At dinner the other night came a conversation about the importance of experiencing all that life has to offer before, you know, it’s too late. The basic idea being that we need to be out there scaling Mt. Everest or racing elephants in the desert or earning our first millon by 30 lest we fail to live a remarkable life.
As a military brat first conditioned and then prone to a life of ceaseless wanderlust, I might once have agreed with that position. No more.
It is so thoroughly obvious to me now that those monumental events are nothing more or less than the equal to brushing one’s teeth before bed, walking the dog, or boiling water for spaghetti. All of it – Everest and flossing – occurs and then immediately fades into nothingness.
Eckhart Tolle has made his fortune reminding us again and again of what, for millennia, the mystics too have attempted to teach: That there is only now – that all that we ever are is this, right here, right now. To suggest otherwise is just more mental poppycock.
And don’t make the mistake of thinking Tolle or the mystics are speaking of time. I used to see it that way too, which is precisely why I and so many millions of others completely missed what Tolle was pointing to.
Now has nothing to do with time.
Now is NOW. To be part of time requires the now to be bookended by preceding and succeeding moments – memories of the past and anticipation of the future. In the now there is no time, there is only presence, a constant, ineffable awareness of what is. And this presence-awareness, as the mystics also taught, is ineffable, unchanging, omnipresent. It is the mind that attempts to capture, conceptualize, and safeguard these ‘moments in time’ forever and ever.
And then we get old or damage our head in a car accident or develop Alzheimer’s and all those oh-so-important moments are gone.
Look at your suffering and see if it isn’t entirely based in the past and future. The ever-restless mind alternates between its twin obsessions with the past (agonizing over missed opportunities, celebrating accomplishments, reminiscing, etc.) or future (big plans, fear of failure, the need to make a lasting statement, and so on). Note that all of these ‘things’ are, in fact, no-thing at all – just thoughts, utterly without substance.
When I awaken in the wee hours, I am never haunted by the present moment – who chafes at the comforting cocoon of a bed? No, it is the return of thoughts and ‘me’ with it – thoughts of the preceding day(s) and/or what is to come with the rising sun. Thoughts and more thoughts gobbling up the present moment, which is completely missed, buried as it is in thought.
So goes the mental game of life, planning for a brighter future and fleeing a darkened past perhaps, or vice versa. The colors and shapes of it all are irrelevant, only the pattern itself matters and only because it is a complete fabrication that we need to see through if life is to truly be enjoyed for what it is.
It is interesting to note that in my ayahuasca experiences – yes, they are but memories now as well, and vague ones at that – existence consistently was seen as a constant state of unfolding. In one an unimaginably powerful river of electric-blue energy coursing through and at the same time comprising the universe; in another a constant state of becoming without any end point; and in still another an void of impenetrable darkness within which no-thing exists of and by itself.
What seems clear now: Existence is magnificent simply for, well, its existence. Nothing more than that. It isn’t magnificent because of anything; it is magnificent because of everything, and for every moment the mind dwells in the past or future, existence itself is missed and ‘suffering’ occurs.