A common belief mingling through our mainstream culture is that happiness can be found in the future. If we observe our daily flow of experience, we may discover this belief informs the majority of our thoughts, decisions and actions. As such, there is great worth in checking this belief out, to discern whether it is actually based on sound reason and experiential truth, or whether we are unknowingly subscribing to a delusion.
First of all; what does this belief do for us? Instead of bringing us happiness in the here and now, it gives us the impression that right now we are unhappy. If we are believing that happiness can be found in the future, we are, whether we acknowledge it or not, implicitly believing that happiness is not present now.
So the question comes; do we really need to believe that thought? Of course not! All beliefs are optional. It is our freedom to invest a thought with the presumption of 'truth.' A thought does not force us to believe it. No thought has that power. The only one with the power to believe is our self. Therefore, since our self is always present, the option to cease believing in a thought is available at every moment.
Now, as an experiment, what would happen if we were to suspend the belief in a future happiness? What remains here, in the absence of all thought and belief, as the evidence of the Now?
Right Now, what we call ‘the present moment’, is simply present as it nakedly is, laid bare in its essential glory as the only Reality that is.
The Now is all that is ever present. It is all we ever have. It is all that is really Real. It is the only presence that is really accessible to experience.
We have never actually experienced the future, nor will we ever experience the future. We only experience the presence of Now, and it is all that we will ever experience. It is always only Now.
We can imagine the future, sure. Yet, that imagining is merely a thought appearing in the presence of Now, made of the Now. The imagining of the future is, therefore, evidence of the Now, not of the future.
What about the past? Has anyone ever actually experienced the past? We can have a thought of the past, an apparent memory of a time other than the present moment, however, that thought appears in the presence of Now and is, therefore, only an experience of the Now. If we strictly face the facts of experience, the idea of the past, like the future, is really only evidence of the Now.
If we try to actually go and experience the past or future, can we go?
No. I cannot actually leave the Now.
The past and future are invariably concepts that appear in the only presence that is really here, the Now. There is only Now. And this presence of Now is ever-present. It is always Now.
Check this out Now. It's utterly awesome. There is only the Now. And this Now is Reality itself. Reality and the Now are experientially indistinguishable. Reality is Now. The Now is always 'when' Reality is.
So, then, what about time? Is time real? What is the evidence of our experience? Do we really experience time?
We can imagine time. We can imagine the past or the future, but do we really experience them?
No, we only experience the presence called 'Now.' And the Now is not moving or elapsing. It is always present irrespective of what 'time' it is. As such, the Now exists independently of time.
The Now is timeless.
Thought appears and disappears in the Now. Sensation appears and disappears in the Now. Sense perception appears and disappears in the Now. All forms and movements of our entire human experience appear and disappear in the Now.
The Now is the medium in which all experience exists. If we were to remove the Now, there would be nowhere for experience to exist. However, the Now cannot be removed. It is all that is here as Reality itself! There is nowhere we could put the Now other than where it already is, for it is all that is really here. 'Here' and 'Now' are really two names for the same presence, the presence of Reality.
Does the Now ever disappear? Do we ever have the experience that the Now disappears to be replaced by not-Now? No. The Now is ever-present. Into what could the Now disappear? There is only the Now.
What about our Self? Do we have a relationship with the Now? Are we at a distance from the Now?
No. We are at the Now, always. That which we call 'I' is always Now. Can we find a border that separates our Self from the Now?
No. I am Now. I am the Now.
There is no subject-object relationship between our self and the Now, simply because they are one and the same present Reality. Interaction or separation is impossible between the Now and itself, between our Self and itself.
The Now, our Self, is not measurable, for it is not an object to itself. We cannot perceive our Self as an object. Our Self is the subject that knows itself without any form of intrinsic duality. We can never know what we are in objective terms. We are 'too close' to our Self, which is no distance or time at all from our Self. Our Self is timelessly at its dimensionless presence.
The implications of this discovery are profound. If our Self is not an object and cannot be measured, that means there is no evidence that we are limited. Right now, there is only the experience of the presence that I am, as this Now that only ever is, all by itself; the essential Reality of all existence.
Now, what about happiness?
This presence of Now, that we are, is the only source from which happiness originates, for it is the only presence that is really present. Yet, it is incorrect to suggest that happiness 'originates' from what we are, like water originates and sprouts from a spring. Happiness is not an emergent property or epiphenomenon of our Self. It is, in truth, an intrinsic attribute of our Self.
The Now, being the Allness of our Reality, finds no intrinsic, essential limitation within itself. That absence of limitation is the experience of happiness.
Only that which is unlimited can be unconditionally complete, fulfilled, and happy. That is what true happiness is; the absolute absence of a sense of lack or limitation.
What were to happen if we ceased believing that happiness resides in a non-existent future? We would experience happiness where it truly is; Here, Now, as our very own Self.
Being completely happy in the Now, there is no desire to seek happiness in the future, unless for the purpose of a joke. And that is just what seeking happiness is, when seen from the ever-now experience of happiness.
There is no future when happiness can be!
Happiness is ever-here, ever-now, as our innermost Self.
Comentários