Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast, brought to you in part by Book of Zen, makers of wearable inspiration for a better world. Today’s podcast has been edited and adapted from How to Stay Young by Christian D. Larson, published in 1906…

The forces of the mind will create and express every quality or condition that is held in consciousness. This is one of the most important of all metaphysical laws, because it is principally through this law that you determine what your personal life is to be.

A true conception of time is extremely important in placing the mind in the proper attitude towards the laws that govern your being; and this true conception is based upon the principle that time IS. Time neither comes nor goes. It is the movements of nature that come and go, not time. What we call time is but the now of eternity, and this now is eternally in the now; therefore there can be no passing of time.

It is only in the now that you can live. You can live neither in the past nor in the future. You may think of the past or the future, but you can live only in the now. To train the mind to concentrate the whole of attention upon the great eternal now is to develop the consciousness of the “isness” of the now, and to consciously feel that its purpose is to eliminate the consciousness of age completely.

It is not possible for the mind to feel that it is growing old, so long as it feels that it lives in the now, and that the now is. The now is eternal; that is, the now eternally is now. The now never ceases to be now; therefore to live in the now is to continue to be now, what you are now.

It is possible for you to grow and develop in the NOW, but you will never pass OUT of the now, because the now is eternal. You should affirm to yourself: “I am not passing with time, because time does not pass. Time is. I am living in the now, and the now continues eternally to be the now. I am living and growing now, but I am not passing towards age. There is no age, and I do not pass. I am.”

When you develop the “I Am” consciousness, you will attain the realization of what you are now. You will discern that your present nature is limitless in possibility, and that the conscious possession of more and more of the richness of your nature will come, not from more and more years of development, but from more and more present realization.

You will discern that you may accomplish whatever you have in mind by perpetually increasing your present realization of what is latent in your nature. You will not look to the future for greater attainments, but to the growth of the present. And thus you will concentrate the whole of your attention upon the now.

To live in the realization of the now, with no direct thought of the past or the future, is to eliminate from mind the “passing of time” attitude. And when this attitude is removed, the consciousness of age will disappear completely. To perpetuate the youthful energy that nature is producing now, live in the eternal now, and know that you are young now.

Know that the youth producing process in your system is eternal, and that you therefore will always be young no matter how long you may live. To live in the great eternal now is to give the whole of your attention to the work of the present moment. It is to recognize neither past nor future. It is to think neither of what has been nor what is to be. It is to live, think, and act only for what can be lived, thought, and attained now.

To live in the great eternal now is to act upon the principle that it is only what we do now that determines results. The past is gone. It concerns us no more. And since the future will be the natural outcome of the present, the more perfectly we live for the present, the greater will the future be.

There is no time but the now; and the now does not pass away. Therefore there is no passing of time. All time IS, and in that time you always ARE. The heavenly bodies, in their movements, do not record the passing of time, neither do they measure time. They simply record their own speed as they move in the great eternal now. They simply measure the changing distances between their own changing positions, as they move about the great center of life during the great eternal now.

The universe is not passing away. Some parts are only moving around other parts, and these parts are moving around still other parts, that in turn move around something else. All is motion, but all motion is in circles. The universe is eternally where it is, eternally moving in circles where it is, thoroughly and eternally alive, and all taking place during the eternal now.

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