Since it is obvious, to me at least, that the more baggage we carry into our every-day existence, the more difficult it is to remain present, and to remain present, is essential to opening the heart and being here now without all the distracting noise of the mind. I like to express it more "spiritually" perhaps? - it allows Grace to flow. I thought perhaps someone might find it useful to share here a moment in my own life, which became extraordinarily obvious to me, and stopped the chatter and absurd waste of energy that remembering the past, and mulling it over, then bringing it into the present, and re-experiencing it over and over. As a practice, perhaps it is useful, although the effectiveness for myself was beyond a practice, it just happened in a sudden flash. But I remember it when old habits resurface.
I simply and suddenly realized that, if I knew for sure that I, or my loved ones, were to know that we had only one day to live, would ANY of the past have ANY significance whatsoever within those next 24 hours? Indeed, now? The obvious answer to that was no, and indeed, to remain anywhere but present would be irrational and absurd. And in that flash, I was present, bright, full of energy, entirely open, content, and full, and without any train of thought whatsoever. Clearly here! It simply became apparent to me that I could not remain presently focused if I remembered past experiences and allowed them to continue to seep into my consciousness.
In considering this further, I realized that for some, imagining this condition might be too extreme, for it is hard to bring a real sense into the imagination of a limited 24 hour time frame of continued existence. Instead, the same obviousness would be there should I have a serious illness, and recall when I did years ago, EVERYTHING else in the world fell away, and I was present, fully, at that time. It was impossible to go backward, because it was irrelevant. It was impossible to go forward, because the present moment was intense and required my attention and focus. I was, again, fully present and full.
Under both these conditions, the energy available to me was enormous, and the mind clear, focused, and constrained, yet my "state of consciousness" was expansive. I was in the position of control, as opposed to the mind driving me. This is obviously the rationale behind practices that aim at controlling the errant mind, and the rationale behind remaining in the present in order to experience God, or allow Grace to enter one's life. This is clearly the purpose behind prayer, fasting, meditation, and all the rest of it. It blocks the intellectual process, so that the heart's understanding may shine forth. It is obvious to me as well that the heart's understanding is ALWAYS shining, but the mind casts a shadow over its light because of its persistence and domination AND our allowing the mind to do so.
Perhaps all that seeking is is that. Unravelling the mind's predominance, so that who we are can shine through. And who we are when it shines through is Grace, or God shining through God's manifestation.
A Trick for remaining present
The book I'm reading right now is teaching about staying in the present. Attempting to do this at work the last few days, I've had some success and some lapses. What I have discovered through my struggles with this is how much I'm fighting against the present moment. As I'm more aware of this work, I'm more aware of how the ego part of me is expressing itself--- the belief that nothing is right and I must make things right or protect myself or stay in that 'fight for survival' mode. I was writing to someone about feeling that resistance against what was going on at a certain moment. It feels like a quenching your teeth together. Not even realizing it until you happen to relax your mouth and it feels like wow, that is better
I relate a little to your experience of the energy that flows into you. I have not come home exhausted the last few days. I don't feel like someone drained the life out of me. Today, I wanted to jump into a situation and defend myself and I stopped and I backed up and tried to put it into perspective, in a way, how you are speaking of. How important is this in the big picture? Does it matter to anyone except my ego that wants to be right and cares about reputation? It worked. I kept saying to myself, I'm not this little person, I am not!I like what you said:
I relate a little to your experience of the energy that flows into you. I have not come home exhausted the last few days. I don't feel like someone drained the life out of me. Today, I wanted to jump into a situation and defend myself and I stopped and I backed up and tried to put it into perspective, in a way, how you are speaking of. How important is this in the big picture? Does it matter to anyone except my ego that wants to be right and cares about reputation? It worked. I kept saying to myself, I'm not this little person, I am not!I like what you said:
Perhaps all that seeking is is that.
Unravelling the mind's predominance, so that who we are can shine through. And who we are when it shines through is Grace, or God shining through God's manifestation.
Oh, and I wanted to say, that I came home and started reading again and the word surrender came up. I know it was discussed in another thread. Allowing what is happening to happen and not fighting against it is surrending to the moment. It was a little different view that sort of jolted me tonight and came together with a lot of the discussion on surrender from all of you.
-
Ihavesayso
- Posts: 57
- Joined: January 3rd, 2005, 7:54 pm
- Location: Lodi, California, USA