The Concept of "THE NOW"
Short Discourses

page 2

After my marriage broke up, a dear friend wrote to me and said in her letter:
"When the energies go back and forth between the past and the future, the healing process is delayed".

At the time, the effect was subtle, and my understanding of it was vague. Since my sorrow was not at its peak, the doors of meaning were not fully open, but planted within me was a seed that was being nurtured by the passage of time.

Slightly more than a year later, my life took another completely unexpected turn. A chance of happiness and friendship vanished with frightening brevity, and its effect was even more devastating than the first. With delayed grief and compounded sorrows, I found myself lost in an ocean of loneliness as the ground was literally washed from beneath me.

This was when I truly began my journey to find peace and restoration and it was to lead me down a road that never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would travel.

PROJECTION:
Upon coming out of the event that had brought significant changes to my life, I found myself floundering in a new state of emptiness and insecurity. I would desperately try and find something to hang onto that would restore me to a former state of existence. My first natural reactions were to review my past and wonder where I went wrong. I would wonder what alternatives of living could have prevented my new circumstance. In looking backwards or forwards in time, I would PROJECT my thoughts out of the reality of the present and try to become a part of an illusion.

This very normal practice is called upon many times everyday of our lives. To refresh our memory after an absence of concentration is to project. To recall what we wore yesterday so we can wear clean clothes today is to project. To be able to understand this chapter, you will have to project so that your feelings can be compared in order to find understanding and meaning.

Whenever we are happy and we look at a photograph of happy times, this projection or dwelling of a past event, re-enforces our existing happiness. Likewise, if we are sad and we dwell on the events that have brought us pain, then our sorrow also shall be re-enforced or amplified.

I have found a simple source of Peace from the belief that in the present moment, I have everything that I need for that moment. This long time belief of mine has now been validated for me through the freedom I have obtained from adapting this philosophy when I most needed it. In trying times, such thinking is difficult to maintain, but for me, somehow this unshakeable belief would always be there for me when all else made no sense. When there is a need for a major adjustment to your life and you are experiencing deep emotions such as Grief, Anxiety, or Brokenness, within the pain of the moment you would think that such thinking would be the last thing you need. But if you yearn for someone or something that gave you Love or pleasure, then the situation that arose to remove those things from your life came about through circumstances that needed attention and a necessity to be resolved. Even when you experience the depths of grief and loneliness, the pain of a broken heart, or any other emotion which seizes upon you, such intensity is serving your personal development through the enforced activation of awareness to Yourself, your situation, and your Truth.

I can now see the separation from someone who was once dear to me as a need. At the time, I could not see this since my desires were not being fulfilled. Poets and Lovers say within their bitter sweet laments that ...

Within such words lies a subtle truth. When we are without peace, it may be said that we fragmented. And when we yearn for a part of our life that no longer exists, there is truly a part of us that is still attached to that aspect of the past. Indeed, the phrase "part of me", that the poets write about, is, in fact, essentially somewhere else. Ironically, when we can truly let go of the object of our yearning, that "part of us" can then come back to unite us with ourselves and allow us to feel at Peace once again. We are then WHOLE once again.

Again, in retrospect, since there was a particular aspect of my life that was not serving my ongoing need for Love and comfort, something had to happen in my life that could enable me to live the sort of life I have always wanted. In short, I had something to LEARN. When I felt pain in the separation, it was because I was associating with an illusion. I was not in the present. I was somewhere else.

Within such circumstances, knowledge can be a saviour that will help us regain our peace. This knowledge has it's roots in the word CHOICES. We do not need to be a slave to suffering, and we need not be at the mercy of lingering emotions. We can choose to stay within our sorrows, or we can choose to acknowledge the past as that which cannot serve us anymore. Here, we can also choose to call on courage and begin a new start to life and a new self-respect.

To have experienced hurt whilst being kind to someone may prompt us to project to the past, to live out an old happiness, but soon agitation then develops in the search for reasons and answers. Those answers are never there. It's like trying to converse with the images we see on a television. Your answers are buried beneath your sorrow in a very serene place, and only in the stillness of "THE NOW" is when they can be revealed to you.

Take time out to be silent and go within. Lay aside your dramas and begin a process of contemplation of past actions. Identify areas in your life that are repetitive in nature and the problems they bring you. Deep within you are the answers that can change your life.

Not only must you be willing to seek them, but you must also be willing to employ them. Contemplation is an ongoing process and the benefits are enormous.

Many times for myself, no matter how hard I tried, I was drawn to my sorrows in an almost irresistible and magnetic way. I just couldn't seem to put them down, no matter how bad they made me feel. I had no concentration and many times I was just unavailable to my work, my family, my friends and many other things that were important. The days seemed never-ending and my sleep would be broken from the recalling of memories that refused to leave me alone.

During that period, there was a tremendous source of energy within that needed to be released, and as difficult as it was, it had to be expressed. This was the unavoidable time of my grieving process and it had to take its full path. When we are in this situation, all we can do is be kind to ourself as we experience our suffering. We can even comfort ourselves by wishing for Peace. For myself, I would say: "Peace to Me. Things Will get better".

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