Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Wherever You Are, Be There

One of the major reasons why we fail to find happiness or to create unique lifestyle is because we have not yet mastered the art of being.

While we are home our thoughts are still absorbed with solving the challenges we face at the office. And when we are at the office we find ourselves worrying about problems at home. We go through the day without really listening to what others are saying to us. We may be hearing the words, but we aren't absorbing the message. As we go through the day we find ourselves focusing on past experiences or future possibilities.

We are so involved in yesterday and tomorrow that we never even notice that today is slipping by. We go through the day rather than getting something from the day.

We are everywhere at any given moment in time except living in that moment in time.
Lifestyle is learning to be wherever you are. It is developing a unique focus on the current moment, and drawing from it all of the substance and wealth of experience and emotions that it has to offer.

Lifestyle is taking time to watch a sunset. Lifestyle is listening to silence. Lifestyle is capturing each moment so that it becomes a new part of what we are and of what we are in the process of becoming. Lifestyle is not something we do; it is something we experience. And until we learn to be there, we will never master the art of living well.

Present Moment

How can one create anew in the moment, without reference to the past or the future? In this metaphor of surfing the wave and staying over your feet, we are talking about staying rooted where you ARE -- in the present moment -- rather than in the "past" (where you have been) or the "future" (where you are going). If you think about it, all fear derives from past experience being projected onto the future. When things arise in your present moment that remind you of something from the past, you can easily project that the past experience will repeat itself in the moments that follow the time of remembering that past. This is when you feel fear. It's inner talk that says, "It was like this before, so it will be like this again." If you experienced pain in the past, you expect it will be painful again. That is where the fear comes in. You want to avoid the pain. "I'm afraid that if this moment goes the way it went before, I'll experience what I experienced before, and I don't want to do that again."

The answer to this is to cut through the cords of memory, to interrupt the inner talk by saying out loud, "That was then. This is now." Boom! You are back in the present, able to choose anew in the present moment. When you say the word "now," you bring your attention into the present. Say "NOW" out loud, right now. Feel NOW. What is really happening NOW? Not what happened before, not what MIGHT happen later. What is really happening NOW? Do you see how you are in the habit of scaring yourself? Cultivate the practice of living NOW. Live each moment as the only moment that exists. NOW is the only place you can create anything. NOW is the only place you can choose anything. NOW is all you ever really have.

When we say the word "moment," it will be useful to define what we mean. A moment is an "event" that arises from the matrix of Infinite Mind. It contains everything within it for its natural fulfillment and completion. It is not measured by minutes, seconds, or hours. It is a unit of experience that may be very short or go on for some time. You can FEEL when a moment begins. You can FEEL when it completes. Every moment has a beginning, a middle, and a conclusion, like a phrase in speech or music. Think of it entering into your field of awareness, swelling into its fullness, and then receding as it completes. There is a wavelike quality to a moment. A wave emerges from the ocean, swells, moves forward, and then resolves back into the ocean. Just so with a moment. It emerges from the ocean of consciousness that is the Mind of the Creator. It swells upward into your perceptual field, and moves forward, then ebbs from your experience as it completes. There is background and foreground, and there are different waves overlapping. In the past, you were only peripherally aware of the background, as your attention was captured by the foreground, but now your senses will be broadened and deepened until you are like a bowl containing ALL of it -- all of the ocean and all of the waves upon its surface. You will be aware of all of it simultaneously and be able to move your attention to whatever you feel called to pay attention to, at will.

Every Month A Million and the Daily Dose Of Good.

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