The breath of the Universe calls me
Star breath pauses
My breath pauses
All dissolves
All arises
In stillness
The Now is a scary lover for the ego. Just try it. Try opening your heart, your life to the moment. Even if this one time you try meeting only this one moment. It requires exquisite nakedness. I’m quite convinced that our Essence lives in the Now. Our habit states and ego live in the not-now. So, you can only sit in the now utterly unprotected. You have to lay aside illusions about yourself or others or the world, and that is basically everything we have been constructing for most of our lives. It is the framework the world lays on us – if you want to ‘belong’ or ‘become’ something you have to play the past and future game, the game of relativity. Meeting the Now is a blissful and frightening act that requires ‘un-becoming’.
The most interesting thing is that we all do this off and on all day. At the top and bottom of each breath, the now fills us. When we glimpse something stunning in nature or in a beloved’s eyes, in an utterly still pause before the mind clicks back in and tells us what we are seeing. That is the love affair with the Now. The fascinating thing is each of us already, innately experiences this constantly. We just don’t notice.
The Now really scares the ‘me’ that only exists as a web of habits of the past or the wishes or fears for the future or ideas of who I am as a wonderful person in this situation or broken person in another. Basically, because in the Now, all of that is either dissolved or revealed as imagination. To bow into the now requires a form of death-release. The ‘I’ dissolves. The ‘eye’ – the individual perspective dissolves. But what is revealed!
We fear there is nothing under our created ego. We have forgotten that we are a sort of diamond-like, oceanic Presence. We are love unbounded. But we have to be willing to abdicate the throne of self to find the Sovereign in the Now.
In the Now, in the act of loving the Now, there is ecstasy. Personal form, all forms, are lovingly, utterly reborn, every Now. All thoughts, stilled, cleared elevated. There is a burst of union, of creation, of release in every Now. If this is not a love affair, I don’t know what is. The Now is always Here. An infinite, cosmic lover with the limitless capacity to create universes, fuse with universes, dissolve universes.
So, the fussing self, my pretend Wizard of Oz, who would rather not meet the moment in order to maintain personal story is released. That master of illusion would rather remain enmeshed in some version of relativity because it’s a long term ingrained habit. It’s comforting. It knows for sure what is right or wrong – better or worse – me or you. It is a ruthless Judge who will thrash me and the world in all directions to maintain the illusion of power. I sometimes think of this as my inner fundamentalist. She is certain she is certain. She is convinced she is right even when the evidence says otherwise. So, she ignores the facts, the evidence available in the Now … and the swaying beat of illusion goes on. Yet, this is only a pretend safe place for a pretend being to live in illusion places wearing costumes and taking roles in plays.
It is a constant, ongoing, ever-new choice, to turn away from habituated self-ing and dissolve into this love affair with the Now. My habits utterly support the personal story – the imaginary patterns that prove that I’m a separate self. It takes vigilance and tools like meditation and things learned on the path to stay aware and heart-full in the Now. It takes utter devotion. I have to be vigilant to see who is running the show. Is it the Wizard of Self or the love affair with the Now?
The swirling vortex of life plays about our senses. Yet the answer lies at the eye of the hurricane. The Beloved awaits.
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