Living in the Now
It is a popular recommendation to those interested in a spiritual way of life or in personal growth to live in the now or in the present. Although it may sound like a reasonable suggestion exactly what does it mean to “live in the now”, or, looking at the other side of the coin, what does it mean to not live in the now?
If we examine anything the only place it actually is, is in the now. Take an obvious example of a memory. It will be of a past event but the memory itself is in the now. Likewise, with expectation of some future event, the event may not have occurred yet but the expectation connected to it is a present feeling.
Consider our senses, are they “now”. Well the experience of, say, a sound may be now in your head, but the sound itself happened before that experience of the sound because it takes time for the information about the sound event to reach you. First it must reach your ear, then it must reach your brain. Likewise, with all other senses, they are all from the past because they take time to reach you.
So what does it mean to be present, to be in the “now”. Well, there is something prior to experience, something that is there before experience is registered. That which is prior to experience is the sense of existing, unqualified and undefined. Not existing as something, before that, just existing.
How can we be present then, as this sense of existing? What can we do to achieve this? As you may have already anticipated, there is nothing we can do, rather it is more a question of what can we stop doing.
We get so bedazzled, bewitched, distracted and absorbed by experience that we lose the sheer sense of naked existence that is the very ground of our being. Or as the famous song goes - bewitched, bothered and bewildered. So what we can do is to stop being bewitched, bothered and bewildered. Then that which is prior to experience can show itself. It may show itself gradually or it may show itself suddenly. It may happen at any time and any place. Likely as not, you will not be ready or prepared for it or even properly dressed for it, it will be a revelation. But there will be a certain obviousness to it, like “how could I be so stupid, this is so obviously how it is”. Although it may appear that some are aware of this truth and some are not, all very obviously arise in this truth. Relative to any and all experience you will gain a sense of humour. Everything will become less serious. Human existence will cease to be a matter of life and death!
Then from the perspective of this prior condition, paradoxically, all events are seen as present and “now”. You are not bewitched by them because you recognise them from this prior perspective. You are not bothered by them because when experience is seen in its true light it is but a play on a more profound depth of existence. Just as a wave moving on the ocean does not disturb the ocean in its depth. You are not bewildered by what is before you because you understand its nature.
That which is prior to experience is called many names – consciousness, God, the feeling of being, nirvana, Buddha, the void. Simply put, it is that which is, when all else falls away. It is not nothing, it is the ground from which all else arises. Every you, every me, every this, every that arises from this ground of being. Every feeling, every emotion, every thought arises out of this one great feeling of being.
So, through relaxing in all our parts, physically, mentally and emotionally, letting go and releasing all we hang on to, feeling through and beyond every feeling, be it good or bad, that which is can reveal itself as what is now, what is present.