The Present of Now

There is a force in you that is always eyeing the next opportunity, the next thing to say, the next person to hang out with instead of the one you are actually talking to. You are often not present at that holy moment now. For your anxiety-driven mind, it seems that there is always something more important than the activity or the person you are dealing with right now. With this endless restlessness, you never truly live in the moment because your mind is always somewhere else but here.

In life we get so easily lost, so we try to escape into alternative scenarios and fantasies. It is a vicious cycle, the more we are lost in life, the more restless and anxious we become, the more we are annoyed by the present situation and so more intensely do we aim to escape instead. Also, the more anxious we are, the less we feel inclined to do the activities that are spiritually meaningful to us, like meditation, writing, or going on nature walks. When we feel pressure, the voice in our head that wants to be in every situation but the one we are currently in goes into overdrive. We are literally fighting with a phantom in our head and the more we render control to him, the more exhausted and distracted we are going to be in the end. When our soul is sidelined by the voice in our head, we can not really see what other people need; we also cannot do what the holy situation demands of us. Because we are literally not there, we can also not really connect with the people we are with.

You may have read Eckhart Tolle's book that put him on the map in the spiritual community, The Power of Now. The irony was, when he wanted to publish his book he was first told that his idea was an old one. Well, lucky for us that he reminded us nevertheless of the Power of Now, in the same vein as we remind you today. There is nothing really you can do when you find that you are "there" in your mind instead of "here". All you can do is to realize for yourself, "Oh, I am thinking about my response instead of really listening to what my friend wants to tell me."

Aldous Huxley presented an idea that we could all live on an island surrounded by trained parrots who say " here" and " now" every 30 seconds to continuously remind us not to be sucked in by the voice in our head. Well, I venture to say that our voice in our head would even get used to that distraction. No, there is only one proven method to live in the now and that is to get sucked in by life. When we are way too engaged with what life demands of us, the " voice" in our head is simply to occupied to start a journey on its own. There is only one way to be in the presence always and that is when you learn for yourself that the now has a present for you in hand, no matter what. If you unwrap the Tao's present here and now with the same intensity as a child unwraps her gift on Christmas, then you know that you command the Power of Now. But please don't take it from us, please try this concept out for yourself.


By Christian and Su Zhen