If you take any spiritual teaching it seems to give us certain important tips on how to carry out our life irrespective of whether we are philosophical or not. One of the most common tip is this " Live in the moment". What exactly does this mean?. If we look at our life, we only exist in the moment. So what is so great about living in the moment?. Whatever we do , whatever we experience is all part of now. The past has already died. The future is yet to be. All that is there is this present moment. So even if i wanted to come out of now, i cannot. In this context it is difficult to understand what the advice means to "Live in the moment".
Here comes the important point. It is our attention that is not in the moment. If we look at our thinking process , you can see that it is only a fraction in the moment. It is always drawn away from the moment. So the advice really asks us to disregard all those wavering and attend to the moment. People who have meditated have seen this. The moment we start meditating and start observing our thoughts, we seldom see any thought related to the current moment of meditation. It is always about things we need to do, or a thing that happened today before i started meditating etc or a current worry that is engrossing us etc. So as the thoughts settled down and we reach a sort of calmness we begin to notice our own awareness manifesting as perfect bliss and it becomes the moment and nothing else. This state where our true being is manifested is one in which we can see only the moment.
Why is that our true being or self is in the moment and our mind is not?. The mind does not have a permanent beingness. It is always changing like the flames of the fire. Whatever it sees it catches hold of and moves in that direction. A moment is just there a stationary thing. How can the mind catch hold of a stationary thing when it is changing all the time. So it would not do so. If we take our true self or pure presence you can see that all that it knows of is this moment. Because you are only present in this moment. So the natural state of true self is to be in the moment. The attention would be to rest in the moment.
Does this advice really mean to abandon all experience about the past and do nothing about the future?. No. It is just a perspective shift which lightens us. The mind has lot of blah blah thoughts that are all about imaginary concepts about past and future which has the effect of creating fear anxiety , sorrow etc. By realizing our true nature , we become aware of such thoughts going in the mind. Since we are not in the realm of mind, we can easily see this happening. We are looking down on the mind by being present. If on the other hand we are a slave of the mind, we fail to see this deceit. So you can again see our attention is mostly in the moment, while taking into account whatever things that can be done factually about the future attended to now. Note that we cannot do much about the future anyway , but certain things can be done about it . Be being in the moment , we concentrate on what can be done now rather than being drawn to imaginary fears and projections. For e.g. if you are preparing for an exam, you need to study now. So it is not that you are unconcerned about exam, but you dont worry about whether you would fail or not or some such stories, but whatever studies have to be done now needs to be done. If nothing needs to be done now, we don't attend to the exam thought . So you can see how attending to the moment have made us efficient and removed our fears also. Suppose someone is coming home next week and you dont like him. So any worries about it in the present moment is a waste of time because thinking about it now doesnt make the situation go away and in fact the only impact it would have is to create disturbance in your mind. So better to leave such thoughts for now.
How to cultivate this on a regular basis?. You need to go back to your true nature of the self to become aware of the mind all the time. Meditation can help a lot . You should learn to always be aware of your mind and look down on it rather than be in it.
Many spiritual teachers point out that our mind is constantly engaged in imagined needs. What are imagined needs?. You are not content with the state of affairs currently , and you want them to be something else. For e.g. someone is behaving in a certain way, but you want it to be something else. This is not an actual need. It is a projection by the mind and you can see that it is a major concern for most of us in our life. Most of the time your mind would go on interpreting actual situations based on these imagined need. This draws our attention away from the current moment. We may fail to even notice what we are eating and what scenery that is currently in front of us. So it is all a question of attention. If we really thought about it , we would immediately say , what can i do about it in this moment ?. You cannot. You cannot work towards an imaginary need. It is mostly not in your hands. So if it is not in your hands, you cannot do anything about it now. You are thinking for the sake of thinking. Always ask yourself , can i do anything about it now. If so it would attend to that. Otherwise just skip it.
If you have noticed how the mind works when you are really tense about something. You would notice one thing. There is only a worry which is engulfing your mind and you are attending to the story by the mind engrossed in it. So what happens you fail to notice any other thing around you. This is a restriction of consciousness. It is not relaxing when you are hard concentrating on a single thing. The natural state of consciousness is always not to be aware of any particular thing. It is the relaxed state. When you are in the moment , you are aware of all of the glory of the moment fully conscious of everything rather than a particular thing.
When you are just aware of all around you and you exist in the moment in your awareness , you are more awake. Most of us are not fully awake. Our thoughts are out of sync with the world. They go on their stories about past and future like dreams. This is why our natural state is called an awakened state.
“Are you a God?” they asked the Buddha. “No,” he replied.
Are you an angel, then?” “No.”
“A saint?” “No.”
“Then what are you?”
Replied the Buddha, “I am awake.”
Houston Smith
This moment is always glorious. It is full of things that we have It is not something based on certain conditions fulfilled. It is for us for the taking. Unlimited existence is the most glorious thing.
Here comes the important point. It is our attention that is not in the moment. If we look at our thinking process , you can see that it is only a fraction in the moment. It is always drawn away from the moment. So the advice really asks us to disregard all those wavering and attend to the moment. People who have meditated have seen this. The moment we start meditating and start observing our thoughts, we seldom see any thought related to the current moment of meditation. It is always about things we need to do, or a thing that happened today before i started meditating etc or a current worry that is engrossing us etc. So as the thoughts settled down and we reach a sort of calmness we begin to notice our own awareness manifesting as perfect bliss and it becomes the moment and nothing else. This state where our true being is manifested is one in which we can see only the moment.
Why is that our true being or self is in the moment and our mind is not?. The mind does not have a permanent beingness. It is always changing like the flames of the fire. Whatever it sees it catches hold of and moves in that direction. A moment is just there a stationary thing. How can the mind catch hold of a stationary thing when it is changing all the time. So it would not do so. If we take our true self or pure presence you can see that all that it knows of is this moment. Because you are only present in this moment. So the natural state of true self is to be in the moment. The attention would be to rest in the moment.
Does this advice really mean to abandon all experience about the past and do nothing about the future?. No. It is just a perspective shift which lightens us. The mind has lot of blah blah thoughts that are all about imaginary concepts about past and future which has the effect of creating fear anxiety , sorrow etc. By realizing our true nature , we become aware of such thoughts going in the mind. Since we are not in the realm of mind, we can easily see this happening. We are looking down on the mind by being present. If on the other hand we are a slave of the mind, we fail to see this deceit. So you can again see our attention is mostly in the moment, while taking into account whatever things that can be done factually about the future attended to now. Note that we cannot do much about the future anyway , but certain things can be done about it . Be being in the moment , we concentrate on what can be done now rather than being drawn to imaginary fears and projections. For e.g. if you are preparing for an exam, you need to study now. So it is not that you are unconcerned about exam, but you dont worry about whether you would fail or not or some such stories, but whatever studies have to be done now needs to be done. If nothing needs to be done now, we don't attend to the exam thought . So you can see how attending to the moment have made us efficient and removed our fears also. Suppose someone is coming home next week and you dont like him. So any worries about it in the present moment is a waste of time because thinking about it now doesnt make the situation go away and in fact the only impact it would have is to create disturbance in your mind. So better to leave such thoughts for now.
How to cultivate this on a regular basis?. You need to go back to your true nature of the self to become aware of the mind all the time. Meditation can help a lot . You should learn to always be aware of your mind and look down on it rather than be in it.
Many spiritual teachers point out that our mind is constantly engaged in imagined needs. What are imagined needs?. You are not content with the state of affairs currently , and you want them to be something else. For e.g. someone is behaving in a certain way, but you want it to be something else. This is not an actual need. It is a projection by the mind and you can see that it is a major concern for most of us in our life. Most of the time your mind would go on interpreting actual situations based on these imagined need. This draws our attention away from the current moment. We may fail to even notice what we are eating and what scenery that is currently in front of us. So it is all a question of attention. If we really thought about it , we would immediately say , what can i do about it in this moment ?. You cannot. You cannot work towards an imaginary need. It is mostly not in your hands. So if it is not in your hands, you cannot do anything about it now. You are thinking for the sake of thinking. Always ask yourself , can i do anything about it now. If so it would attend to that. Otherwise just skip it.
If you have noticed how the mind works when you are really tense about something. You would notice one thing. There is only a worry which is engulfing your mind and you are attending to the story by the mind engrossed in it. So what happens you fail to notice any other thing around you. This is a restriction of consciousness. It is not relaxing when you are hard concentrating on a single thing. The natural state of consciousness is always not to be aware of any particular thing. It is the relaxed state. When you are in the moment , you are aware of all of the glory of the moment fully conscious of everything rather than a particular thing.
When you are just aware of all around you and you exist in the moment in your awareness , you are more awake. Most of us are not fully awake. Our thoughts are out of sync with the world. They go on their stories about past and future like dreams. This is why our natural state is called an awakened state.
“Are you a God?” they asked the Buddha. “No,” he replied.
Are you an angel, then?” “No.”
“A saint?” “No.”
“Then what are you?”
Replied the Buddha, “I am awake.”
Houston Smith
This moment is always glorious. It is full of things that we have It is not something based on certain conditions fulfilled. It is for us for the taking. Unlimited existence is the most glorious thing.
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