Only This Moment
Why there is only ever this moment, this one right here, right now, and how living in it, fully and completely, can transform your life.
“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have.”
— Eckhart Tolle —
Recently I’ve been basking in the joy of meeting my true nature, my essential self, who I truly am, more and more frequently. It requires completely dropping down and being in this moment. This one right here. And as such, I’ve been spending more time in the here and now.
We’ve all heard it’s important to be here now. Renowned spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle wrote a whole book about the subject: The Power of Now. Which is an amazing book. He has since written several other books on the subject including Practising the Power of Now.
“Forever is composed of nows.” — Emily Dickinson —
Why do we need books to teach us how to be in the now? Because it’s hard for many of us (and I definitely count myself among them). Even as I write this my monkey mind is going off. Write faster. Get on with your day. You have so much to do today. Even writing feels self-indulgent. Or that’s what it’s telling me. “Can’t you see all the chaos around you?” it asks me. You need to get online so you can start putting out fires.
But there are no fires.
There’s no chaos in the now.
When I meet my essential self there’s nothing but perfection and beauty and joy and love.
All the good things.
And once you realize that all that is always there in the here and now, well, you want to spend more time there.
It wasn’t until very recently that I started to spend substantial time in the here and now so it’s still relatively new to me, living in this moment. And still very much a work in progress.
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”
— Henry David Thoreau —
I’ve read The Power of Now and several other books on the subject and taken courses on mindfulness including Jon Kabat-Zinn’s (the OG himself) Masterclass. I knew that being in the now was important. Something I should be doing.
But knowing is one thing and doing is quite another.
Once you start doing, though, there’s no going back. Because as I started dropping into the now more and more — for me it does feel like a dropping — and discovered how it felt, fully being in the now became kind of addicting. That’s not the right word but it’s also not the wrong word.
Once I discovered how it feels, I wanted more of it. And as I spent more time in the now everything else around me got better. I’m calmer. I don’t react as much. I hope I’m nicer to be around.
“Happiness, not in another place but this place…not for another hour, but this hour.”
― Walt Whitman —
The thing that I’ve long known with my head but just discovered with the rest of me is that all there ever is this moment. Only this moment. This one right here. Right.
The past? It lives in your head in memories. The future? It lives in your imagination.
But the present? It’s right here, right now. Waiting to be lived, fully and completely, with all your attention and focus. And when you do, everything changes.
