The Present
Copyright 2023 By David Masters

INTRODUCTION
When was the last time you really loved your life and felt that Life is overflowing with awe-inspiring moments? Do you fret over the 1 percent of a situation you can't control and overlook the 99 percent that is within your control? Are you sleepwalking right past life’s most important moments resenting them? "No matter what happens in life, you have to make something wonderful out of it." This book “The Present” will show you how to reverse the counterintuitive emotional domino effect as you learn to “Love, rather than hate your Stress” The intuitive path of moment-based awareness will inspire you to let go of anger and appreciate the challenges of everyday life. Right now, you don’t realize there are blessings inherent in all things. Your task is to find these blessings through the right attitude that makes all the difference between a life filled with misery, and a life filled with joy and abundance. Our thoughts and emotions can get us well and keep us well, or get us sick and keep us sick— Ancient wisdom and modern science describe the inherent link between mind and body and described scientific research that demonstrates the effect of thoughts and feelings on our physical health. Our thoughts and feelings affect us far more deeply than anyone even imagines. They affect all aspects of our lives: our health, relationships, and even finances. What I come across most often in my work is the impact that thoughts and feelings have on health and relationships. Negative thoughts and unexpressed feelings can create energy blockages, which become the birthplace of toxic feelings and disease. Our medical and mainstream culture doesn't readily support being in touch with our emotions, especially ones that are deemed to be negative. Many of us spend our lives not even knowing how we feel, let alone being able to express feelings. Instead, we may medicate ourselves or escape into various activities to avoid feeling uncomfortable feelings. Workaholism, food, alcohol, addiction to exercise, dependence on pharmaceuticals, and relationships are some of the ways we can avoid knowing what our feelings are really communicating to ourselves.
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Feelings are our natural gauges. Anger, sadness, fear, and whatever you are feeling, are sensitive instruments for knowing what is happening within us. It's what we do in response to our various feeling states that can become either liberating or harmful to us. Keeping uncomfortable feelings inside and even negatively releasing them can make us sick. When we learn to become present the natural result is that we instinctively begin to observe our feelings, and "just watch" them, which triggers an automatic release mechanism rather than keeping them stuck inside our emotions which ultimately debilitates our bodies. In the present, our ultimate potential is unleashed and we can then harness the amazing inherent power that each one of us holds. "We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them." "Authentic happiness is always independent of external conditions. Vigilantly practice indifference to external conditions. Your happiness can only be found within." "Events themselves are impersonal and indifferent. When considering the future, remember that all situations unfold as they do re- regardless of how we feel about them. Our hopes and fears sway us, not events themselves." Epictetus (55 AD -135 AD) Any stress, no matter how extreme is really not the enemy rather it is the mirror through which you discover your own lack of knowing, denial, or weakness. Stress is an ongoing test of who you are, what you are, and depending on your attitude at the moment, what you can be. Without stress, there can be now growth. Resenting stress we seek various states of comfort and sanctuary. For those who succeed in escaping there is only stagnation and decline into nonexistence due to the lack of immeasurable degrees of vital stimulus stress provides that compels us to grow, change and adapt to become the grandest version of the highest self we can potentially be. Sure, stress can be agonizing and painful, but our hatred of it is what gives it ultimate power over us. It’s time to stop hating “stress” and take a rest. I was a big fan of the 1973 TV show “Kung Fu” because of the deep philosophical values that were demonstrated in each episode. 'Kung Fu', set in the 1870s, follows the quest of Kwai Chang Caine, the offspring of a Chinese-American marriage.
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Told with the use of flashbacks, the adult Caine recalls how orphaned as a boy in China, he waited outside a monastery with several other 5 young boys to be taken in by the monks, before being admitted as a student to the Shaolin Temple. Here he is guided by his mentors, the blind Master Po and Master Kan, and eventually becomes a Shaolin priest himself. It is also through these flashbacks we see how he learned his philosophy on life, and how he learned his martial arts skills. After leaving the Temple at the end of his studies, Kwai Chang bumps into his beloved favorite teacher Master Po, who gets into an altercation with the emperor’s nephew and is killed. In a blind rage, totally against all he has been taught, Kwai Chang kills the emperor’s nephew in revenge and is forced to flee China. He then travels to America in search of his half-brother, Danny, but is pursued by Chinese bounty hunters who are after the $10,000 reward that is being offered for his capture. Thus begins a journey that not only takes him across the Old West but also through the light and dark areas of his soul. Whilst trying to find his brother, Caine constantly finds a conflict between his desire for peace and tranquility and the rampant social injustice that he encounters. Through his journey, he remembers the lessons and philosophy Po & Kan taught him and uses them in dealing with the problems and prejudices he faces. He's silent and lives by humility, patience, peace, and reverence for all life. He's a low-key, almost a side-line observer of the cruelty heaped on the workers. But he survives on inner strengths. In each episode, Caine would have to move on in his search for his brother (and at the same time for himself) as well as divulge his philosophy to those he comes into contact with. Caine: I seek not to know the answers, but to understand the questions.
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Master Po: "If you plant rice, rice will grow, if you plant fear, fear will grow."

I remember taking deep inspiration as a 19-year-old from the show. Then, as now I saw a distinction between Caine and the characters he was often in a dire situation with Caine ALWAYS remaining calm while others gave into fear and anxiety. In the final outcome, it was clear that a state of calm provided a clear perspective and yielded fruitful answers to complex dilemmas, while reactions and emotionalism resulted in hopelessness and morbid expectations. Recent news from the Mayo Clinic clearly demonstrates the tremendous pressures on members of the financial communities. Not only are their 6 assets unraveling but their sense of self-worth and identity is unraveling. “We now understand that there is no such thing as mind/body separation. Spiritual thinkers over thousands of years have told us that as we think so we become” says the report. By taking care of ourselves physically and acknowledging that the essence of stress is a sense of powerlessness and a sense of being out of control, what we can control are our thoughts and our beliefs.” The research continues: “To ruminate over events about which we have no control can certainly set us up for all sorts of physical problems. A figure commonly quoted in the medical literature is that approximately 70 percent to 80 percent of patients seeking care from primary care physicians or internists have conditions either caused by or worsened by stress. What happens on Wall Street certainly affects those of us on Main Street.” What is always under assault by stress is our sense of self! Because who we are is invested in what we have for a sense of well-being and security. There exists a complex mix of belief systems (BS) inside of each person, a kind of mental/emotional/spiritual DNA that makes up who you are. Essentially, what you believe + why you believe combined with past conditioning is what makes you unique... This is what makes you...you. Everyone has the potential to be an extraordinary person.
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But, but allowing stress to affect your mental/spiritual being you are depleted of unique “specialness” moment by moment because you haven’t learned to control your response to the pressures in your environment, to challenge irritations and millions of little stressors that impact you negatively, thus causing impulses to do things that you could otherwise control. Reacting means you lose the path of the present that unfolds the know-how of being your original, authentic self one thought at a time! By staying focused in the present, each moment you become an expression of the higher self and discover what it means to become the true you. Living the gift of the present means learning to find your center, being objective, and having the strength to carry through no matter how painful or challenging the moment is. Being present means no outcome-based thinking, not letting anything that you want, any person, or pressure determine what your principles will be, or where your moral compass will point. Stress and peace are quintessential opposing spiritual components of life: The Yin to the Yang.

Where there is no temptation, there can be little claim to virtue.
- William Prescott

This is why the word stress in the human sense is almost always associated with loss and suffering, taken to mean that we are at some level victims of countless thousands of situations, circumstances, experiences, conditions, and various mental/physical and emotional states that seemingly terrorize and punish us for no apparent reason. But look below the surface of the way we react and you will discover the personal components of ego, blame, and judgment. These mental/spiritual weaknesses that are the core of why stress has such an impact. In other words, we have personalized our conflict with virtually all forms of stress. We have all given “stress” power, strength and. We have virtualized a relationship with stress and endowed it with mystical powers that drain us of precious life and thwart our dreams and desires for happiness. But, stress in and of itself isn’t really the monster we believe it to be. Stress once comprehended to be a challenge for personal growth, is really an event horizon - a mysterious path that can lead us out of bondage and misery and into paradise on earth... once you choose to stop blaming, and begin owning our responses to life’s challenges, many of which are based in trauma, anger, and fear. Before you come over into the NOW present, you will never stop needing something, anything to blame for your own lack of ability to recognize that you are affected by stress (problems beyond our control) because you lack presence. A horrific example: In September of 2008 new data from a public health registry that tracks the health effects of 9/11 suggest that as many as 70,000 people in New York alone may have developed post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the terrorist attacks.
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CHAPTER-1

THE “PRESENT”
RECEIVE THE GIFT OF UNLIMITED ABUNDANCE! 
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
                                                          Albert Einstein

Yesterday is history, and tomorrow is a mystery, but today, in the here and now life is a gift... That is why it is called “the present.” The present is a gift of unlimited joy that is waiting for you. Reach for it right now, step across a cosmic line that separates you from the present, and accept a new perspective that endows you with life’s gifts of unimaginable proportions. I assume you are at that amazing place where you are saying “I want a better life.” Then come forward, and leave behind all that is troubling you, all that is painful, everything that has any negative influence over you. Contained in the present is total abundance. You already have the key to ultimate happiness... It is your deep yearning for true personal freedom. The present is omniscient – the presence here already has all the answers to your many questions... truer answers, better ways. Stop worrying, and let go of every attachment to outcomes. The truth is that, right now, in this present moment it doesn’t matter how much pain you feel, have caused or been through, or how many people you have hurt, or been hurt by. You don’t need to look ahead to see what is going to happen or look back for old references. Put everything you want and don’t want aside right now and realize that the past and future are keeping you from receiving the present. What has happened, or what will happen doesn’t matter at this moment because past/future is entirely beyond your control. But there is one thing you can control: The choice to be right here, right now. To experience pure joy and ultimate freedom simply receive and embrace the present. It’s your choice.
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If you are ready, the simple principles that I will lay out can transform your life and liberate you from bad habits, anxiety, guilt, and fear. All you have to do is understand one basic concept that will grow like a mustard seed into an amazing tree filled with cosmic and liberating fruits...

THE BEGINNING PRINCIPLE OF CHANGE
Most people believe stress is the main problem in their lives. However, as long as you see stress as the problem you will never know that it is how you allow it to affect you that is the real reason you are stressed out, overreactive, angry, and often overwhelmed! Stress in and of itself is benign. The truth is that is not really bad, or bad for you. Stress is actually very useful, healthy, and important for many reasons. You may not realize it, but we all need stress to live. Biologically, humans would become human vegetables without stress because of the numerous forms of necessary stimulus it provides. The real problem stems from a lack of knowledge about why stress affects us so negatively. The secret of total mastery over stress is so very simple: If you could step back for just a split second and observe your response to any form of stress, in that very moment everything could change. Unfortunately, most of us will spend our entire lives being slaves to stress. Why? Here is the first and most im- important clue:

Once we react improperly (angrily or resentfully) to stress in any form it begins to control us.

Dealing properly with stress is very easy when you know how. It is done by the use of a simple concentration technique I call an observation exercise, which helps you to take on a new or "NOW" perspective toward each event or experience, thus allowing you to become immune to the effects of virtually every form of stress. It is being OBJECTIVE rather than subjective. It is the most empowering experience you can have. The unknown factor behind why we always succumb to stress has mainly to do with one very significant emotion: "resentment" or anger. Can you honestly say that you are free from little impulsive sparks of anger or resentment? Naturally, everybody gets angry from time to time right? Some people are more so than others. Now, can you 10 agree that there are constant pressures around us all the time that are attempting to push our buttons in subtle ways we often do not even notice? You know, those little tiny things that can set you off and ruin your day, and sometimes your life: whether it's pressure from a deadline, an obligation, a personal relationship, or work. For example, let's say you're in a grocery store, it's the end of the day and you're going through the long checkout line and you are really tired. Now, this particular cashier has (unknown to you) had a fight with her husband earlier that morning and now she's got an attitude. This is all you need at the end of your day.
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You've already had your own tough day and there you are waiting in line trying to check out, and this cashier is being rude and impatient, and she clearly doesn't give a damn about you... and her lousy attitude starts to get to you. Now, here's a perfect case-in-point about stress: Examine the conditions: you are tired, the checker is rude and the moment is ripe with potential. Two different outcomes are possible at this juncture. #1- You either react, get upset, and get into an argument with the checker (in which case people see you as a jerk), or: #2- You just step back and observe her. In which case, no matter what she says or does it doesn't bother you, in fact once conscious of a choice in dealing with the situation you are even capable of having some compassion for this unfortunate person. Do you see how once objectively removed from reacting you might contribute to a solution rather than a problem? You might say; "You seem really stressed right now; you must be having a rough day. I've had days like that... do you want to know a little secret about how I deal with days like this? I just pretend that I am watching a bad movie." It is amazing how people can be affected by a non-reactive or positive suggestion at a time of distress.

YOUR PERSPECTIVE CHANGES THE OUTCOME
The key is this: Let's just agree for the sake of this lesson that the cashier can't help being negative. Because she was affected by the conflict with her husband she has unknowingly taken what I call the "hot potato." If you don’t take it who has it?

Principle #1- The minute you become affected by any negative external stimulus, someone who's impatient, or any kind of stimulus that you might think of as negative, it's like taking a hot potato from someone. And what is the result? You get emotionally burned. Why do we take the "hot potato?"

Because you have un-consciously or impulsively agreed to take a problem that belongs to someone else that you did not have to take on or accept. If you go to a restaurant and get a lousy waiter or waitress, that person's attitude can ruin your meal and your day. You are there to unwind and have a good time. You want to relax, but here's somebody who's just throwing negative vibes at you and either abusing or neglecting you. Now, step back for one second. Look at how this person’s negativity upsets and disturbs your state of mind. Do you see how little tiny irritations have the power to knock you right out of your center and begin to ruin your attitude? It is important to understand that stress does one thing equally to every human being; It challenges you. It puts you on the spot. You know what I'm talking about. It happens perhaps dozens if not hundreds of times daily.

Principle #2- All forms of stress require of you something that you may not have: Patience. Principle #3- When you are irritated by anything you are knocked out of your center. Why? Because in the very moment, you are affected by the source of the irritation, as you react, you give control of yourself over to the source as if it had authority or power over your attitude. You allow it to gain control over you as you lose objectivity.
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Almost invariably, just seconds before you have an experience with a pressure source, you are lost in thought. Perhaps about what you want to do, or don't want to do. You may be thinking about what you're going to wear out to dinner, your kids, or you may be thinking about the problems you're having. The point is you are lost somewhere in your head and you're probably immersed in some level of thought and this is why you are at a disadvantage. Because unless you are aware and consciously in the moment when you encounter a pressure source you are not going to be ready for it because you are off-guard. Here is another example: Let’s say you are sitting in your living room or anywhere not doing anything. Suddenly you notice thoughts streaming into your mind (this happens to everybody).

HOW TO KILL RESENTMENT
Resentment definition: Resentment is a complex, multi-layered emotion that has been described as a mixture of disappointment, anger, and fear. It can be triggered by an emotionally disturbing experience felt again or relived in the mind, and is a compound emotion elicited in the face of insult and/or injury. Resentment, or the strong and painful bitterness you feel when someone does something wrong to you, doesn't have actual physical weight, but it feels very heavy and can last a long time.

FORGIVENESS THROUGH OBJECTIVITY KILLS RESENTMENT.
From Old French resentir "feel again, feel in turn" (13c.), from re-, here perhaps an intensive prefix (see re-), + sentir "to feel," from Latin sentire "to feel, think" word-forming element meaning "back, back from, back to the original place;" also "again, anew, once more," also conveying the notion of "undoing" or "backward," etc., c. 1200, from Old French re- and directly from Latin re- an in- separable prefix meaning "again; back; anew, against." The many meanings in the notion of "back" give re- its broad sense range: "a turning back; opposition; restoration to a former state; "transition to an opposite state." From the extended senses in "again," re- becomes "repetition of an action." According to Watkins and others, this is from a PIE root *sent- "to go."
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RELEASING THE PAST 
Resentment toward common circumstances awakens old programmed behaviors. For example, you may resent someone wearing a belt buckle that reminds you of the beating you got from your father, so you become guilty of hating an innocent person -- just like your judgmental parent was with you. And so resentment and guilt compound upon themselves all the way back to where it all began. It’s like being traumatized all over again, but worse. In the light of this, be on the alert for resentment; see it as the main cause of whatever it is that got inside. Whenever something upsets you, no matter what the reason, new programming enters while all the old behaviors are reinforced; tripping over the cat will work nicely. The reinforcement of your conditioning doesn’t even need a similar circum- stance; any annoyance that arouses resentment will do. Every problem established by resentment is continuously reinforced by it. Resentment is the angry evidence of a frustrated will. If God's will is also your own, there would be no cause to frustrate. But since you are willful and outcome-based, disappointment will cause resentment and that frustration destroys.

A prime example is a resentful mother who feels trapped in her marriage. Of course, it is not the kids’ fault that she made a bad choice. Nevertheless, the children are to blame, so she turns her entire anger upon them. When hate later turns to guilt, she tries to relieve her pain with begrudging love, which of course, does not have the same effect as the joy of real love. Pause for a moment; you will see that suffering increases at the extremes of pain and pleasure. Anger becomes the pain of conscience, as does pleasure that denies redemption. Somehow, you must find what you keep missing -- that calm eternal center where God waits. Since the reason for every addiction is the pain of a troubled conscience, it follows that were you to accept the forgiveness of God, then the pain of conscience would be instantly removed as well as the need for every kind of excess.

Permanent forgiveness requires the forgiven soul to pay its forgiveness forward, as in, "Forgive us as we forgive those who trespass against us...and do to others what you would have them do unto you." At this point, perhaps you can see that the sustaining energy of unforgiving secret judgment is continuous resentment. Conversely, the
forgiveness of past judgments lies only through enduring patience. Forbear to resent daily cruelties with patient love and you and your family will be blessed and sustained in the truth that will set you free. Every day we are actually depleting our inner battery literally draining their own life force. Stress is a constant. Pressure is a constant. But the other more important constant is your unrecognized capacity and your ability to confront it 14 with the spiritual power of objectivity. Right now, you are not in control because you are the consistent effect of a cause. Reacting is doing the same thing over and over producing the same result. The only way you're going to get to this powerful mental state is to learn a principle, having to do with the word "resentment." Resentment is anger disguised as a perfect justification for why you feel like a victim. Watch or observe every internal disturbance as it starts to form and resentment will retreat from manifesting as a reaction to an external condition.
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We all have a proclivity to set goals to make things happen in our lives. But the moment you set a goal you are unknowingly creating pressure on yourself, from your- self. This is when you are the most susceptible to stress. Because every little thing that begins to get in the way of your accomplishing goals becomes a source of irritation. It becomes an impediment; a wall. Well, here is a fact: Every day there are innumerable little irritations or impediments that get in the way of what you want and prevent you from experiencing the results that you desire.

Thus, we begin to experience another keyword - "frustration."

How often do you feel frustrated? ALL THE TIME... Learn to be objective, pull back, stop reacting, being resentful, being angry about the little tiny irritations that rob you of energy all day long. When you learn to stand back, take a deep breath, and relax, at this point, you begin to have a whole new perspective and feel a sense of personal power - Real power to kill resentment. And do you know what that real power is? I'll say it again. You don't have control over most of the things that happen to you in your life. You don't have control over the traffic, the taxes, and the people that you're involved with or much of anything at all.

But you do have control over one thing, and that is how you respond to it. How you will deal with it.

Learn to objectively keep what is going on outside of you from penetrating you... this is when you are in control. The moment-to-moment practice of meditation: being patient, objective, and process-based is much more profound than it seems. It is not just a psychological stress-reduction technique or coping mechanism. Rather, it is faith in action. And when you have faith in yourself, you are free from the influences of those forces that will otherwise control you. FACT: you don't have control over most of the things that happen to you in your life. You don't have control over the traffic, the taxes, and the people that you're involved with or much of anything at all. But you do have control over one thing, and that is how you respond to it. How you will deal with it. Objectivity keeps what is going on outside of you from penetrating you... this is when you are in control. First, you become aware of yourself responding. Then by virtue of the fact that you are unmoved or unaffected by any pressure source you are confronting, you are capable of positively dealing with every situation in a truly positive way. That is power... real power.
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