10 Steps to become your own master – Part 10
por Izabel Telles em STUM WORLDAtualizado em 02/11/2004 12:00:02
Translated by Françoise Killick – [email protected]
The power of the HERE AND NOW
1st step: beliefs create experiences
2nd step: body, mind and spirit are inseparable
3rd step: break the patterns of your emotional routine
4th step: always see the good side of things
5th step: widen your practice of the 10 Commandments
6th step: your emotional brain is closely connected to your physical body
7th step: the part contains the whole
8th step: give your mind daily exercise
9th step: observe, remember, re-photograph
10th step: always life in the present
We have finally reached the last step. The last and perhaps the most important one, as, to be able to practice the other nine, we must base ourselves on this important premise: life only exists in the present.
Let's consider this: past is gone and nobody, nothing will bring it back. Only our imagination is capable of living in this dead period. It is through this imagination that we can feel emotions that no longer exist but left deep marks in our brain and body. However, it is also through our imagination that we can clean and forget these feelings. Future is not here yet and, thus, does not exist either. Only our imagination can live in a time that has not come.
Thus, we do not have any other option but
LIVE IN THE PRESENT
We must live every second as intensely as if it were a whole day, life as if life would not continue in the next second.
This implies that we are present in the present moment. How?
We have to listen to what happens around us, see what unveils under our eyes, feeling the effects on our physical, mental and spiritual body. We must participate of each second with all our energy, as if we were being born at that exact second with all our strength aimed
Stay in the present, speak in the present, think in the present. For living in the past or the future is much too easy.
In his book “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment”, Eckhart Tolle writes: "the problems are created by the mind and need time to survive. They cannot survive in the reality of the “Now”. Put all your attention in the “now” and tell me what problems you have right now”.
I would say: problems are created by your imagination that can manage to invent future and keep past alive. Problems need time (past, present and future) to survive. Put all your attention in the present, in the single moment, the second you are alive and tell me what your problems are.
We can frequently perceive people around us who, in fact, are not there.
We talk, show, design, make analogies and, when we finish, people ask exactly the same question that had initiated the discussion.
In fact, people do not want to be present, they do not want to feel the impact actions cause. They want easy ready-made answers. They want magic solutions without having to go through any process for that. They want to live in a kind of midst repeating situations and feelings from the past or dreaming of future situations or feelings.
And when they do not find those easy answers (fortunately, as they do not exist) they give shoulders and search for other ways to obtain those easy answers. A glass of alcohol, a sexual relationship, drugs can be easy answers. Yes, but what, when the effect is through?
Escape immediate ready-made answers, especially those you can pay for. They usually do not have a lasting effect. They are answers to desire, not to will. They are answers that take you away from time and throw you in the world of non-action.
Will is
Will is present without interruption in our lives. It guides, signals, conducts us, makes us be aware . It takes us from the world of illusions, past and present.
To stay in the present, OBSERVE. Take a step behind and observe how much we judge ourselves and the others. Observe yourself “photographing” images and remember that these images are going to invade your mind and transform themselves into beliefs and, further on, in experiences.
Observe and accept it, with love, tenderness and friendship. But say what you are observing. Say it mentally. Say it, knowing that the true “self” is an observer, which likes truth, which likes you. It only speaks in the present. Your happiness, your survival.
False self only speaks in the future and conditional, aiming at destabilizing and killing you.
To finish with this series, I am going to give you an exercise that I practised with one of my patient in whose mind I visualized her being burnt whilst a bunch of primitive and decadent people were laughing at her pain.
I asked her what I am going to ask you: sit feeling your feet firm on the floor, and your palms on your legs. Close your eyes, breathe deeply three time and put all your attention to this exercise which will not last more than a few seconds.
EXERCISE OF THE UNION
Imagine yourself in the centre of a square, being stoned, criticized, judged and condemned by primitive beings who wan t your destruction. They represent aspects of your false ego and want your death. Breathe deeply once and imagine your body growing until you don't even feel its weight. It is your True Being that is pulling out of this situation and comfortably installs all your bodies at the top of a mountain from where you can admire a calm blue sea.
Feel the Buda's smile on your face and the eternal happiness in your heart, happiness which is possible because you are again connected with the Universe.
And knowing you are free, living in the present moment, breathe and open your eyes.
Practise this exercise for three months, always when you wake up in order to feel it makes you more compassionate, loving and happy.
