Meditation, Consciousness and Time

Happiness is Found in the Present Moment

If you believe material objects or money will bring you happiness, then your  happiness is impermanent, as it is bound by change.The external world cannot bring you true happiness, it is only a temporary experience. Life moves through you, like a river moving through a stream; trying to hold onto its flow is like swimming against a current and a primary reason why we suffer.

Your real inner self is the source of true happiness which is always to be found in the present moment. It's not bound by change, nothing is coming or going, a divine space that is unchangeable. Experiences will move through you, thats is the flow of life, however true joy is discovered in the presence of your Inner-Self, in the now, not in the past or future. This is an extremely important point as Dudjom Rinpoche a great Buddhist master says: "Since pure awareness of nowness is real Enlightenment, in openness and contentment I found the Truth in my heart."

In reality there is only one continuous moment to be experienced. Peace, love and fulfilment can only ever be found in the reality of the present moment, that's why meditation is so important: to help stop getting distracted by the mind's projections into the past and future and be able to look deeply into the reality of the present moment and discover the good qualites of your true self.

Time is an Illusion

The future moment only exists as an idea. Think about it? In reality you are here and now, your body is always anchored in the present moment, through the breath — the body can only experience the present moment; unlike the mind which can time travel with its imagination.



“Time is a human perception because: The human body. YOUR human body is in all three of the "times"; past present and future. Look at a clock. The person you are now, in the present, in one minute will be in the past. That same person right now is one minute in the future in the future. let me rephrase that: In one minute's time the you that you are now will be in the past. The future you will become the present you and then almost instantly the past you. Therefore, it is the MIND, not the body, can only be in one time at once, the present. It is the mind, or the conscious, or perception that keeps us seeing things in the present. Nothing else, stones, cars, even our own bodies are in only one time at once. therefore, it is a perception, not a force or dimension…”

The past is gone. . .but where is it?

With each breath the past slips away, forming a memory. The present moment is the only point you can access in reality, everything is happening now, in this very moment.

Key points:

•     Past and future are only mental constructs.

•     Time is a convenient measurement of constantly flowing conditions.

•     The only place time exists is in your mind.

•     There is only one moment which is like a field stretched out into eternity.

•     All experiences happen in the same eternal now moment.

You were born in the now moment, you are reading these words in the now moment, when you take your last breath it will be the now moment. It’s never not now.

By centering your attention on the breath in the present moment you can detach from thoughts and experience for yourself the reality of the one eternal moment. When you can maintain a calm focus; thoughts will not be able to distract you and the space will open up to realise your true-Self gaining access to profound insights about the nature of reality.

“When the mind is still, the whole universe surrenders." ~ Lao Tzu

"When you transcend your thinking mind in the realization of your own pure, timeless, ever-present Awareness, then the illusion of time completely collapses, and you become utterly free of the conditioned cycle of time, change, impermanence, and suffering." ~ Buddhist teaching

You Are the Sky

You are the great blue sky,

The world of time and change are just clouds passing by,

Clouds appear,

Clouds disappear,

But the great blue sky remains the same,

Clouds cannot exist independently without the great blue sky, but the great blue sky can exist independently without clouds.

Are you the cloud?

Or are you the great blue sky?

The present moment is the motionless great blue sky,

Do not try and grasp it with your intellect, it is beyond your intellect (mind).

You must feel it with your heart.

Feel it from deep within your being - your presence.



Living in the Present Moment

Question: What is the analytical mind?

Answer: The mind that:

•      Analyses

•      Judges

•      Observes

•      Remembers 

•      Compares

•      Rationalises

•      Organizes

The aim of meditation is to use focussed attention to go beyond the analytical mind to experience the simplicity of the present moment with pure awareness.

ATTENTION is an element to your being that you have control over.

What exactly is attention?

Psychological answer: Concentrated awareness

Esoteric answer: A stream line of consciousness, focused energy.

Meditation for cultivating a stable attention:

STEP 1 )

Sit still and take control over your focus and channel your attention inside the body.

STEP2)

Just like you are watching a television screen, start to observe your thoughts and feelings with detachment and calm.

STEP3)

Focus on the breath and feel the body, feel every muscle and cell in the body with your awareness. The magic is in the pure feeling and direct experience of your inner world without judging or labeling.

“The whole purpose of meditation is to move our consciousness beyond the analytical mind and into deeper levels of consciousness.” ~ Joe Dispenza

IN MEDITATION WE MOVE FROM :

•      Distraction to clarity,

•      Fear to love,

•      Somebody and someone to being no body and no one,

•      Material to the spiritual,

•      Some place to being no place,

•      Being in time to being in no time,

•      & from believing that the outer world is reality accessed through the senses, to knowing that consciousness is reality beyond the senses.

MEDITATION TAKES US FROM :

•    Survival to creation

•    Separation to connection

•    Imbalance to balance

•    Emergency mode to growth-and-repair mode

•    The limiting emotion of fear, anger, and sadness to the expansive emotions of joy, freedom, and love

•    Clinging to the known to embracing the unknown

Stoping thinking analytically and vacate the reason, logic, intellectualising forecasting, predicting, and rationalising at least temporarily AND ENTER . . .THE PRESENT MOMENT !!

Being mindful and aware of the present moment for a sustained duration of time creates a very healing state in the body. Feel the aliveness and start to enjoy staying in that space.

The Story of the Beggar

A beggar had been sitting by the side of the road for thirty years. One day a stranger walked by.

“Spare some change?” mumbled the beggar.

“I have nothing to give you,” said the stranger. Then he asked: “What’s that you’re sitting on?”

“Nothing ” replied the beggar. “Just an old box. I’ve been sitting on it for as long as I can remember.”

“Ever look inside?,” asked the stranger.

“No,” said the beggar. “What’s the point, there’s nothing in there.”

“Have a look inside,” insisted the stranger. 

The beggar, reluctantly, managed to pry open the lid. With astonishment, disbelief, and elation, he saw that the box was filled with gold.

I am that stranger who has nothing to give you and who is telling you to look inside. Not inside any box, as in the parable, but somewhere even closer: inside yourself. ~ Eckhart Tolle from THE POWER OF NOW

Enlightenment Trap:

Enlightenment is not something you grasp - “I got it” or something you achieve - “I’m finally here”. Its an ever deepening ongoing process, more like a marriage, between awareness and the present moment.  See more about the five main ego traps of meditation HERE

It is the fate for many seekers to try and find enlightenment outside themselves, always looking for a higher purpose or means to feel more connected to life. Searching outside of yourself to find the answers that dwell inside your own being is a never ending cycle, that leads to perpetual suffering.

This sort of thinking separates you from the truth and divinity within. Ancient teachings and quantum physics teaches us that the universe is inside you.

“The story of the Universe is inside every atom in your body, each and every one. And after 13.7 billion years, 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of them have come together, and that’s you. The Universe is inside of you, as surely as you’re inside the Universe.” ~  Science Blog
 

The person and place you seek from is not real rather it’s a projection or a mental construct that is created by the mind.

We tend to seek enlightenment from a mental position - a system of thought, we believe will bring us a level of peace and happiness. This system of thought or concept is merely a projection, the person who is seeking enlightenment does not truly exist, this makes the ground of the ego very unstable. The mind or intellect cannot truly experience enlightenment.

The feeling of enlightenment is experienced by the true-Self. Only Being can feel enlightened, in essence enlightenment is already within us, all we have to do is learn to expose our awareness to this beautiful state-of-being.

There is no person to be enlightened, all thinking and concepts are witnessed by the ‘all seeing eye’ - your true self. Understand this truth and you will understand life.

Written by Oska Phoenix