Perhaps we don’t have to “live in the now”…

We have heard hundreds of times on the spiritual path: Live in the Now!

And perhaps a little sigh followed…..because how exactly are we supposed to do that?

Our thinking mind seems almost incapable of staying in the present. It remembers what happened yesterday, rehearses a conversation from last week, wonders what someone meant, plans dinner, worries about tomorrow and suddenly remembers something embarrassing we said in 1987.

That is what thinking does.

Perhaps we are not asked to somehow force our mind into a permanent state of present-moment awareness. The moment we think, “I must stay in the Now,” we have already made the Now into another spiritual achievement somewhere in the future.

There may certainly be moments when thought becomes quiet and we experience a beautiful openness in which there seems to be no past or future at all. I would call such a moment a Holy Instant. For most of us these moments come and go. Trying to hold onto them only creates another struggle.

Let me try to offers something much simpler and much more (for me) practical…..

We don’t have to stop thinking about the past or future. We only have to notice what we are ‘believing’ now.

Suppose I remember something you said yesterday and immediately feel hurt again. The event happened yesterday, but the hurtful interpretation is being activated now.

Or I imagine something that might happen tomorrow and become anxious. Tomorrow has not arrived, but I am ‘believing’ my frightening story about tomorrow now.

And that means that now is also where another choice can be made.

I can simply notice: This is the story I am telling myself. Do I want to continue ‘believing’ it exactly as I see it, or am I willing to let it be seen differently?

That tiny willingness may already be the beginning of the Holy Instant.

It doesn’t require mystical silence. There doesn’t have to be a flash of light or ten minutes without a thought. The Holy Instant may be only three seconds in which I stop defending my judgment. A moment in which I don’t punish myself for yesterday. A moment in which I admit that I don’t actually know what tomorrow will bring. A moment in which I look at another person without dragging their entire history into the room.

And then the thinking starts again.

That’s okay.

Perhaps “This is my holy instant of release” does not mean: I have finally succeeded in living in the Now.

Perhaps it means: right now I can notice what I am ‘believing’.

And right now I can choose not to imprison myself with it.

We don’t have to find the Now……We only need one little moment of willingness to release what is hiding it.

And that moment is always… now.

With love and light,

G.