Homily #2 on Being

A continued treatise on Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now”.

We left off last time with the concept of ‘watching or observing the Thinker’.  By abstracting this way you can disassociate your core being with your thinking mind.  Because the thinking mind is a trickster that is always working to disturb the peace.

The key concept here is that when you identify with the mind, i.e. believe that the thinking mind is who you are, you empower it, or give it energy in it’s thinking machinations.  When you observe the thinking mind you draw energy away from it.  You starve it of its ability to make you unhappy and anxious.

You, the underlying YOU is only in the now.  Whereas the thinking mind is always in the future or the past.  This creates what the teacher calls an ‘anxiety gap’ between the now and the past/future.  The only way to close the gap is to be in the now.

This focus on the future or the past in the thinking mind causes some people to strive for more things, more power, thinking that there is some happy place in the future, once you have enough achievements or stuff.  On the other side it causes people to associate their self-worth with problems and events in the past – sort of a ‘woe is me’ state that they are living in.

Both of these are conditions that keep you in fear or unhappy.  Striving for the future state were everything is perfect is a fool’s game, and a bottomless pit.  The real irony is that you are unhappy in the now to get to that state, and if you would focus on the now that future state would actually be better.

Living in the past is a bad investment too.  Why would you spend your time living in something that makes you unhappy?  Why invest your ego in that?  It can’t be changed.  All you have is now.  Why not learn how to be in the now?

To summarize, which is always dangerous with philosophical and spiritual works, all negativity; unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry…are caused by too much focusing on the future and not focusing on the present.  Guilt, resentment, regret, etc., are caused by too much past, and likewise not being in the present.

I will quote directly now:

There is no salvation in time.  You cannot be free in the future.  Presence is the key to freedom.  You can only be free now. 

Which brings us to our next conclusion, which may be seen a logical outgrowth:

All problems are illusions of the mind. 

The solution, if this were a world where solutions existed, is to be in the now.  Once you can truly be in the now you will start to realize and be filled with the pure joy of just being.  This is the presence, the stillness and the peace that you see and feel in people who practice being in the now.

When you are in the now you are no longer dependent on the future for your emotional state.  This frees you from being attached to results.  It frees you to do what is right.  It frees you to choose your own path. Failure and success no longer have any power over the state of you being.

I know what you’re thinking at this point.  I’m thinking the same thing.  If I’m about to be run over by a speeding train, or if I’m about to be fired, or if I’m about to lose a loved one, how is sitting and smiling like the Buddha going to do me any good whatsoever?  Don’t I have to take action?

The teacher is not suggesting sitting like a vegetable through life and avoiding the day to day functioning of normalcy.  One thing you will find is that many decisions happen in the now without you needing to think about them.  That speeding train for instance.  You will move out of the way.  You won’t think about it.

Other decisions become more true to your self as you are more grounded in the now.  You stop making decisions and taking actions based on a false premise about some future state or some false ego related emotional baggage from the past.

I have personally found that quieting my thinking mind and being more present in business interactions and personal interactions allows me to hear what’s going on and have more empathy – which makes for better and more effective action.

And the truth is we are not talking about living totally in the now.  We are talking about trying to be more present.  Most of us will never be able to live fully in the now.  But, we can try to spend more time in the now, which will have an outsized effect on the quality of our lives.  Even a little bit of now gives you leverage.

Most of us, including yours truly, exist in a constant state of unease.  Sort of a low level soup of anxiety.  The more time you spend, the more energy you focus, on the future or the past the higher that level of background noise is.  That is basic human unease or unhappiness.

By focusing on the now, the present, you effectively turn down the volume of that constant background noise.  It gives you a solid sense of a rooted self that is immune to the buffeting winds of fate and fortune.

And that is a great foundation for a, if not happy, happier life.