An Essay on Here and Now

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
reply to post by sdocpublishing

 

It is the mind that analyzes and the mind is deluded. This is why there is so much confusion. The mind has been assumed as the owner of you, but it is 'your' mind.
While the mind terrifies us, there is a beautiful world in full veiw but we can't see it. The mind is full of stories of how it should be or how it was and how i can improve myself or the world.

youtu.be...
Mooji will show you home.

Namaste.

edit on 23-7-2011 by Itisnowagain because: (no reason given)

Itisnowagain, hi
You almost touched on something there in regards the mind. The mind is actually the antithesis of the Truth. There are two manifestations of existence; this one, the physical, and the other which the mind cannot conceive because it lies beyond 'mind'. Esoteric practices of a kind mentoned by the OP were originally devised as a means to experience the higher manifestation through overcoming the mind because it is the deceiving mind that tries to convince us that this physical reality is the only one that we can experience.
In truth we are what we feel which is why we have 5, some say 6, sensors that enable us to 'read' the external world and we interpret what our senses pick up on with our mind. But our minds are notoriously unreliable so much so that it is hard to find two people who have the exact same interpretation of the same event or experience. It is not our feelings that lie to us it is our minds and so the wisest ones among us learn to control their minds by being in close and continuous touch with what they are feeling in the 'here and now'.

reply to post by Juran


What we are is beyond the mind, prior to the mind. The mind is a system, a structure, a voice that narrates the events after they have occurred, but it is always personal, it always speaks about me. It worries about me and uses each moment as a stepping stone to improve or protect itself.
It is this voice that steals us away from what is happening, this voice is nothing more that a thought, it has no power unless we believe it. Behind the thoughts is a stillness, a blank background, that is intelligent prior to the lies. What you are is prior to any 'thing'. You are the canvas on which the whole world is painted.


We can live in the confines of our minds or we can live here in the light of this eternal now. And the difference is remarkable, astounding.

reply to post by Itisnowagain

Again, "try telling that to..." etc., etc.

For somebody so enlightened, you seem to have a poor grasp of how to reach people different from you.

(Not that I possess this skill either. But I have known people who do. You are not one of them.)

Originally posted by NewlyAwakened
reply to post by Itisnowagain

 

Again, "try telling that to..." etc., etc.

For somebody so enlightened, you seem to have a poor grasp of how to reach people different from you.

(Not that I possess this skill either. But I have known people who do. You are not one of them.)

edit on 24-7-2011 by NewlyAwakened because: (no reason given)

I'm thinking he is enlightened by the illusion he has of himself in his mind

reply to post by Itisnowagain


If you are still here, I know where you are coming from. You responded to me on a previous post. I read your interesting awakening story. I understand the frustration and depression that occurs after you have it and lose it. For me, I've only had glimpses but enough to make me know what we can have and how we can live without mind interference and all of the blissful experiences it includes. The problem is that all enlightened people speak about how great it is to be living in the blissful 'now' and how everyone else can too. It's almost like a rich person telling everyone how great it is to be rich beyond your wildest dreams and how you yourself also have millions of dollars in an account just waiting for you but the only little problems is, he can't tell you where the bank is or your account# or what name it's under. All he can tell you is, when you find it you will be rich beyond your wildest dreams, although you may never find it. My question to you is, why can't you or anyone else including Eckhart give us anything we can actually use?

reply to post by sdocpublishing

I read your post and also your "Caution". Regarding this, you mentioned that all the things in our lives we create previously to the event occurring. I'm not here to flame you but to ask, how can you possibly know that?

reply to post by Paintshisshieldred


I don't know why it can't be seen by everyone, to me it is obvious now. I know people don't get it and like i said in an earlier post i got it before i knew what it was. Eckhart Tolle got it before he knew what it was and i have just started reading a book called 'When fear falls away' by Jan Frazier in which she recounts her awakening, she also did not know what was happening at the time.
I don't think this can be learned, it happens or it doeesn't. I understand it and try to convey my understanding.
The main reason people don't get it is because they believe it is something to get, not realizing it is what they are already.
Everyone is on the road to somewhere trying to get something. What we are looking for is right here and right now.
If you want some other pointers Mooji is very good at showing exactly where the pot of gold lies.
youtu.be...
Here Peter Brown tells what happened to him:
youtu.be...
Here is Tony Parsons, he tells it another way:
youtu.be...
If you have glimpsed it already these speakers will help you recognize it again, check out their other videos. Mooji is very good in my opinion at pointing directly to the natural state.

Namaste.

reply to post by NewlyAwakened


If you think i am not good at relaying this message then you should check out this guy on youtube:
youtu.be...
What we speak about is not easy to understand. In fact trying to understand is part of the problem, it is the mind that feels the need to understand. What we are already knows before the mind, the mind just complicates things.

Standing in the here and now looking out from this placeless place is delightful.
For a long time i have delighted in the leaves, the colors, there must be a trillion greens. Plants and flowers are, to me fireworks in slow motion, i am halted in the street by the magnificence of the glowing trees, plants and flowers. It stuns me, like being in love. All this appears to me in the stillness, the silence. I find myself laughing, somehow being amused by the flower or leaf, touched deeply, sometimes i am moved to tears - by a flower???
People are becoming more and more amusing, situations that others are fretting over, gossip and fear mongering are heard now but there is nothing to attach the fear to now. Nothing sticks, events pass by.
Nothing matters, everything is immaterial.
Images appearing and disappearing.

reply to post by Itisnowagain

Thank you for your input. This quest is one of great frustration for me. It's like a difficult puzzle who's solution is obvious only after you solve it and then wonder why everybody can't see it. What a strange existence. I'm still listening to Mooji hoping his words or yours will trigger some sort of remembrance and take me back to where I know you reside. Namaste.

reply to post by Paintshisshieldred


I wish you all the best, relax in the knowing that it is all being taken care of.
What you 'are' is frustrated, it is beingness being frustrated.
Beingness can look and feel like anything and when it appears as frustration do not try and change it.
That is it, that is what is happening, frustration.
Awareness of what is happening, inside and out.
Soon it is obvious that there is no inside and outside.
All that is seen to be happening is just happening, no one is doing it.
But there is an awareness.

I just found this one you might like:
youtu.be...

So that's enlightenment? It sounds like resignation to me.

My most recent epiphanies have been quite different. I find I delight in exertion and doing.

Many of the principles that got me here are similar though, like mindfulness and the ability to detach. Living is a chore when you're wrapped up in the desire for this or that outcome, and in the fear that you may not realize it. But knowing that I will not realize it, but can probably realize some approximation of it in my strivings, takes the edge off. Then I can set goals for myself, work at them, and enjoy the process of growth as a human being.

I find satisfaction in this. In both the victories and the defeats, growth itself is satisfying, growth that comes from mindfully processing the experiences and whatever emotions are involved.

But to each their own. Or, is your way the only way?

reply to post by NewlyAwakened


The only way is you.
There is no right or wrong way as such.
However you are the way, that is, when you find the Self.
Looking to 'others' for answers is not the way.
It is the realization that no way is correct and no way is incorrect. Everything is accepted.
You are the answer.

reply to post by NewlyAwakened

It may look like resignation and that is all it is really, resigned to the fact that life is inevitable.
We say 'sh1t happens' and that makes us believe that life is sh1t. But really life happens and we feel compelled to argue with it. What if we could just accept that this is it?
The mind won't allow that. The mind can not see what is really here because it has ideas. It has ideas about how it should be, or could be. It is incapable of seeing that it is complete now.

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
But really life happens and we feel compelled to argue with it.

And again, this is where you and I decidedly disagree. I agree that life happens, but in my experience arguing with it (note I do not mean complain about it, almost the opposite in fact) is a big part of the meaning of life. Wherever you focus your attention, you expend creative energy. We are not here to sit around; we are here to create. Life hands us lemons, and all that.

There's a movie quote (2002 Count of Monte Cristo) that sums up this philosophy quite well:

Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout as you did in Rome: "Do your worst, for I will do mine!" Then the fates will know you as we know you: as Albert Mondego, the man!

To each their own, though. I agree with you on that bit. Perhaps you were put here to sit around. One thing I know, and confirm for myself more every day lately, is that I was not.

What if we could just accept that this is it?

I'm happy to do so as long as we don't exclude from "this" kicking ass and taking names (metaphorically speaking, generally).

In short, as long as the "this" in "this is it" includes what we do just as much as what happens to us, we are in agreement. But then all of this is totally meaningless; it becomes a complete tautology, so why are we even having this discussion? Yay, everything is! So what?

I'm also open to the possibility that this changes as I get older. Again, you would not tell a teenage boy to sit around and bask in resignation, and if you tried to, well, try it sometime. Our attitudes change as we age. When you're young, it's time to be human. When you're old, then perhaps it's time to be divine.

reply to post by Itisnowagain

I really do appreciate your advice. I will watch all the tube vids you recommend. I have them all bookmarked. Thank you again my friend. Hopefully I'll be breaking out of mental prison soon!

reply to post by Newly Awakened


No one would tell a teenager to bask in resignation, not in this society anyway. Children from 4 years old are trained with buzzers and bells to make sure they are good slaves, conditioned from an early age. Humans are conditioned, trained, programmed to fit in. But what are we really? Without the training to be successful (a good slave), without the programming that says 'i can be better, i can be more, i am not enough', what would we be?

Life happens and we imagine that we have some sort of control. When we spend time in the imaginary world of our minds we are missing what is here and now. The only time and place that you have any power is in the here and now, yet most people are in their heads going over the last event (or day, or 10 years ago), or working on tomorrows problems. So the only power available is now and everyone is missing it. Who sees now?
Now is just a stepping stone to some thing better!!!! This is the belief.
The importance of being here now is completely missed, it solves all problems. All problems.
There is a saying 'Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves'.
I say 'Look at now and all past and future will look after themselves'.

Resignation does not mean do nothing, for that would be impossible, it means acceptance of what is happening now, what ever it is.

reply to post by Newly Awakened


Resignation, acceptance, surrender leads to gratitude, delight, wonder, amazement, joy and peace.
The thing is that when the truth is seen, there was nothing to give up. All we actually give up is the chatter in the head, the victim and the bully, the good guy and the bad guy, the angel and the demon.
Life is seen in its full spendor without judgement of self or other. Every 'thing' appears in the silent stillness.

reply to post by Itisnowagain

The idea of living in the now is not a new one. In my experience it's an ideal to be approximated rather than something people are actually able to do constantly. There are some tasks that you decide to do "now" that nevertheless require foresight and planning which require drawing on knowledge and past experience.

But you'll probably tell me that as long as we are performing this foresight "now" and using the past as tools, that's what matters. And I agree.

Dwelling on the past and entertaining unrealistic fantasies about the future are neurotic behavior. Essentially what you're saying is "Don't be neurotic." For many people this is easier said than done. I heard this stuff at various times all my life, while lost in deep neurosis. Only recently, after working intensely on my demons (not to mention receiving an act of grace), am I capable of comprehending it on any deep level. So your advice is not so much workable advice, as a sort of "Look at me, look what I can do! You should too!"

But if I understand you correctly, then (aside from your laughably simplistic notions of how child-raising works), what you say is basically true. People who have their full attention engaged in reality are happier, better able to make good things out of misfortune, and frequently produce success for themselves without really even trying.

I just don't see it helping anybody who isn't already "almost there", as it were.

Finally, to be quite honest, while I am a big fan of "gratitude, delight, wonder, amazement, joy and peace", they are not the only emotions I want to experience in this life. I'm into the whole gamut. I intend to live as intensely as possible for me given my strengths and limitations.

reply to post by Newly Awakened


How is it possible to not live in the now? It is where you always are. This is not an idea and it not something that can be achieved