Live in the Present Moment

Live in the Present Moment
[Vinod Anand]

The present moment is all you ever have. There is never a time when your life is not “this moment’. Is this not a fact? Psychological time is a mental disease. Look as its collective manifestations.

They occur; for example, in the form of ideologies or any nationalism, or rigid religious belief systems, which operate under the implicit assumption that the highest good lies in the future and that therefore the end justifies the means.

The end is an idea, a point in the mind projected future, when salvation in whatever form — happiness, fulfillment, equality, liberation, and so on—will be attained. Not infrequently, the means of getting there are the enslavement, torture and murder of people in the present. For example, it is estimated that as many as 50 million people were murdered to further the cause of communism, to bring about a “better world”.., a chilling example of how belief in a future heaven creates a present hell.

Flow does this mind pattern operate in your life? Are you always trying to get somewhere other than where you are? Is most of your doing just a means to your end? Is fulfillment always just around the corner or confined to short-lived pleasures, such as sex, food, drink, drugs, or thrills and excitement?

Are you always focused on becoming, achieving and attaining, or alternatively chasing some new thrill or pleasure? Do you believe that if you acquire more things you will become more fulfilled, good enough, or psychologically complete?

Are you waiting for a man or woman to give meaning to your life? In the normal, mind-identified or unenlightened state of consciousness, the power and infinite creative potential that lie concealed in the Now are completely obscured by psychological time. Your life then loses its vibrancy, its freshness and its sense of wonder.

The old patterns of thought, emotion, behaviour, reaction and desire give you an identity of sorts but distort or cover up the reality of the Now. The mind creates an obsession with the future as an escape from the unsatisfactory present.

But the belief that the future will be better than the present is not always an illusion. The present can be dreadful and things can get better in the future, and often they do. Usually, the future is a replica of the past. Superficial changes are possible, but real transformation is rare and depends upon whether you can become present enough to dissolve the past by access tug the power of the Now.

What you perceive as future is an intrinsic part of your state of consciousness now. If your mind carries a heavy burden of the past, you will experience more of the same. The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future — which, of course, can only be experienced as the Now.

You may win $10 million, but that kind of change is no more than skin-deep. You would simply continue to act out the same conditioned patterns in more luxurious surroundings. Humans have learned to split the atom. Instead of killing 10 or 20 people with a wooden club, one person can now kill a million just by pushing a button.

Is that real change? If it is the quality of your consciousness at this moment that determines the future, then what is it that determines the quality of your consciousness? Your degree of presence. So the only place where true change can occur and where the past can be dissolved is the Now.