“to be in alignment with what is means to be in a relationship of inner nonresistance with what happens”
“there is only ever this moment”
-Eckhart Tolle
Oneness With All Life: Inspirational Selections From a New Earth
I was watching TV the other day and a very telling commercial came on. One guy was asking his friend if he had this new cell phone…and before he could complete the sentence, his friend whips out the new cell phone…and that scene leads into another and another. The caption was something like, “you are so 8 seconds ago!” when you think about it, we are bombarded with such technology -TV, Internet, tweets, email…it all happens in seconds or less! I have seen people go without even blinking to keep up with the screen they are watching. This can interfere with our body’s ability to relax and/or sleep, make creative and conscious choices.
As a Yoga Teacher, I do and have said to students things like “be the architect of your future by focusing on the present moment” (based on teachings by Gandhi) and “the present moment is all you have”. If you spend that moment resisting, what you are pushing away will persist. Likewise, honouring and accepting will turn anything into a friendlier lesson, an opportunity. I still say these things because the truth has not changed. If you focus on gratitude, your life blossoms, and you tend to attract more joy. If your stance is victim, you tend to find yourself under a black cloud of negative thinking and unhappy attitudes. A still mind is a centred mind, and a centred mind is present and still. The goal of Yoga is this calm, as it is a spring board to deepened connection with Self, deepened feelings of purpose and fulfilment.
I remember over 20 years ago the “present” moment was not such a huge catch phrase. Meditation was simply “being”, “watching”, using a mantra… I get asked from students from time to time though, especially in the last 5 or so years:
So how long is the present moment?
I believe the ‘present moment’ is a sweeping awareness and assessment of all that is. It is eternal. It is NOW, as Eckhart Tolle says. It is the dogs barking outside, the dishes in the sink, the pile of paperwork, the laundry, the schedule, the circumstances and situations of what you are in…but not necessarily of…It is not a quantity of time but a qualitative appreciation of it. It is your ability in this moment, to pull your attention away from this activity and allow yourself to observe it, so that you do not become the drama, but allow it to move over you and through you. You then become sensitive to finding an appreciative quality in your experience and aren’t scrambling for the exit door all the time. The present moment actually becomes a doorway to freedom, because you stop chasing the next thing, the next next thing and so on. “Wake up and smell the coffee (or the roses?) can now become a spiritual practise for you. MMMMMMM is a sound that relaxes the nervous system. Try.
The eight steps of Yoga form a holistic framework that lead one to this sense of being whole with whatever is. It comes down to just enjoying or experiencing what you are doing while you are doing it. Not thinking about what you did or have to do, what they said and will say, all of that gets a time out. If you can take a time out of some sort, this fast-paced hyper-charged world doesn’t absorb or drain you.
That being said, it is called a practise so you can pretend time is a piece of chocolate cake and carve a sliver to taste it (how about 60 seconds? that is by today’s standards a large portion!). Great, now take your sliver of time, close your eyes, connect with your breath and be aware…Wow! you did it! You were in the present moment…Now just think, that same minute can be spent in peace, prayer, meditation, joy, laughter, quiet, affirmation or worry, anxiety, fear, anger, hatred, negativity and doubt….the power of Now is a powerful choice…
om shanty shanty shanty
Rana
Rana Waxman is a registered yoga therapist ERYT-500, with 20 years of teaching experience. Rana is a freelance writer and social media expert in addition to leading yoga workshops internationally and teaching alignment focused private and group Yoga Lessons in Hoboken and Jersey City NJ.
