Tag: now

It is Always Now

Mommy, they’re not growing yet!”  protested the child about the seeds he had planted with his mother three days ago.  “We put them in the dirt, and gave them water and light, and they’re not growing.  I need them to grow!”

His mother left the computer and joined her son at the planter they had set in a sunny window.  “They will grow,” she reassured him. “It just takes time.  We need to wait until they are ready.”

“Why do we need to wait, Mommy?  I don’t like waiting.  I want them to grow now!”

“We all need to wait sometimes,” she replied.  “I have to wait for you to finish getting dressed in the morning, and sometimes for you to put your coat on before we go out.  You need to wait for your friend to finish his lunch before he can play.  Waiting is OK.”

“I still don’t like it,” he grumbled.

“May I tell you a secret?” the mother queried.  “It’s about now.”

“What is it?” the boy asked curiously.

“In this minute,” she explained, “it is now, and you are saying the seeds are not growing now. Yesterday, you asked me if we could plant seeds now, and we did.  If the seeds grow tomorrow, you will look at them and say, ‘Now they are growing!'”

“So?” her son asked.

“I think,” remarked his mother, “that it is always now.  There isn’t any other time than now.  Whenever you are, it is now.  So, the seeds do grow now, even if we don’t see them right away.”

“Oh,” he replied, not quite understanding. “So, they are going to grow now?”

“Whenever they grow, it will be now,” she explained again.  “There is a big word that says what we do to help it be always now.  The word is patience.  Sometimes patience is hard, but as we grow, it gets easier.   Do you think we can practice having patience now?”

“OK, Mommy,” he answered.  Agreeing was easier than more complaining.

Giving his mom a big hug, he ran outside to ride his trike.

How can it be that whatever time it is, it is always now?  First, time is a mental construct.  It is a component of physical life and is so familiar to us that it is hard to conceive of a way things could be different from linear time, the past merging into the present and leading to the future.  In the world beyond, called heaven, the creative matrix, the Void, the pre or afterlife, there is no concept of time as we know it.  It is not only always now, but is always now with the past, present and future as we know them existing at the same time.  In that overarching aspect, it is truly always now; there is nothing else but now.

Our physical world, with which we are familiar, also reflects this.  It is said that the past is gone forever, and the future never comes.  The only thing real is now, and it is on now that our attention needs to be. In other words, it is always now.  We may remember what we call past, and imagine what we call future, but we do that remembering and imagining in the now.

Most of us equate patience with waiting.  We either wait as someone recounts or processes through their memories, or we wait for something anticipated in the future to appear in a form that our physical senses can perceive.  Sometimes it is a long wait.  Yet, if all that exists is now, then it follows that what we have wished for, hoped for, imagined is not something in that future that never comes, but in that “future” that is part of now, and that what we have wished for is now.  We have already received, and it is appropriate to give thanks for what we receive.

Patience, then, is the sister of gratitude.  Patience tells us that whatever we have conceived, wished for or imagined is already there.  If we maintain awareness of it through our gratitude, and do not cancel out the gift by changing our minds or hold it away by failing to understand the now and averring that what we have perceived with our minds is always in a future that never comes, then through grateful patience we will assuredly perceive what we have intended through our senses, so long as we are in this world.  Patience allows us to firmly center ourselves in the now.  Patience, like her sister Gratitude, is powerful.

The child’s seeds will grow, and the mother has correctly observed that when they do it will still be now.  The child is keeping patience by no longer probing the issue, insisting that the seeds are not growing, and by doing something else during the linear time of the world that Is elapsing for the child.  Not understanding the concepts, but still holding faith in the seeds and their growth, he quits worrying about it and occupies himself with something else until he is able to perceive the growth of the seeds with his senses.  He practices patience.

It is the same for us.  What we envision and hold in the now manifests.   In groups, the coalescing of the visions held by members of the group manifests.  The mechanism is the same.  It is always now.  We are free to cancel our visons by changing our minds, or to hold them away by placing them in a future that doesn’t arrive.  We need to keep focus without strain or worry; we need to practice patience.

We need also be mindful of what we envision.  It is a fallacy to imagine that our good can exist independently of the good of all, or especially contrary to the good of all.  The visions must first embrace the well-being of the Earth and its denizens, of the human species, of the various groups that inhabit the Earth, of our communities, of our families, and then ourselves.  By so doing, our visions provide multiple blessings, all of which we enjoy, as we are part of the whole.  What we nurture, nurtures us.  That vision, too, exists in the now.

Let us take heart as we develop our ongoing skill at practicing patience.  Let us also be aware as we use our minds to birth what is called “a new normal” that to create an order which is viable for ourselves, we must first create one that embraces the well-being of all.  Patience is, after all, a virtue well worth increasing.

Peace, Diane

Pausing to Be

A few weeks ago, I took a week off, which is unusual for me.  I took a road trip to visit family, renew a nurturing connection, and enjoy a much-needed change of pace.  That week of almost no digital connection, sufficient sleep, spontaneous activity and conversation, and time alone listening to birds in the trees or reading, among other things, was a most welcome time of renewal.  Some might call it doing nothing, though the time certainly did not seem empty.

Doing nothing …is a feeling of presence and truly enjoying the moment as it is. It is simple and pure….

It serves an important purpose as well, probably unwittingly to most, in that it provides a sense of connection, not only to each other but with yourself. As a result, you end up gaining greater clarity about what is important to you at your core. This is a stimulating, always on-the-go society and it has become the default form of living, especially in the West. There is so much pressure to perform and meet expectations, creating a treadmill of stressful activity day after day….

Somewhere along the way society gave up on notions such as relaxation, idleness, and living in the moment as an important part of daily life. Having periods of time with little activity has always been a part of life (until, perhaps, the rising energy of the past few decades).

The quote is from an email communication by the Deepak Chopra Center.  It caught my attention because I, like others, experience the fast-paced chaos of modern times.  Chopra is correct.  However, slowing down to find enjoyment is often easier said than done.

Few among us have not experienced the rising pace of life and the ensuing rush to accomplish ever more in a dwindling time frame.  The most fortunate among us have managed to carve out moments of stillness within the frenzy.  The truth is that we all need those moments of stillness; we need them more frequently than most of us realize.

Some may object that doing nothing is not possible, because even if very still, one is still existing.  That is something.   OK, got it, but that is not what is meant by doing nothing.  If one is doing nothing, one is engaged in whatever degree of stillness for no ostensive purpose other than the act or process with which one is engaged.  This is key to understanding nothing.  One is in the moment, and not out to achieve or accomplish.  For example, if one is sitting on a cliff, wind blowing on the face, watching the distant sunset, one might say that is nothing.  If one is sitting on that cliff with the purpose of generating relaxation, or recording/remebering the details of the sunset, or even drying damp clothes in the wind, that person is not doing nothing.  If all there is is in the moment, and is simply the experience of what is happening, without purpose or a sense of having accomplished a challenge, then that is doing nothing.  It is being, not doing.

Being is not necessarily the absence of activity, but the attitude in which any activity is occurring.  It is centered in feeling and intuition, rather than in thinking, planning and accomplishing.  It has no purpose, in the sense in which most people understand purpose.   It is easy to dismiss, yet is a prize of great value, value which goes often unrecognized.  Peace, growth, health, relationships have their roots in non-doing.  Being has no counting or comparing.  In the moments of being, time does not exist, just as it does not exist in the far reaches of infinity.  We cannot DO outside of time; we can BE in those moments in which we can relax and devote attention solely to the present, without judgment.

People try to do this in meditation, but this is not the only way to experience moments of being.   Listening to inspiring music, without analyzing, judging or looking at the clock, simply to experience the music is being.   Coloring a mandala, walking in nature, soaking in a tub, staring into the fire, even the act of caring for a pet or another are entrances into being when they are done without exterior purpose to do them, without needing to accomplish them, without expecting result of them or analyzing them.  They are entrances when they are simply the experience of the moment, when we are experiencing the present in a focused way.

If being is simply experiencing the present moment, whatever it is, then it follows that in order to be, we must let go of what we normally cling to – our expectations, judgments, desires, or thinking about what is going on  Not thinking does not make us dummies.  The mind is always thinking; it does not seem to be able to turn itself off.   To be, we need for a moment to cease to identify with the mind, to simply let it do its thing, knowing it cannot define us if we refuse to be defined thereby.  Inspiration is rarely a result of thinking about things; it comes instead after moments of releasing thought to simply be.  Technology is much like the mind.  When we use it, we are normally thinking, doing something that the technology helps us to do.   For me, the break from even the limited technology I use helped me for a few moments to simply be.  It helps me to write, but it does not help me to be.

It is so simple, yet being (in the moment) is surprisingly difficult for most to do.  One cannot try to be, because trying is doing.  One cannot be angry with oneself for not being, because the anger is judging and doing. It is worth it, though, to set aside times to practice relaxing and releasing, simply experiencing what is.  I do think that practice helps.

I wish us all experiences of being.

Peace, Diane