The Now is what you are experiencing right now, in the present moment. Thoughts are probably part of what you are experiencing, but thoughts and the feelings that arise from thoughts are only part of the Now. Much more is going on in real life. The experience of the moment feels more real and is more real than thought, which is simply thinking about experience. Thoughts about something lack the juiciness and aliveness of pure experience. They take us into a virtual reality, so to speak, and out of reality.

That wouldn't be a problem if that virtual reality didn't belong to the ego and if being involved in it didn't take us away from the experience of our true nature and its qualities: love, compassion, peace, joy, acceptance, clarity, contentment, and wisdom. The trade-off for being in the ego's virtual reality is pretty dear. We lose touch not only with the peace and contentment of our true self, but also with the flow, with where the present moment, this life, is going.

If evil were behind life, this would be a sad world, indeed. As bad as it can get here, there are probably few people that feel that evil is what is behind this world. Certainly few want evil to be behind this world, and that’s a good sign. Something in us wants and gravitates toward goodness, not evil. Negativity tugs at us and even grabs hold of us at times, but something else continually pulls us toward the opposite, toward love.

Just as darkness is the absence of light, evil is the absence of love. Evil isn’t a reality itself but the result of the absence of contact with Reality, with what is true—love. Evil is the result of being divorced from our true nature, being very, very divorced, so divorced that someone might not even believe in love because he or she has so much fear and so much difficulty feeling love. Such deep separation is a frightening and lost place.

The lifestyle of most Americans isn't conducive to awakening, either to becoming awake or staying awake. It's designed to attain the ego's goals: money, power, status, comfort, pleasure, beauty, possessions, and security. Our American culture gives lip service to other values, such as love, kindness, and togetherness, but the ego's values come first.

In our culture, we see what the ego wants as necessary. We don't think we will survive or be happy unless we achieve a certain level of power, comfort, security, and material wellbeing. The sense of needing such things is very deeply ingrained, so much so that we often don't question our devotion to these goals. If we do question these values, we run into opposition and fears from others, who sincerely believe we won't be happy or survive without putting the ego's values first.

We all have an ego that naturally distrusts life, but some people’s egoic minds are more negative and distrusting than others. For them, trust is an issue that deeply colors their existence and often limits their potential for happiness. This distrust has usually been caused by childhood experiences. Emotional, sexual, and physical abuse and neglect are the most obvious circumstances that undermine trust. But a number of other things can also affect a child’s trust in himself or herself, others, and life, such as a difficult birth, a traumatic injury, illness, surgery, a family crisis, a divorce, the death of or a serious injury to a parent, poverty, or even an unstable or a busy household or inconsistencies in parenting.

When we are growing up, we draw conclusions, some conscious and some unconscious, about ourselves, others, and life that affect how we see and respond to the world thereafter. Difficult experiences in childhood usually result in negative and limiting conclusions, while good experiences and nurturing parents results in confidence, good self-esteem, and trust in ourselves, others, and life.