Many people are familiar with Eckhart Tolle’s seminal book, “The Power of Now,” which opened up the eyes of millions of people to a basic spiritual truth about time and about the psychological/spiritual/temporal phenomenon that Albert Einstein called, “a persistent illusion.”
Einstein once described the relativity of time this way:
A minute on a hot stove feels like an hour.
An hour with your beloved feels like a minute.
Minds wiser than mine have waxed long and eloquently on the subject from quantum physicists to deep-thinking philosophers.
I need to apply these high-flying theories to my practical life. And keep it simple!
We all experience time, yet how we use time is different for everyone. Dreading the future, or regretting the past keeps me out of today, not living in the present moment, which is the only place where I can be, the only place where I can act, where I can do, where I can undertake something.
If you go to a 12-step recovery meeting, you may hear someone say, “I’ve got one foot in the past and one foot in the future, and I’m pissing all over today.”
That’s a great visual (albeit a bit graphic).
For me, it illustrates something that I’ve long believed: that at the end, lying on my deathbed looking up at the ceiling, I can easily see how life will seem to “flash before my eyes” in an instant – it will seem that it all went by all too fast.
To me, that is the power of Now.
Emily Dickinson described this in one of my favorite poems:
I heard a Fly buzz - when I died (591)
I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air -
Between the Heaves of Storm -
The Eyes around - had wrung them dry -
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset - when the King
Be witnessed - in the Room -
I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable - and then it was
There interposed a Fly -
With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz -
Between the light - and me -
And then the Windows failed - and then
I could not see to see –
An insignificant event, a fly buzzing in the room, takes on monumental importance at the precise moment of death.
After all, the moment is all we have. At the time of our physical death, there is no future. The past is absolutely worthless.
All there is, is Now.
The great poet and mystic William Blake begins his poem, Auguries of Innocence with these lines:
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour
The entire Universe, Heaven, Life, past, present, and future, are all wrapped up in this moment! If I can live in the Now, I am living in eternity!
A Course in Miracles dedicates a lot of time (pun intended) discussing time and eternity. In fact a whole section is entitled, Time and Eternity. Summarizing parts of it, it tells me:
· We choose to live in time, while God exists in eternity.
· God is not waiting for us, but we’re waiting in the illusion of time, delaying our return home.
· Thoughts about the past – especially thoughts of guilt, regret, remorse, or shame – keep us stuck in the present.
· The ego likes this continuity because it ensures the future will be the same as the past.
· Exchanging time for eternity exchanges “…guilt for joy, viciousness for love, and pain for peace (ACIM, T-5.VI.2:7)
The rest of the section is particularly beautiful and powerful, and I encourage you to read it here.
It re-interprets several well-known Bible passages to remove the misinterpretations human minds have given them, to reveal their hopeful and loving Truth. And it ends with a reminder that time is something we have created but our home is in eternity.
Living in the Now involves a significant ability to be mindful. Mindfulness takes practice, for me. The beautiful Buddhist monk, Thích Nhất Hạnh, wrote many powerful books on the practice of mindfulness meditations. How to Sit, How to Eat, How to Love, are just a few.
He wrote:
“In mindfulness one is not only restful and happy, but alert and awake. Meditation is not evasion; it is a serene encounter with reality.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation
I struggle with living in the Now when I am sleepwalking, not being mindful.
I am at perfect peace and ease when I am fully present in the Now, being completely mindful of what is going on in front of me, in the present moment, aka eternity.
I wish you a happy Sunday, believing and knowing that this day is all we have, this moment is all we have.
“Dost thou love life?
Then do not squander time
for that's the stuff life is made of.”
Happy Sunday,
Johnny
I am available to do Prosperity Now! individual or group sessions or general life-coaching, I Ching readings, dream interpretation or join us for our weekly Wednesday Course in Miracles group.
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