Being Present

I've started to read a new book that has become an integral part of my life. It's become an addiction that I am very proud of. The book is entitled The Power or Now: A guide to spiritual enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle.

Unfortunately my new addiction means many blog posts on my spiritual journey. I don't expect you to follow my journey, I just wish to inspire someone to take the journey for them selves!

"I'll be happy when..." I am certain that all of us have made this statement at some point in our lives. Reflecting on the future as a place where "happiness" will be found. I'll give you a personal example. When I moved up here it was partly to go to school, but it was predominately to achieve some greater happiness that I felt like I was missing in Ga. I thought that being away, rather running away, from my past to a new place would bring me happiness. I had built up my future to be so much. I made it seem like I would be on top of the world here in Md and that I would find some magical key that would unlock my eternal happiness. Unfortunately that was not the truth.

I'm not saying I am unhappy in my present state, I am however saying that my skewed perception of life in Md is quite different then the reality of life here. I realized after moving up here that I'm not really a northern girl. I enjoy the south. I enjoy the warm weather and mostly I enjoy being close to my family and friends and seeing them for every holiday big or small. I never realized how lonely it gets not having family/friends to celebrate your birthday with or to just randomly go out to dinner with. Again, I'm not saying that I don't have friends here or that I feel alone, just saying that there is a difference in what I viewed as my future and what actually is my present.

Which brings me to my main point. We spend so much time focusing on our past or in-visioning a better future that we stop living in the present, The Now. We are so wrapped up in our past that we fool ourselves into thinking that we will have a better future and in this way we forget the present completely. As Tolle ask in his book, "In this very moment what problems do you have?". The difficulties of our lives are those that we create for our selves by constantly searching in the past and wanting a better future. By being present and experiencing the Now we eliminate the pain and find true eternal happiness and peace within our selves:

"Past and future obviously have no reality of their own. Just as the moon has no light of its own, but can only reflect the light of the sun, so are past and future only pale reflections of the light, power and reality of the eternal present. Their reality is 'borrowed' from the Now." (Tolle p.50)

Take a moment to stop what your doing and look around. Observe everything around you. Think of all the wonderful things that you have in your life at this very moment and I assure you a smile will come across your face. God has blessed us all with more then we could have ever imagined, it's just that sometimes we get so caught up in some idealized future that we forget that presently we already have everything that we need.

With love and peace.