Early this year, I wrote a post titled Future becomes Past without being Present.
Well, I am currently reading Eckhart Tolle’s book The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. I had already read his more advanced work A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (Oprah’s Book Club, Selection 61), and I’m finding that The Power of Now is a wonderful prequel to better understand the foundation of Tolle’s message in an accessible way. Reading it is functioning as a great reminder of the concepts I am living, experiencing, and seeking to write about … it is a continuous practice! My posts In pursuit of being (something) and Cruising on the road of life demonstrate the the power of now in practice.
I share here, an excerpt from the section I read last night:
“Have you ever experienced, done, thought, or felt anything outside the Now? Do you think you ever will? Is it possible for anything to happen or be outside the Now? The answer is obvious, is it not?
Nothing ever happened in the past; it happened in the Now.
Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now.
What you think of as the past is a memory trace, stored in the mind, of a former Now. When you remember the past, you reactivate a memory trace – and you do so Now. The future is an imagined Now, a projection of the mind. When the future comes, it comes as the Now. When you think about the future, you do so Now. Past and Future obviously have no reality of their own. Just as the moon has no light of its own, but can only reflect the light of the sun, so are past and future only pale reflections of the light, power, and reality of the eternal present. Their reality is “borrowed” from the Now.
The essence of what I am saying here cannot be understood by the mind. The moment you grasp it, there is a shift in consciousness from mind to Being, from time to presence. Suddenly, everything feels alive, radiates energy, emanates Being.”
The Power of Now, pages 41-42.
So, for every time we think we’re going to do something or be some way tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or next year … let us remember that there is only one moment: NOW. While Tolle’s message has a spiritual essence, a Phd in psychology recently said something to me that added a scientific dimension: apparently whenever we say repeatedly we’re going to do something “someday” it represents a neurosis in ourselves worth examining. We are denying or postponing opportunities or desires that have come up for us, due to fear of facing an underlying neurosis that is related to this opportunity or desire. Tolle’s work does an excellent job of explaining psychological fear and our mental attachment to the concept of linear time.
Try explaining to a young child, or my furry feline friend, the concept of yesterday or tomorrow! Lailah reminds me daily of the power of Now! The present is indeed … our gift, and really, all there is.
What God are you referring to when you say the Power OF NOW?
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