There is an old saying that if you do not seize the moment then someone else will. It is not only an old saying, but also a true one. And for some of us, that thieving someone will be our past. Our past can cast a very long shadow across our lives, and deny us much. Some never get clear of the shadow, remaining unable to live in the present, and therefore unable to live freely and spontaneously in the world. This is sad.
For all of us, to some degree or other, the past is internalised in the very structure of our body, in the way we think, feel and move. We have absorbed and absorbed and absorbed and are now so weighed down by our personal history, much of it unexamined and unknown, that we wouldn’t know where our past ends and we begin.
Most never get beyond the child in them, for most do not stop to ask what pain the child felt. They have the appearance of adults, but live as the hidden child. Had they dared ask what pain the child felt, so much would have become apparent, so much would have become clear, so much would have become free and laughing and fearless. But most do not listen to that child. They fear the answer and, more particularly, the feelings the answer might stir up. There is no growth without feeling, no growth without the painful unfreezing of the past.
* * *
We each have a past. Our past has been overwhelmingly influential. But let us be clear here: we are not our past. We are our present. The past might have made us, but it does not define us. That’s just the ego talking. And the ego is a compulsive liar. Your ego wants you lost in your past, for in your past is much scaffolding across which it can scuttle like a cockroach, stirring up phoney emotions and reactions. In the present, there is no scaffolding.
Your history has done its work, influencing every decision you make. You hate the hold that history has over you, but strangely, you make no plans to leave. History has made you a prisoner, but you aren’t trying to escape. There is a nasty fear inside you, that if you leave the past behind you might actually cease to exist. So you loiter there, whether in subservience or defiance.
The only happy figure in this desperate scene is your ego. It really doesn’t mind what you do in your past as long as you stay there, allowing memory to define your every move. As you remain rooted there, your phoney personality feels ever more real, ever more defining of who you are. But just to irritate the ego, remember: the past might have made us, but it does not define us.
* * *
The other non-existent refuge is the future. For some of us, the future is more compelling than the past. We are those who like to move on. The future is the land of opportunity, and we are all for opportunity. We wish to break out and make waves in the big blue beyond. And so we become those who make plans. ‘You have to live the dream!’ as they say.
But this is not so. That is our ego talking again. To live the dream is a romantic notion, and a foolish one. It makes good movies, but terrible life.
Let any dream you harbour take care of itself, without undue encouragement from you. Instead, go about the simple if demanding business of living in the present. The dream you have may well be given to you. They often are, and perhaps in a manner better than you ever dared imagine. But if it is to happen and if it is to be good, it will emerge in its own time, while you seek the only good available - the kingdom presently within, for it is there that reality is changed.
Dreams cannot live in the present, which is the surest sign that they do not, in themselves, exist. If they do turn out to have substance, it will be as part of something bolder, grander, and much more deserving of wonder than your current hope. But we start by being present.
Truth is always practical and understands that child minders need to be organised, holidays need to be booked, and jokes in crackers need to be written in August. So we do these things. But we do them with an amused smile, as one who knows the future does not exist and can therefore never be truly planned. We then return as soon as we can to the present, where the only reality lies.
* * *
Your ego will tell you that to live in the present is simply not practical. But it is, and it is worth it. It is like shutting out the noise of a busy road. The silence is deafening. Just for this moment, you are free from the different moods that press their emotional case on your psyche. Just for this moment, the mental tyranny is quiet, for you are in the space between thoughts. You are problem-free. Just for this moment, you are neither battling within nor without, but peaceful in between, free to just be.
Your truest self responds to such space, like a flower responds to sunlight.
* * *
Today for a moment I will stop my various hallucinations about yesterday, tomorrow or later, and be present to myself: present to the present. I will allow myself to feel the impact of the ordinary, which is in fact deeper than any ocean, and more eternal than the sun. My life thus stopped is my life strangely started. Perhaps I will attempt it more than once today.
From The Beautiful Life, ©2007 by Simon Parke, published by Bloomsbury Publishing.
|
Inspirational features 
