to see how that feels. “That feels better!” In six months, you check with your boss about the leave of absence, check out the present feeling level, and you may find that you now feel very good about going back to school. So you have a thought and a feeling to match it. Then you check out the physical level. The body says, “I can handle that change in lifestyle. In fact, that might be fun.” Now there is a match of thought, feeling and the physical response. And the action will probably be a clear one. You also have to consider Spirit, and if all other levels say “clear,” it’s generally clear with Spirit.

When you’ve checked all your levels, found them “clear” and then moved on your decision you may still have people come to you and say, “You stupid idiot, do you know what you’ve done!?” And your answer can be clearly, “Yes, I know what I’ve done. I thought about it for six months, felt about it for four weeks, moved on it physically, completed the new pattern and I’m clear with the action.” If they say, “Do you know you’re causing concern for a lot of people?” Your response might be, “No, I didn’t know that, but if people have concern, I will handle that as they bring it to me.” That way you remain true to yourself and your action; you remain responsible for yourself.

Once you act thoughtfully and in your fullest awareness, you are clearer. And if there are repercussions, you take responsibility for them and move on. That’s all you can do. There is no reason to feel uptight or guilty about any action you undertake if you have checked it out first and moved into it in awareness. You do what you can do based upon what you know, based upon what you feel, based upon where you are. And then you let it go and go on from there.

Living in the now means that you are involved in a continual process of receiving and integrating new information, of recognizing new and changing emotional states, of shifting physical states and of making new decisions based upon new responses. You work the new wisdoms. You modify your behavior. You bring your experience forward, snap into gear and move forward in your success.

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WATCH A MOMENT OF PEACE WITH JOHN-ROGER THAT BRINGS US PRESENT IN THE NOW