Thinking and Acting in Present Time

Among the signs of third-stage awakening is the ability to be doing -- thinking or acting -- in present time, without identifying yourself with the mind running ahead of itself and being invested in the outcome of what you are doing. The accepted conformist approach to action is inevitably to be doing something in order to bring something else about. We have been taught that this is the way of human beings in the world. Wasting your time is often equated with not doing something which engenders a positive outcome. Using your time wisely is working toward or struggling to attain a desirable result. Yet there is nothing inherently wise in this attitude. Doing something in order to bring about something else when extrapolated into a lifetime of practice would simply mean that we never experienced our life for one single moment, while the promise of moments filled with desirable something elses await us in some fantasy moment in the future.

Spiritual Practice in Present Time

Here we begin to detect and fathom something of the modern day malaise of meaninglessness, anxiety, possession, and deferring our deeper needs in favor of superficial and ultimately unrewarding desires. Modern humans have missed the simple physics of the passing of time in the relative dimension of time and space. As mysterious as it has become, only anxiety and frustration remain, as activity engenders further activity and desires recede before our very eyes, never to be caught up with as they disappear over the distant horizon. If only we taught the principle of the practice of present time.

Spiritual discipline involves our use of the concept of present time not as an end in itself, which would merely be replacing one desirable outcome with another. We use present time as a means to experience or really a-experience or directly apprehend action in its entirety.

The Outcome of All Possible Outcomes

Everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen has already taken place. The result of all happenings is a coinciding present moment of the end of all actions, thoughts, and doing. This present moment, as you enter into it you notice, is like some distant resonating gong that was struck long ago in some far distant place, yet a tremendous corridor of eons of time have allowed the air to resonate and reverberate with the single strike of the beater on the gong. This is what the present is: the fulcrum of possibilities, the outcome of all possible outcomes, the dead center of existence in all possible forms.

Spiritual Exercise

I offer you a spiritual exercise. At any moment through your day, simply bring your attention to the present moment. Cease all movement and onward motion, physically, mentally, emotionally, and energetically. Freeze that moment and observe yourself in detail.

Bring your attention to your physical body. Notice tensions, tightness, restlessness, and contraction. Observe thoughts and thinking in their arrested state. See how your bodymind is moving toward something, some end or result, some imagined outcome. Don’t get caught up in what that outcome is, rather stay in the presence of the movement toward the result itself. Notice the flow of your emotions and their relation to desires and restless activity. Notice how your awareness deepens in perfect acceptance of everything that arises from your organism just as it is, without changing anything, without improvement or criticism. Be with yourself just as you are in present time. Observe the rhythm, depth, and quality of your breathing. Feel the edge of your energy body and its crackling movement.

Perfect Acceptance of Yourself

At the beginning of adopting this practice, aim to do this exercise three times during your day for between one and five minutes. As you repeat this exercise, your awareness and acceptance deepens and the insights from your observation become more profound. In time your energy, mental activity, physical and emotional experiences unify and you experience the confluence and harmony of the entire organism in both human and spiritual aspects.

The key to this spiritual exercise is perfect acceptance of yourself in the moment. Do not try to change a thing! Merely observe yourself in consciousness just as you are in present time. Everything is there, nothing is missing, all things will be given to you through spiritual practice.

BLOG entry #62