A holy instant as the Course in Miracles says, or as we may refer to as living in the present moment, is where your willingness strikes, to allow the next instant, or present moment to arrive, and so on.

Preparing your mind to live in the now, or for the holy instant is to simply recognize within yourself that this is where you want to live.

It's not at all necessary for you to do more now to have what you desire in the future. Rather, try to realize that there is nothing more you can do to begin living in the present moment.

Trying to do more takes your mind away from living in the present moment and gives the Holy Spirit what He has not asked for.

Living in the Present Moment - Now

You must always be operating from this very instant, now; whoops, it's gone, and now you're in a fresh new instant and living in the present moment.

By giving the Holy Spirit any thought outside of this instant, you add the ego to Him and confuse the two.

Your desire to live your own true free will, or we may say, purpose in life, is all that He asks for in this instant so you may live in the now.

He will always be telling you what to do next as you live with present moment awareness in the instant to follow, and so forth.

The Holy Spirit joins with you to enjoy the moment because He is you, in this instant, to make each successive instant far greater than you can imagine.

Go ahead and give it a try, now; it works.

Enjoy the Moment

In other words, to begin to enjoy the moment don't take leaps forward without contemplating, but enjoy the moment of the step you are on now.

Ask in that instant for it to be corrected and to be present in the moment if there is no joy or pure thought.

I read in one book where the author described practicing this while, say, on a flight of stairs.

Take each step as a new "now," and when reaching the end of the stairway notice that this is not the future, but rather is "now" where you enjoy the moment.

With that understood, ask yourself: how long is an instant?

It's the time it takes to toss the ego aside and have the knowledge "now" that you have entered a holy instant and enjoy the moment.

Don't confuse your holiness of this tiny ego-free instant of living in the present moment with any notion of smallness. Humility, yes, but your holiness does not ask that you be content with less than greatness.

The Course in Miracles asks us to contemplate this principle: "Is it a sacrifice to leave littleness behind, and wander not ucdmvain?"

Present Moment Awareness

My own difficulty in seeing the holy instant as mine was in the conviction that I didn't deserve it until my past errors were repaired or repented.

What I didn't realize was that those errors of "littleness" were forgiven in an instant, and the Holy Spirit began in that instant to use time within the dream of life, space, material, and time form, to undo my past.