Right now
Time, our common inheritance, is given to us bit by bit, in instalments. It is apprehended as the gap between two experiences or two memories. We experience time in our experience of having moved forward, or in having left behind an experience or in having grown. It is in the growth of our consciousness that we experience time. And although it is our common gift, we differ in the way we experience time…in what we choose to do with it. For some, time is the dull, aching persistence of memory. For others, it’s marked by the chase of a desire for an imagined future. Our being is often torn between our past and our worries or hopes for the future.
Our experience of time is dependent upon the quality, quantity and pre-occupations of our thoughts. The more the thoughts and the more they revolve around your self and your plans, the more you will stand defeated. The rich rewards time yields can never be claimed by one who is under the captivity of his/her own mind. They can only be reaped by those who are free of their past and have faith in a yet unseen future. This faith allows them to live without fear-in the here and the now.
We swim through life in a sea of eternity. The past, present and future are our mental constructs; they have no basis in reality. We simply move from the present to the present, bit-by-bit. We grow, or at least we ought to, in our ability to grasp the wealth of a single moment. Right now is all I am bequeathed. Right now is all that I have.
My grand ideas keep me from appreciating the little. I equate ‘more’ with ‘more’. I’m unable to see that in the dimension of time, a breadth of accomplishment lies in the depth of a moment. Is it possible that in this moment of a single breath, I accomplish all that I must accomplish. In wanting something more than what this moment is offering me, am I not missing something? What is a year after all, if not an exponential day? And what is a day, if not an exponential hour? And what is an hour, if not an exponential minute?
The question then should be : How do I raise the power of my present? The only way to raise the power of the present is to LIVE IN IT. Living in the present requires that we be free of worry and entrenched in faith. The faithless move from one enchantment to the next, foolishly bypassing the miracles of their own lives. Unable to see the value in their existence as it is, they long for another. In their longing, plans and journeys are made, things are acquired and positions sought. They wait for that moment when they will taste the times they long for, looking down in irritation at the present that seems so indifferent and ordinary. They often talk about ‘killing’ time, rather than ‘living’ it. To have faith, is to awaken to the power of both- REASON and INTUITION. A person of faith knows that he has all that he needs to ride heroically on this moment. It’s not wiled away in longing, but befriended through an exchange of capabilities. The moments are lived as a celebration; they’re not wasted in planning a celebration. The wise know that there is nothing to be gained in life, that life-in this moment- is the gain itself.
Right now-
I realized
Cannot be met
With charming words
It will meet you only in silence.
Right now-
Wants and desires
An immediate and intense union
A disappearance of two
And the appearance of the one.
Right now-
Refuses to conform
To the conventional, the old
Where the world ‘exists’ in a long-dead relationship
Between subject and predicate.
Right now-
I am worthless in what I know and possess
But valuable (I sense)
In my sheer presence
Beggared of all accumulated wealth.
Right now-
I am humbled
By this lack of basic ability
To share with you
The gift of the new.
Right now-
I realize
I shall have to make do
With greeting cards and amusing knick-knacks
To convey fossilized feelings to you.
Right now-
I appreciate the distance between us
Hoping that wherever you are
You are alone, immersed in your own presence
Receiving this gift that I lack the ability to give.
And Life Will Go On…
I had lived this moment
in my mind
many times-
over and over again.
I had heard you speak
(in my imagination)
words that pierced
through my heart.
And then…
there was stillness
Did I die?
Would I die?
How would I go on?
And yet today,
when what I had imagined
has followed its script
And come into being…
I find myself standing…
breathing…
I swallow it in.
I hear you
But I’m not dead
And I know that I will not die
because of what you’ve said.
I’ll live through it.
Life will prevail
over my limited imagination.
Wisdom is thought freed.
Why do we do things that are ‘useless’ or ‘futile’ ? – Because we must… ‘Must’ – not in the sense of doing one’s duty or even as an act of blind faith in a higher purpose- but because whether we realize it or not, we are the’instruments’ through which action is done. Because we believe we are the doers of action, and we must act to protect and secure ourselves in an uncertain world- we believe that we can order our will. But ‘Will’-which is our unique human attribute- is not our instrument, it is our master.
The problem is that more often than not, that ‘Will’ is plugged into our sense of need or deficiency- unaware as it is of its sovereignty and abundance. What you MUST DO does not need guidance from thought ( which is always divisive and partial), but from a WILL that stands apart from thought. This ‘will’ in religion is referred to as ‘HIS WILL’ . In simple spiritual terms, it is nothing more than an operating faith in consciousness itself.
Consciousness can only be reflected in thought, not ordered by it. Thought on the other hand, needs to be a perpetual student of Consciousness- for ever at its feet. Thought when correctly understood to be the disciple and not the Guru, or the servant and not the master- doesn’t rush to take control of the situation, but knowing very well it’s limited capacity and role- surrenders itself to ‘Thy Will’.
Ask yourself: Does your knowledge- your consolidated body of thought- save you from pain, from erring and sinning, time and again?
No.
Then what is it’s use? Why do we continue to believe in it? Why despite all our knowing, we really cannot choose all our experiences?
Perhaps the time has come to make a transition- from being tormented Gods who suffer endlessly in our self-created worlds- to becoming INSTRUMENTS OF AWARENESS. We’re living a dream- a terrible dream- that in the end always makes a mockery of us. The biggest and the most tragic mistake we make is in thinking we’re separate individuals with separate destinies and that we must – now that we have made ourselves God- rightfully claim our share of the world. Our innocence is deceived into believing the knowledge we have unwittingly ‘accumulated’. And ‘belief’ on its part- true to its nature- cements our illusions to create walls that stand between us and reality.
Things external to us seem more ‘real’ than our tender voices within. Conflict becomes our state of mind. We seek knowledge of reality through information. And yet we never truly ‘know.’
Can a mind crammed with information ever know wisdom? Wisdom is not in the world, in the temporal or changing; wisdom is eternal. You can find it in yourself when you trust life completely. A mind that seeks information to ‘control’ action can never know wisdom. A mind devoted to the Higher, and not enmeshed in the lower- is the way to access Wisdom and move in eternal freedom.
Wit. Wisdom. Wonder... 