• Hello everyone, How are you all?
• It’s good to ask isn’t it?……
• First of all, I think it’s absolutely great that Ocean and his team are giving so many of us this  opportunityto express our passion through Author’s Day and to have some direct exposure to you all, which would not be available otherwise. I’d also like to thank Ocean personally for the great support he has given me throughout the entire publishing process and if any of you here are considering writing and self publishing your book, I can’t recommend Ocean and his team highly enough. It’s been a great experience and very much appreciated. Thanks so much Ocean.
• My name is Paul Bennett and I am The Cranky Guru. Author of the book, ‘The Cranky Guru-Adventures in Metaphysics’. You may ask why ‘cranky’? And I’ll say “what’s it to ya! Do ya want to make something of it? HAHAHA! Fact is, I actually like the moniker ‘cranky’, because it immediately identifies me with the endless trials and tribulations of everyday life. Those niggling little and sometimes big things we all must contend with.
• If I had settled on a more pretentious title, like, for instance, ‘The immaculate Guru’, or The Guru of Endless Miracles, I think I’d be in lots of trouble! Expectations would be so high, it’d be hard to live up to them wouldn’t it? So, I’m happy being The ‘Cranky Guru’ and when the pressure builds as it does from time to time and expletives flow and the blood boils and people point at me and say, “But Paul, you said you’re a Guru!” I’ll say, ‘Yes, that’s right! A cranky one!” Sometimes! HAHAHA!
• Fact is, we’re all Gurus, massively grander and more awesome than we ever give ourselves credit for and all we need do to achieve dizzying heights of awesomeness is to simply BELIEVE in ourselves and it will BE SO in our reality. Who believes me?
• I’ve entitled my talk today, ‘How to Act as If in the Timeless Now’ and I hope to share some useful pointers on how to achieve this goal in the time allotted to me, but before I do, I want to tell you a story about a dear old friend of mine. His name is Neil Glaser. He’s 96 now, in fact I’m visiting him tomorrow for his 69^th wedding anniversary. He was my greatest mentor and I’ve written about him in my book. Anyhow Neil was a tireless worker for many charities and in my capacity as a graphic designer I helped him pro bono on many projects.
• One day Neil said to me, “Paul, you’ve been so helpful to me, I’d like you to accompany me to America.” I was gob smacked of course! It was the adventure of a lifetime!And of course I said yes! So, we first travelled to San Francisco and as fate would have it, the day before we were to leave for Los Angeles, we sat watching the LA riots on TV. It was April 1992. We sat in silence for many minutes and then Neil turned to me and spoke eight immortal words which have defined my approach to life ever since.
• He said, “Paul, if we don’t go, we’ll never know.” So the next day, we boarded our plane for war torn Los Angeles.”As we approached LA International Airport, the pall of smoke hanging over the city looked ominous and walking out of the airport, the smoke looked even thicker. The place was practically deserted, except for a line of twenty travellers stretching towards one lone, yellow taxi.
• I thought to myself, “We’ll never get out of this airport!” but Neil had other ideas. Without a moment’s hesitation, he brazenly walked to the head of the line, talked briefly to the cab driver and beckoned for me to follow him. Walking past all those people in the same predicament was difficult indeed, but in moments, we were in the cab and on our way.
• Now, I don’t know if Neil had ever heard of metaphysics, but in that instant, he ‘acted as if in the timeless now’ which is the very essence of Metaphysics. So, even though he may not have known it, he is one of the greatest Metaphysicians I’ve ever met!
• Now, if we check out Wikipedia for a definition of ‘Metaphysics’, we’ll find this:
• 
• That’s such a mouthful isn’t it?
• But I really prefer my own definition which
• simply states:
• 
• ACTING AS IF. It’s quite a terrifying concept for
• many isn’t it? We usually prefer to ‘wait and see what happens’ before we act don’t we?
• While metaphysics says:
• 
• In fact, this idea is the very bedrock of Metaphysical thinking.
• To become a metaphysician then, there are certain principles one must embrace and in fact completely believe. And once that is the case, ‘acting as if’ becomes a snap! The principles are:
• 
• It might be just me, but I don’t think that’s too much of a stretch, do you? After all, even Einstein said:
• 
• and he was a very wise guy indeed.
• But I’ll understand if there’s some hesitation in clasping these concepts to our collective bosoms, so lets take a closer look at them.
• 
• First of all, can we say categorically that TIME IS REAL? The acid test would simply be, can we detect it with any one of our five senses? You know, sight, smell, taste, touch or hearing? For example, can I say, “Hark! I hear time approaching!” Of course, the answer is not really. It’s a human construct. But even so, if we didn’t have time in our waking reality, we’d never catch a bus, make a meeting or eat a meal that wasn’t burnt to a crisp! So I agree, the idea of time is useful, but it’s not real in the metaphysical sense.
• Now, you might feel like asking me, “Paul, what’s the point of all this? Even if we accept that time doesn’t exist, why would we do it? What are the benefits? And I would reply, “Well, the greatest benefit of all, forgetting the deeper esoteric purpose for now, is quite simply peace of mind! A priceless gift, don’t you agree? Just think of the stress that’s caused in our lives because we’re anchored in time! It’s huge! We stress about the future and regret the past!
• 
• So, if we can just accept that time is not ‘real’, shouldn’t we also accept that the linear progression of time is also not real? Meaning, everything we’ve thought of as past, present or future is really happening NOW.
• 
• And the NOW is so beautiful isn’t it? We’re here, enjoying this moment and it’s such a beautiful space where no past or future event can rain on our incredible Lightness of Being and we can rest here in the very nucleus of loving thought and creative ideas. (HONK! HONK!) Oh damn! Our bus has just arrived! Oh well. When that happens, we’ll simply snap back into our usual ‘space/time continuum’. HAHAHA!
• The third principle is: ‘what we think, we create.’
• 
• Have a guess how many thoughts do you think we have on average per day? Anyone? Well, the National Science Foundation of America says between 12k – 50k, while esteemed neuroscientist Dr Deepak Chopra says 60k to 80k! That’s a lot of thoughts!
• And I’m here to tell you that thoughts are things. We tend to disregard them don’t we and think they have no impact, but they have substance and contain energy and since energy cannot be destroyed, every one of those 50 thousand thoughts went somewhere and created something! Oh my God!
• I think if we could just embrace this idea that our thoughts contain creative energy, we may think more carefully and focus a little more on loving thoughts rather than judgemental or bitchy ones, even though they can be a lot of fun as we all know. What do you think?
• We are in fact ‘Creators in Training’ and every last one of us is enrolled, whether we know it or not in ‘Earth School’. The eternal question is why are we here? And the answer is, to learn how to think and create responsibly and in so doing, manifest a beautiful, generous and collaborative world we can all enjoy. Bahá’u’lláh the founder of the Baha’i faith famously said, “The earth is one country and all its people citizens”. If only that was a global belief, what a great world this would be.
• So, our thoughts impact our beliefs and
• our forth principle is Our beliefs create our personal reality.
• 
• You may ask me, Paul, can you prove that our beliefs create our reality, and I’ll say yes I can! imagine for a moment that there is a child who just happens to be the daughter of the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan?
• This kid will be schooled from birth in the dangers of associating with practically anyone who does not fit the white supremacist belief system and these beliefs will then colour every aspect of this young person’s life, as if viewing the world through tinted lenses. And this will remain the reality until such time as something happens to modify those extreme beliefs.
• And following these four principles is all it takes to ‘Act as if in the Timeless NOW!’ We just need to disregard time, Think positively and Believe fervently to manifest our preferred reality.
• Of course it’s also important to understand that if we are not happy with our lot in life, WE have the power, as ‘Creators in Training’ to initiate change by simply changing our beliefs.
• Unfortunately, there is far too much to say about Metaphysics to cover it adequately, but I do hope if my brief talk has stimulated your interest, you might take the time to explore this fascinating subject
• There are chapters in my book which cover such topics as: DESTINY, FRIENDSHIP, JOY, GRATITUDE, KINDNESS, MY MENTORS, HOW TO MANIFEST YOUR PREFERRED REALITY, THE BELIEF PRINCIPLES (I’ve just discussed), and MEDITATION TECHNIQUES.
• NOW, I promised to share a sure fire way to enter into the timeless now in five seconds and here it is. It can be accomplished by simply focusing on the breath.
• As with thought, we take breathing for granted don’t we and yet it is the very Life Force which keeps us ticking, so it probably deserves a little more attention.
• Now, whether you’re sitting or standing, it doesn’t matter and you can close your eyes if you like, but not while you’re driving! HAHAHA! Focus on the breath now and as you breathe in, imagine the breath is being drawn up from your feet and exiting through the top of your head (The Crown Chakra). Hold for a moment and then Relax and breathe out fully. Now three more times with me. We have all now entered the eternal moment together.

I’ll leave you today with my favourite quote from the Dalai Lama. He said, “ My religion is kindness. A good mind. A good heart. Warm feelings. These are the most important things.” Thank you.