immediate

The present moment has a reality to it which our memories of the past and our dreams for the future do not. And if we bring our awareness to the present moment, then life becomes more vital, more alive. It is this immediacy which I want to speak of.

It is right now that you feel life. And the more you dwell in the present moment, the more spontaneous life becomes and the more enriched. When we lose this feeling of the immediate, of the present moment, then we drift off into memories of the past and hopes for the future and we are in the mind completely, thinking, thoughts coming, memories coming from the past turning into thoughts about the future. And we lose the immediate feeling of life, we lose touch with life, we lose touch with existence. To touch existence, we have to touch it right here, right now, immediately, without a moment’s hesitation.

And this is how an enlightened one responds to life, with an immediate response to whatever the present moment is offering, suggesting, be it pleasant or unpleasant, be it expected or unexpected. In fact for the master everything becomes unexpected. For he has no interest in even his own expectations for life. Those are born of yesterday, of memories. And there is something dead about the past, about those memories, however beautiful they may have been, or however worrying they may have been. They are gone. Those times are gone. And to be open to today, we have to come back to the present moment. Forget about the past. Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about what you did yesterday. Don’t worry about what you are going to do tomorrow. Come into the present moment and you will find that if you have enough awareness, you can respond totally, immediately, to the present moment. And when one is integrated to that extent, when one’s response is coming from the integrated being, the total being, it is never wrong, it has a beauty to it, if becomes just a part of the flow of existence, not separate from it.

So bring your awareness back to the present moment. And see, see what responses come from you, immediately, as things arise in your life. Trust this immediate response.