Blind Reason

At this point, it should be obvious that it isn't that is the problem - it's how people use it or interpret it. Any major religion has the truth within it, but so often it becomes distorted through the ignorance of the common man. Faith becomes something that involves no spiritual or mystical experience at all, and that the beliefs are used to make others wrong. If any of us were to pick up one of the holy books, we would find that modern beliefs are only an interpretation of them and aren't necessarily true. Our responsibility is to bring logic into our religious and spiritual beliefs, because without that, it becomes blind reasoning.

Richard Dawkins has a documentary showing the "Root of All Evil" within religions, and even though he hasn't destroyed religion or spirituality itself, he has pointed out all of the strange things that people believe in. There was a principal of this school where every page of the student's textbooks had the words "Jesus" or "God" on them. The principal said that Divine Law is nothing if it didn't come from God. Dawkins, being an atheist, pointed out that we can have reasonable laws without them coming from a divine source, but the principal said he would be happy to break the Ten Commandments if God said not to do them. He wasn't even able to understand why God or Moses said not to do those things. If we kill, for example, we know that isn't a desirable thing to do because of all the hatred, fear, guilt, and pain that is involved on the killer's side. We know that hatred must be involved to intentionally kill someone, and hatred never feels good, even though we might be addicted to expressing it.

I also looked up what different religions think of forgiveness, and certain people within these different religions act a certain way because of how they interpret what their holy books say to do. For example, some Jews will not forgive others unless the debtor says sorry for doing what they did, and that is their only reasoning for forgiving. Some Christians forgive because they believe that God will forgive them for forgiving. Both of these reasonings are based on their interpretations of their holy scriptures. However, a Buddhist said, "If we haven’t forgiven, we keep creating an identity around our pain, and that is what is reborn. That is what suffers." This reasoning comes from experience and not religious interpretations, and is completely outside the fact that the man who said it was a Buddhist. This is only an observation that anyone can make, which uses logic for reasoning.

I noticed that some religious reasoning sounds a lot like what commercials do. We have commercials that say, "This is a great offer,"and this is enough to convince people to buy or use what is being commercialized. We should use our reasoning and find out why we should really do something, not because someone says so. People focus on what religions say is bad or good without considering it themselves. How are we to know when statements are reasonable if we only have blind reasoning?

What is God?

What is God? This is perhaps the most important question of all. Most people today just believe in God with their mind and reasoning, but haven't experienced Him. And if we haven't experienced Him directly, how are we supposed to know what He is like? How are we supposed to know if He really exists?

Something I have noticed about people's opinion of the afterlife with God's judgement is very black and white; very negative. It's either eternal hell for not believing in Him or eternal Heaven for believing in Him. They perceive God as someone who will smash your face into the floor if you have fallen to the ground or carry you to the top of the mountain because you took the first step. This view of God is one that depicts Him as being worse than man, and obviously worse than His Son, expressed through Jesus Christ. Is that possible? Can God's creation be greater than God Himself?

The view of God that must be banished from the minds of all men is that God is unforgiving. He is really much more than that. Not only is he forgiving, but he is so forgiving that He never holds grievances of any kind. He sees no sin, not even for an instant. He is Love, Light, Perfection, Bliss, Joy, etc. He never abandons us; it is only we that abandon Him. He is eternal, unchanging, and constantly the Highest Perfection.

What is wrong with Christian dogma is that it makes views of God that bring fear, hate, pride, guilt, and negativity. "I'm right and I'm going to Heaven, but he's wrong and will burn in hell." They have that grin of pride, being a "man of God." Don't we remember that that Jesus said, "Judge not, that you be not judged?" This means that by judging others, you inevitably judge yourself. The inverse is the same as well: if you feel like a sinner, guilty, and afraid of being sent to hell, you will see everything else the same way. This is the sickness of the mind that must be abandoned if we want to know God.

How do we know who's right? Which view is correct? It is impossible to find the right view through a concept of God - it can only be found through experience. We must quiet the mind in order to do so. Get rid of all emotions and thoughts from your ego, since it isn't really you. We have made up our reality and have forgotten God. Remember these quotes: "I AM THAT I AM," and "Be still, and know that I AM God." God is not found in the mind, and neither in the past or future. He is the Now, the Absolute Presence. You will not find Him if you aren't present. "Be still" means to stop activity of all kinds: physical, emotional, and mental. That is the only way you will find the spiritual. When you reach the point where you feel His Presence, His vibrational energy throughout your body, you no longer need to worry about what will happen after you die. You will already know.

From there, you will acknowledge as well that the One God in all religions is the same, formless God, and He isn't really male or female because he doesn't take any form. He is the Absolute, and is known as God, Brahman, Allah, Jehovah, Ahura Mazda, YHWH, and so much more.

God-Consciousness and Personalities

What the world needs to understand about our spiritual masters like Jesus, Buddha, and Krishna, is that they are all different personalities, but they are all at the same level of consciousness. The Christ-consciousness, Buddhic-consciousness, and Krishna-consciousness are identical. When Jesus said, "he who believes in Me has everlasting life," he did not mean believing in him as a personality, but as the Christ. Believing in Christ means to be in Christ-consciousness. And when you're Christ-conscious, you will indeed have everlasting life.

The same goes for Krishna. The Hindus call it Krishna-consciousness, and when they use that word, it doesn't mean that you are conscious of Krishna; it means that you are at the same level of consciousness as Krishna is. The Hare Krishnas believe that Krishna is the Supreme God. This is correct, but only as long as it isn't misinterpreted. This isn't talking about his individual, human personality. That is only symbolic in the same way that Jesus symbolizes the Christ.

We also have Buddha. There is the Buddhic-consciousness (a term used in Theosophy), which all Buddhas have. Siddhartha Gautama was the first one to be called a Buddha, and therefore became symbolic as Buddha. However, the term was labeled upon at least 18 other people in history, such as Maitreya. Anyone can be a Buddha, but you must be awakened, since Buddha means "the awakened one." This is exactly what Buddhic-consciousness is, as well as all other names for God-consciousness. You can tell that they are the same because Maitreya has been called a Buddha and a Christ, in addition to Jesus, since he ventured into India as Issa (which means Jesus,) and they called him a Buddha! (Christians must also understand that there can be more than one expression of Christ, just as there is more than one expression of Buddha.)

God-consciousness is the "engine" and the personality is the covering.

God-consciousness is what is being pointed to in all of these different religions and movements. We are not talking about them as people to believe in; as personalities to be worshipped. These personalities should relate to their divine aspect, not to the personalities themselves. For example, if you were to focus on the productiveness of an automobile, you would not look at the outer form of the car. You would look at the engine, since it is the engine that determines how productive the car will be for driving. Consciousness is like the engine, and the personality is the outside appearance of the car. So if you have a car with a great engine, and you think of a car with a great engine, you will tend to think of your own car and its appearance. In the same way, if you're a Christian, and you think of Christ-consciousness, you will relate it to Jesus, who has Christ-consciousness. This is the only thing that the personalities serve for: visualization and relation to God-consciousness.

The Story of Creation

The story of creation is very important, because it determines how much power we have in and of ourselves, and how much God has thrusted upon us without our will. Many people believe that God created this universe, and some think it happened in seven days. God made the planet, the ocean, the land, the air, the fish, the birds, the insects, the animals, and humans. Some also believe that humans were given spirit after the bodies were made, because it says He "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being." This makes people think that only humans have spirit. After all of that, God gets upset with His creation and causes a flood, and blows up civilizations.

This isn't the story of creation that I would like to tell. That story I told above made the divisions of the creationists and the evolutionists, because the creationists jump up and automatically believe what they interpret from the bible. The belief that matter can exist without spirit is ridiculous. Why? Because animals and humans work in this world very similar, so much so that if you were to say that only humans have spirit, it could be very likely that we wouldn't because of this similarity. That is a belief that can only come from one has not experienced God's omnipresence. Also, the belief that God created the world means that we can be affected by God's will without our own permission. If he did create the world, how do we know he's not a tyrant? All these horrible things that happen on our planet are never prevented by God, and it seems like he doesn't care for us. Is God really careless, possibly even worse than man?

Nope. It is all a misinterpetation. First of all, we are not truly humans, and we were not force into form without our will. Actually, it is completely our will. Before time was, eternity is. In eternity, we know we are formless, one with God our Creator. It is a state of complete perfection, bliss, love, and light. So God has always offered everything to everyone, but He will not go against our own will. Once we, the Son of God, had a "tiny mad idea," God let us learn from it so we know how important it is to be one with our Father. We made the illusion of separation, therefore the beginning of the ego. Our wills were similar, but slightly different. We were very spiritually advanced, and we were the ones who made this universe of separation. We created denser and denser planes until we made the physical plane, experimented around with matter, and projected ourselves into matter in order to sense our world. This experimentation is what we call evolution, because it took a while to realize the simplest design for our bodies.

Unfortunately, this led to us forgetting our divinity and our Father, which is known as the "Fall of Man," where we see dualities like "good and bad" instead of unity. We forgot how to leave our bodies, and started seeking pleasure in the material world. The bliss and love of God we are now unaware of, and this is where humanity is right now. The source of all these negative, painful things that happen to us come from ourselves, and not from God. God will not interfere with our will, because He wants us to be in control. However, He still offers everything to everyone, and He will never stop doing that because He is eternal.

So is this making of ours real? If it was, then God would have created it, and he would be forcing all of this pain and suffering upon us. However, God is not separate from all that is, even if it isn't real. Everything we made is still God in reality, but our minds are what have caused our forgetfulness. We have fallen asleep. God always wills the best for us, and we must remember our Father if we want to find perfection and to be happy.

Christianity in Light

After going from Christian to atheist, it is very likely that you might be a Christian again. But just as there are two types of atheists, there are two types of Christians. The first type of Christian would believe some of the things that I mentioned in the post "Christianity in Darkness," and the second type of Christian would not take on any of the beliefs on that post. The former is against other religions, and possibly other denominations of their own religion as well. The latter Christian has a universal standpoint, in harmony with other religions. Interestingly enough, their beliefs can be in harmony with other religions, and they can also have their own Christian beliefs that are different from other belief systems.

These Universal Christians believe in the Trinity, the Christ, the Second Coming, the Atonement, and forgiveness, just as all Christians do, but these are seen in a different way than it is understood today. In the Trinity, we have the Father in Heaven, who knows only the unity of His creation. His Son is one with Him, but He knows that His Son has forgotten this. Ever since the Son of God fell asleep, He sent His Holy Spirit to quietly wake the Son. The Son of God is truly all of us, all consciousness in the physical world. It is not only Jesus, as it is commonly believed.

Throughout his own life, Jesus eventually reached the realization of the Christ, and became the anointed one. He was able to say that he is the Christ, the Son of God, because he knew it from his experience of oneness with his Father. "I and my Father are one." Jesus tries to remind us that we are the same, and it is only these Universal Christians that recognize this. We are the only begotten Son of God, we are the Christ, we are one with our Father.

The Second Coming is already here, but it will only be seen when the Christ-consciousness arises in the minds of men. We are the Second Coming, and Jesus was just an example, just a little sample, of the Coming of Christ. When we realize the Christ is here already, and that it is none other than ourselves, we will have the Atonement, or the at-one-ment. Our sins will be forgiven, because we will realize the Christ is sinless.

Forgiveness is known to the Universal Christian as acknowledging that there was no sin, because the Son of God cannot sin. Whenever we see sin, it is really an illusion of fear and separation, and is not real. By thinking that it is real, we replace the reality of how God created us, as the Son of God, with our own false identity as sinners. We do not forgive sin by seeing that everyone as a sinner, but by seeing everyone as the sinless Son of God. New Atheists have acknowledged that error.

But what is God? Is he a tyrant? Does He get angry and screw up, killing humans? Is he a hateful God? Does He crucify Jesus in order to forgive as Atonement? No. God does not make demands that the ego would make, for fear, pain and separation. The reason for Jesus' crucifixion was to show the immortality of the Son of God. It was needed to demonstrate the power of resurrection, and the choice to be crucified was chosen by Jesus and not thrown upon him by God. If God did do so, we would forget Him. And we have! What is God? He is Perfection, Love, Light, Joy, Peace, and All-Power, All-Will, and All-That-Is. He is the oneness, and it is only He that exists. He is not separation, fear, hate, or any negativity or foolishness at all!

Since Christians throughout history have tried to destroy the harmony and unity of religions to make themselves right, we have made many errors in the Christian religion. There were enough people that found evidence of Jesus going to India, Tibet, and other such places on the way during his "lost years," from 13 to 30. He taught karma and reincarnation instead of God destroying and punishing, and torturing people in hell for eternity. Still, the Christians fight to be right and become illogical, while the Universal Christians use logic and unity, holding love and light in mind at all times. They accept the universal unity, and don't care about being right. They just want to be happy. Great, we could say they're wrong, and that wouldn't matter. You would still be oblivious to God's love while the Christians "in the Light" would be soaked in it.

The Cleansing Atheists

When becoming an atheist, people usually have to go through what modern Christians believe in, as I have shown in the last post. Becoming an atheist can actually be a progression for your spiritual life, or it could not. That's why there are only two types of atheists: those who are selfish and want to do whatever they want, and those who are rational, use logic, and have morals. The former type of atheist is usually less advanced spiritually than the Christians who believe the things I mentioned in the last post. However, believe it or not, the latter group of atheists are usually more advanced than those Christians, even though they don't believe in God!

It is the latter group that I am going to be talking about, those that call themselves New Atheists. Everybody goes through this stage at some point, even though it might not be very long. But it can be very helpful, since it acts as a "cleansing" of all false, ignorant beliefs of religion. The stage is very interesting however, because it can completely destroy a lot of the beliefs that most people have today in our culture, but it can't eliminate everything from religion. The core truths of religion live on. You can notice that these atheists are really only disagreeing with what religion has shown them, but they are almost completely unaware of the universal spiritual path.

Some Christians are apparently afraid of the Cleansing New Atheists.

I remember that about a year ago, I started questioning everything believed in Christianity and didn't care what people thought. I always had a slight feeling beforehand that some Christian beliefs were kind of weird, but I didn't start becoming critical until last year. There were some things that I didn't know for sure if they were true or not, but since I noticed so much false doctrine, I tried to deny the religion as a whole. However, I know that this is impossible to do, because as I tried doing that, life had no meaning at all and I fell into chaos and paranoia. But now, I have had too much experience in spirituality to deny it all, but I noticed that that stage of atheism worked as a "cleansing" device, as I said earlier.

Amazingly, I realized you could truly identify yourself as an atheist and be quite spiritually advanced. Atheism is anti-theism, or against the belief in God. It isn't necessary to believe in God to be spiritual, and it could actually be better not to. One of the main problems today is that people just choose to believe in things because it makes sense to them, or they just want to believe in something. But when they do that, they might never have any experience with what they believe in. So what is so great about simple religions like Buddhism is that it gets down to business, showing you exactly what to do in order to experience it all for yourself. Buddhists don't believe in God, but their mystics still experience the same as what Christian mystics do. It is better to know God the way mystics do, like through meditation, than to believe in Him as an idea in your mind; things that you've heard about in the Bible or heard from other sources.

God has become so distorted through religious beliefs, and that's why these New Atheists are against it. God has become a tyrant that demands Jesus to be sacrificed for the forgiveness of our sins, because otherwise he wouldn't forgive us. He blows up cities, brings floods, hurricanes, and natural disasters in attempt to destroy us. He is a "jealous God." This is what these atheists are against. They abandon these ridiculous religious beliefs and become "cleansed." The next step is to discover what true Christians refer to when they use the word "God"; what this Source really is.

Christianity in Darkness

Christianity is the religion that is most followed worldwide, with about 2 billion adherents, which is about one third of the world's total population. Jesus the Christ is likely the most influential person in the past two thousand years, which explains why there are so many followers. However, the mainstream Christians have distorted Christ's teachings so much that they have been doing more harm to themselves and others than good. The people have brought themselves into a state and feeling of powerlessness, and have become too much concerned with "evil" and have forgotten about the true spiritual aspect of their religion.

Most Christians now are too focused on being the right ones and making everyone else wrong, and have forgotten that their religion is supposed to be a path to happiness. They have distorted Christianity enough to make it look different from other religions, and they have fought to keep it that way. They have come to believe that you can only be saved by believing in Jesus, and if you don't, then you'll be sent to hell. If you never heard of Jesus before, too bad, apparently you're still going to hell.



The meaning of the Trinity has been changed as well. We have the Father, Who forces Jesus to be crucified as the only way to forgive the sins of mankind. We have the only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, Who is supposed to be the salvation for us sinners. And the Holy Spirit, Who only dwells within "faithful" Christians and no-one else. This Trinity is really supposed to explain all that God is, and if this modern belief of the Trinity that I have explained is correct, we don't really exist because we aren't even on the Trinity. We're just a bunch of sinners.

We also have the problem with Satan. Satan is believed to be just as powerful as God, even though they don't admit it. He creates the "spiritual" dualism of good and evil. Some denominations of Christianity don't practice contemplative prayer (meditation) because if they were to quiet the mind, Satan would instantly take over their body. They believe they aren't even allowed to be, because they are so powerless that they can't take hold of themselves in the present moment. They need to live in their mind-world in order to be safe. They are always afraid because they believe Satan and demons really do exist, and since their minds made it up, and they always dwell in their minds, then there's no escape. They think that the best way that Satan will trick you is by trying to make you believe that he isn't real.

There is also our salvation with Jesus Christ. Some modern Christians believe that, before Jesus, we were still spellbound by the Fall of Man and Original Sin, and that we couldn't even escape it if we tried. We were helpless, but we got lucky when all of a sudden, Jesus came! When Jesus said, "I am the lamb of God, which takes away the sins of the world," he was trying to fulfill the law, and take us away form our belief that we are sinners. Even though he says that we are gods, people think that the "lamb of God" statement meant that his crucifixion was a sacrifice for relieving us of our sins. There are also Christians that emphasize the Second Coming of Christ and misinterpret it. When Jesus said that the Kingdom of God has already arrived, but we are ignorant of it's presence, the same goes for the Second Coming. Yet, people keep checking the time, waiting around for Christ without making any spiritual progress.

What kind of faith do we want for the next generation? I don't want to believe in this modern form of Christianity. If I did, I would probably be manic right now. This looks like a helpless, hopeless, powerless belief system, where we separate from God and forgive by thinking, "It's okay, I'm a sinner, too." I am not approaching a religion to see everyone as sinners, possessed by a demon, or waiting around for the Messiah again. I am not going to believe in something that says there is a Trinity of All-That-God-Is, and we aren't even in that Trinity. I don't want to believe in something that gives me no choice. How can I make any spiritual progress if it is not under my control, and that I can't decide to accept God into my life or not, whenever I want?

Defenselessness

All of our great religious and spiritual teachings tell us to be defenseless. Jesus tells us to "turn the other cheek," and in A Course in Miracles, it says "In your defenselessness your safety lies." When we pose neither an attack nor a defense, we are past all dualities. We no are no longer unsafe.

This can be seen in the fact that if we were downtown and in the midst of the homeless, posing a defense or an attack, they would respond to it by counteracting it. If we were to walk by without being afraid, not defending, and not attacking, no one would ever identify you as a threat or a subject to an attack. In the movie "Capote," the criminal explains that he was planning to steal from a rich family, he did not plan to kill anyone. But when he saw the father of the family, looked him in the eyes, and saw deep fear there, it invoked something inside himself, urging him to murder him. And so he did, but the man could have made it out alive if he remained unmoved.

In Hinduism, we see the Bhagavad Gita's explanation and reasoning for war. Arjuna admitted to Krishna how he was completely unprepared he was to wage war against his family members while he was also in bad shape and exhausted. He said he didn't care if he lost or won, and he wasn't attached to the results of winning. Krishna responded by telling him that death and the body are illusions covering the eternal reality of the Self, so killing was not an issue. Also, since Arjuna was unmoved by gain or loss, it is essentially the same as defenselessness, where you are unmoved into attack or defense. Therefore, he has transcended all dualities.

We can also see how in Mahatma Gandhi's response to war, he sent his armies out in the field without any weapons, without defense. They walked straight towards the enemy, and pretty quickly the enemy surrendered. This is the power and safety of defenselessness clearly demonstrated.

It is only old ideas like "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" and Satanism's teaching of "do unto others as they have done unto you" that have completely lost sight of this great wisdom of the power of defenselessness. Again, this practice is seen done by Jesus when he did not defend against being crucified, and after death, he was resurrected back into a body. It looks to me like he was as safe as can be.

The Plan of Evolution

When we think of evolution, we should avoid thinking of the physical body and its brain, because that suggests that we are the body, and that God is causing this evolution without our will. The truth is that we are causing the evolution, keeping the traits that benefit us, discovering new tools, and abandoning old habits. At this point, our physical bodies do not have to change, since they have become perfected through our reasoning of what is really beneficial. Brain size isn't an issue because, currently, we only use 10% of it. What we need to learn to do is raise our consciousness to the point that we use 100% of our body's brain.

In reality, we are not the body or the mind. We are the Presence, the sense of "I AM," and it is very important not to get lost in our minds or the materialistic world. By doing so, we forget who we are and become afraid, mesmerized by our ego, and lose all the joy of being. By realizing our true Self, we will begin to continue on our path of evolution back to God.

We are not the highest evolved beings in existence, even though we are barely aware of it. It is very similar to dogs being aware of humans, but still not understanding the life of a human. There are five kingdoms that exist: the mineral, the vegetable, the animal, the human, and the spiritual. Every succeeding kingdom, is much more complicated, much more powerful, much more knowing, and much more conscious. Everything is conscious, but not necessarily self-conscious. The human kingdom is the first in the path of evolution to be self-conscious, but the spiritual kingdom is God-conscious.

Every kingdom will move on to the higher kingdoms until, eventually, they reach all the way back to the unity with God. God guides all the kingdoms back to Him, and it would be impossible for us not to make it back to Him at some point. However, the higher kingdoms similarly contain and guide the lower kingdoms: Minerals guided by vegetables, vegetables by animals, animals by humans, and humans by the divine. They will all assist each other as they evolve and replace each other, and nothing will be left behind without assistance. For example, as humans move towards the spiritual kingdom, animals will have already begun moving towards the human kingdom.

Sanat Kumara, the "Ancient of Days"

An example of the spiritual kingdom assisting the human kingdom is Sanat Kumara, the "Ancient of Days," who had to pass many initiation to be responsible for the evolution of planet earth and embodying it. Sanat Kumara is our Planetary Logos, and even above him is Vywamus, our Solar Logos, responsible for the evolution of our solar system. These beings used to be humans with our same level of consiousness, several millions of years ago. There are more roles higher than that, going beyond even our universe. This is where we are eventually going to evolve towards and be initiated into.

This takes a very long process - yes, obviously more than one lifetime. It does say in the Bible, that you live once, die, and then comes judgement. This means that, after death, you review your life and prepare for the next one. The Bible doesn't say that you don't live more than once, and it is unfortunate that the Council of Nicaea in 553 CE removed the main traces of reincarnation from the Bible. However, if you were to read the Bible, there are many times where it suggests reincarnation. (Examples would be Abel > Seth, Elijah > John the Baptist, and Elisha > Jesus.) Life continues on in different forms, in the same way that you get a test at school, fail it, but get a different test later to try your best on. There is never a permanent "game over," and life continues on until you evolve all the way back to unity with God.

Your Will Be Done

One of the biggest problems that people must get over is to stop blaming others. God never has and never will do anything to you that would upset you. Plus, no one is able to do anything to you either without your will. Actually, we are constantly setting ourselves up for imprisonment, helplessness, sickness, etc. and we forget to pay attention to our thoughts and actions in order to notice it.

I could very easily say that God forced me to be tormented by my bipolar incident, and most people would see that there is nothing wrong with that. They also feel helpless and cheated. I would probably still be in pain if I decided to blame God. Now that I know it was my doing, I am in complete control of my life. I am now the happiest I have ever been.

It is all our choice! Would you rather live in your own hell or see perfection in everyone and everything? You will remain mesmerized by the illusion of pain and loss as long as you want. No one is really controlling that, and God never made a hell so he could enslave you for your dreaming. Hell is an illusion, so is separation, loss, fear, and all negativity.

Bliss can be achieved in an instant. Ask for inner guidance; stay present. You will start to love everything once your body becomes full of light, and it can only attract perfection. If you love, you will feel loved. If you hate, you will feel hated. The reason for this is because the outer world is a mirror of yourself and is not really separate from you. Your will be done. However you see the world is how you will see yourself.

If you realize that you are really protected and perfect, you will know that all sense of loss is an illusion. You will no longer need to feel attacked by the outer world, and there will be no reason to hate it. Stay in the present moment and remind yourself of your constant perfection. The past is their for you only to help your will be done, but undesirable thoughts might be repeated by thinking of them. Just know that the past is illusion, and the present is perfection.