It’s the thoughts that finds the current second so elusive. Consistently occupied with ideas, emotions, and sensations, the thoughts gives the look that it’s already current. That is an phantasm. Contemplate the sunshine coming at us from distant galaxies. Gazing on the night time sky, this gentle appears to be shining right here and now, however actually it took billions of years for starlight to achieve Earth, so the sunshine you see is definitely billions of years previous.
Surprisingly, the identical is true of what you see proper this minute. Within the very temporary time it takes for photons of sunshine to journey out of your retina to the visible cortex in your mind, there’s a delay. In impact, you might be seeing the previous, simply as once you gaze on the stars. The identical is true of the opposite senses as nicely. The rise and fall of notion brings a time delay. Likewise, the approaching and going of thought is definitely simply an impression of being current. The overwhelming majority of ideas require an interpretation, which places considering much more up to now. Contemplate how a thought like “I’m actually hungry” can linger for hours till you get an opportunity to eat.
But you might be truly current in your thoughts, nonetheless, the inside place the place you might be current escapes your discover. This place is the silent hole between ideas. A thought is transient, rising and fading away like a wave on the ocean. But the ocean is at all times current, and so is the silent background of consciousness that you just glimpse, for a fraction of a second, between ideas.
Should you dive into this silent hole, which is the aim of meditation, the notice you expertise is within the current second. Silence has no dangerous recollections, wounds, traumas, and conditioning from thee previous. Due to this fact, it may be current. Silence is steady and new on the similar time. The novelty comes from the inventive prospects that human consciousness incorporates. Not all of those prospects are new. When your thoughts delivers its subsequent thought, in all chance it’ll repeat or resemble a previous thought. Habits of considering are the principle purpose we don’t expertise the current second.
Your physique has no such drawback. Cells are at all times current—they must be in an effort to survive. Your cells don’t retailer a provide of oxygen and vitamins for various seconds. They rely upon being nourished with out fear for the long run. In different phrases, they belief within the knowledge of the now. If a cell might voice what this knowledge consists of, it might say that the brand new
Is at all times new
Is aware of what is required always
Refreshes the expertise of being alive
Incorporates vibrant power
Has no regrets in regards to the previous or apprehension for the long run.
These are the very qualities the thoughts seeks within the current second. But there’s truly nothing to hunt, as a result of the now occupies no house in time. It can’t be seized or described. There may be “no there there” by the requirements of the considering thoughts, which craves to carry on to pleasurable experiences and banish painful ones. The now isn’t about pleasure or ache.
When you notice this, you could have taken an important step to being within the current second: Cease believing that you would be able to get there by considering, feeling, believing, hoping, or another psychological course of. The knowledge of the now, as your physique already is aware of in its trillions of cells, is embedded in existence itself. With out this knowledge, a cell can not exist. The phantasm that you would be able to exist with out the knowledge of the now should be discarded.
As seen within the Vedic custom of India, on a regular basis life is pure phantasm when it’s lived on the premise of the 5 senses and the thoughts. “Phantasm” is a phrase, actually an accusation, that folks mistrust, as a result of all of us are deeply conditioned to reside on the degree of the fabric world, which should be interpreted by the 5 senses in an effort to make sense. But the 5 senses don’t have anything to do with perceiving actuality, not even the bodily world.
All expertise happens in consciousness. With out consciousness, the world “on the market” has no sights, sounds, textures, smells, and tastes. That half can’t be questioned, as a result of on face worth everyone knows that in deep sleep there isn’t a world “on the market,” not for us as experiencers. Right here the knowledge of the now takes an odd twist. In deep sleep, in keeping with the Vedic seers, you expertise pure consciousness, which makes sleep the closest anybody involves the overall absence of phantasm.
I do know that this reasoning sounds unusual, and the automated response is that sleep incorporates no expertise in any respect should you aren’t dreaming. However it is because the haze of the conditioned thoughts overlaps out of your waking hours into your sleep. With readability of consciousness you’d understand sleep because the quiet peace of pure consciousness. Actually, it’s a must to go there to ensure that your mind to clear the slate and rid itself of gathered toxins, two issues it can not do when you are awake and considering.
Few individuals are more likely to pursue whole readability when they’re asleep, however the knowledge of the now’s glimpsed in waking hours, too. These glimpses come once you expertise something the thoughts can not create and by no means has. Essentially the most precious experiences in life are love, compassion, perception, empathy, fact, magnificence, inspiration, pleasure, surprise, creativity, and inside development. Nobody invented them. They can’t be invented, actually, however are innately a part of human consciousness. They’re our interpretation of pure consciousness made manifest.
The rationale you don’t want to hunt the current second is that it’s already discovering you as an alternative, in these moments when the silent hole between ideas delivers these items. If the silent hole have been empty, non secular life could be simply as empty and pure consciousness a void. However in actuality infinite prospects exist in pure consciousness, and the hole between ideas is the portal for activating these prospects. To take heed to this actuality takes you out of all illusions. Now you could have a lifelong motivation for valuing the items of the now and doing the whole lot you possibly can to reside by them.