Monday 6 May 2013

It’s Now Or Never By Eckhart Tolle

This Moment
On the surface it seems that the present moment is only one of many, many moments. Each day of your life appears to consist of thousands of moments where different things happen. Yet, if you look more deeply, is there not only one moment, ever? Is life ever not ‘this moment’?

It's Always Now
This one moment - Now - is the only thing you can never escape from, the one constant factor in your life. No matter what happens, no matter how much your life changes, one thing is certain: It’s always Now.

Welcome It
Since there is no escape from the Now, why not welcome it, become friendly with it? When you make friends with the present moment, you feel at home no matter where you are. When you don’t feel at home in the Now, no matter where you go, you will carry unease with you. The present moment is as it is. Always. Can you let it be?

Only Now Is Real
The division of life into past, present and future is mind-made and ultimately illusory. Past and future are thought forms, mental abstractions. The past can only be remembered Now. What you remember is an event that took place in the Now, and you remember it Now. The future, when it comes, is the Now. So, the only thing that is real, the only thing there ever is, is the Now.

Make It Easy
To have your attention in the Now is not a denial of what is needed in your life. It is recognising what is primary. Then, you can deal with what is secondary with great ease. It is not saying, "I’m not dealing with things anymore because there is only the Now." No. Find what is primary first, and make the Now into your friend, not your enemy. Acknowledge it, honour it. When the Now is the foundation and primary focus of your life, then your life unfolds with ease.

Prioritise
Putting away the dishes, drawing up a business strategy, planning a trip - what is more important: the doing or the result that you want to achieve through the doing? This moment or some future moment? Do you treat this moment as if it were an obstacle to be overcome? Do you feel you have a future moment to get to that is more important?

Honour The Now
Almost everyone lives like this most of the time. Since the future never arrives, except as the present, it is a dysfunctional way to live. It generates a constant undercurrent of unease, tension, and discontent. It does not honour life, which is Now and never not Now. Feel the aliveness within your body. That anchors you in the Now.

Excerpts from "Stillness Speaks", Yogi Impressions Books.


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