Right *here*, right *now*
This is the principle by which I live, parent and educate because if difficulties arise, they always seem to come from either fears for the future or regret about the past. But we are free to choose where to focus our minds: Past, future - or now!
I don't know whether living entirely, permanently in the NOW is always a good idea. I tried it for a few months once, but found that I had to force my mind not to do anything else, and enforcement tends to only waste energy and to involve a corresponding backlash. So I'm happy to think back sometimes to think about what's happened to learn from it and to remember past events with fondness.
I do find it interesting, though, which particular events I look back on with the most fondness. They're often the times when I was doing something apparently unremarkable - except living in the NOW! The special events like marriage, birthdays and childbirths were often so fraught with complications to do with the specialness of the event, that I obviously found it hard to enjoy them properly.
The more I live in the present moment, the less I fear the future. I have been known to indulge in the occasional panic about things to come to varying degrees, but I suspect this causes a frame of mind that looks for bad news and therefore often finds it. I have images in my mind about the long term future which all involve happiness and contentment. I think we do tend to find what we're looking for, one way or another.
Some thinking about the future is probably sensible though, to avoid danger. But taking action to avoid danger is a different thing entirely to just worrying that it will come and hurt me and mine. But too much focus on taking such action can lead to inertia, or - worse - the wrong sort of action.
I believe the universe is intelligent. Some people call this God, Allah, Jehovah, the Tao or other names relating to their culture and interpretation. This intelligence creates order and I think the key to right action lies in observing and complying with this order. Not being gullible or desperate to find answers or to follow the crowd.
By switching off the noise and finding somewhere quiet, to listen and think and just to be, the right answers arise on their own.
Right answers feel different, like nothing else. They just click into place and feel right, then it's easy to trust them.
I don't know whether living entirely, permanently in the NOW is always a good idea. I tried it for a few months once, but found that I had to force my mind not to do anything else, and enforcement tends to only waste energy and to involve a corresponding backlash. So I'm happy to think back sometimes to think about what's happened to learn from it and to remember past events with fondness.
I do find it interesting, though, which particular events I look back on with the most fondness. They're often the times when I was doing something apparently unremarkable - except living in the NOW! The special events like marriage, birthdays and childbirths were often so fraught with complications to do with the specialness of the event, that I obviously found it hard to enjoy them properly.
The more I live in the present moment, the less I fear the future. I have been known to indulge in the occasional panic about things to come to varying degrees, but I suspect this causes a frame of mind that looks for bad news and therefore often finds it. I have images in my mind about the long term future which all involve happiness and contentment. I think we do tend to find what we're looking for, one way or another.
Some thinking about the future is probably sensible though, to avoid danger. But taking action to avoid danger is a different thing entirely to just worrying that it will come and hurt me and mine. But too much focus on taking such action can lead to inertia, or - worse - the wrong sort of action.
I believe the universe is intelligent. Some people call this God, Allah, Jehovah, the Tao or other names relating to their culture and interpretation. This intelligence creates order and I think the key to right action lies in observing and complying with this order. Not being gullible or desperate to find answers or to follow the crowd.
By switching off the noise and finding somewhere quiet, to listen and think and just to be, the right answers arise on their own.
Right answers feel different, like nothing else. They just click into place and feel right, then it's easy to trust them.
posted by Gill at 8:10 am
6 Comments:
Very, very beautifully put into words, thank you, Gill. Very Zen, too ;)).
A lovley post!
I can never live in the right now. I have spent my life looking ahead to what might happen and taking action to avoid it if it looks bad. I drive the whole household mad:)mainly cos any predictions I make about future events normally come true lol, be they be good or bad. I wish I could let go of the future but I can't. Does that make me a control freak?
"Right answers feel different, like nothing else. They just click into place and feel right, then it's easy to trust them."
Yay Gill! People tend to underestimate this kind of intuitive knowledge, but I think it's the most important kind. :)
I'm a *right now* kind of person too - or I try to be! Just yesterday at work we learned of a student who had been killed in a car crash. I took a reserved book off the shelf where it was waiting for her - a stark reminder of the fact that we can never plan with any certainty.
Thanks all! But that one just wrote itself ;-)
I should maybe root around for more, where it came from!
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