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A common theme these days among those I mentor is worry about the future. At this moment in time on the planet and with the arrival of the corona virus last year, many are feeling ungrounded, unstable, fearful, and uncertain about the future. Thoughts come up such as “Will I ever be able to manifest that soul mate for whom I long so deeply?”; and, “will I be stuck in this rut of a job forever or will I ever able to realize my dreams…?”; and lurking in the background is “will this pandemic ever end so that can we can get back to normal?!”
The truth is there is never a good reason to worry about the future, as we are actively creating it by the choices we make moment to moment. As spiritual teacher Ram Dass has famously advised Be Here Now! When we are able to quiet the mind with its ruminations about the past or anxiety about the future, we enter a portal of timelessness. It is the entrance into our soul’s wisdom and the guidance that serves its evolution and highest dharma. But thought forms about the past or about the future create a veil blocking this intuitive knowledge from reaching us, often breeding anxiety or even depression.
In a recent Leslie Jamison article in The Atlantic magazine about men in prison who create art, researcher Nicole R. Fleetwood talks about the lesson that abstract artist Jared Owen learned while incarcerated.
“To fixate on the past or to focus on the time remaining on his sentence was to succumb to rage and depression. Such thoughts would make him angry about the years spent away from his two sons, both very young when he went away.”
But through his art Owen was able to hone a practice of staying present and tap into his creative impulse, which was both therapeutic and inspirational; and through his pain he discovered that when the mind is quiet and our intention is in simply being present with what is, each moment and deed is aligned with our soul purpose. In his case creating beautiful abstract art. As we practice this new mode of being we begin to perceive spirit’s invisible hand at work behind the scenes as wonderful life-enhancing synchronicities become commonplace. In time an unshakable faith in the support of the invisible realms allows the soul’s wisdom to direct our life through inspiration, intuition and direct knowing. We enter the realm of the miraculous, where time stops and the inevitability of our evolution becomes manifest. We are at peace and at one with the Creator.
Early 20th century mystic and poet Edward Carpenter eloquently describes this place in this poem. May you find your way Here…
The Central Calm
Drawing back for a moment from Time, and its superficial claims and conclusions,
Realising for a moment the artistic nature of the utterance of the Universe:
That all is for expression, and that for this end commencement and finale, first evolved and latest evolved, are equally important;
That Progress is a word which may be applied to any world-movement or individual career in the same sense as it may be applied to the performance of a musical work,
Which progresses to its final chord, yet the conclusion of the whole is not in the final chord, but in that which runs beneath and inspires the entire web–in that which from first to last the whole complex succession of chords and phrases indicates:
Realising this–
Realising–thus for a moment withdrawn–that there is no need to hurry, no need to dash against the bars;
But that Time itself rushing on with amazing swiftness in its vast and endless round, with suns and systems, ages and geologic epochs, races and tribes of beings, mineral, vegetable, animal, and ethereal, circle beyond circle, infallibly fulfills and gives utterance to the glorious whole:
Like one in the calm that is the centre of a cyclone–guarded by the very tornado around–
Undisturbed, yet having access equally to every side,
I drink of the deep well of rest and joy,
And sit with all the gods in Paradise.
The ground of being, awareness, presence – all names pointing to who we are beyond thought, time and space. In meditation we stop thought and this, our true nature, is revealed. In activity this ground of being or presence silently holds space, changeless and eternal and the substratum of all existence. Resting here, beyond thought, in meditation or not becomes a powerful place to direct our attention because it is our awakened state. The other day this question came up about presence:
“Isn’t presence like some sort of cheap escapism? I mean, I was having some restrospective thoughts, and sure I was feeling a little miserable, but then I felt better when going into presence, and yes, I feel OK now, but that doesn’t mean my problems aren’t still there, they are not going anywhere, I’m just basically ignoring them to experience this moment, I could very well be using this time to think about solutions, and try to punish myself into making some changes that could help me compensate for those regrets that won’t let me be happy. Also I’m sure once I stepped out of presence and start thinking again, reality is going to kick in, and it is going to remind me that I can’t change the past, and that the future looks tough, then I will feel miserable again until I find something else to distracts me. I don’t see how presence is going to solve anything, it only gives me a break, that’s all.”
Here is my response:
Ah, but presence is so much more than a break from our thinking minds – more than simply a moment of peace. Presence is an expansive field of awareness with infinite depth. As we spend more and more time here this Presence grows in us. We merge with it and become it, and we begin to know it intimately as our own true nature.
It’s not that presence itself solves our problems, but out of it can arise an intuitive sense, or even a direct knowing, of a way forward that is beyond what the lower polarized mind might tell us. By detaching from what Buddhists call the “monkey mind”, we begin to enjoy the peace, and also the heightened perception, that goes along with it. Our lives begin to change in expansive ways, and the practice of presence becomes our joy.
Poet and mystic Edward Carpenter in his collection of poetry, Towards Democracy, beautifully describes the quiet power of this inner presence in his poem:
NOW IS THE ACCEPTED TIME
Amid all the turmoil and the care – the worry, the fever, the anxiety
The gloomy outlook, fears, forebodings,
The effort to keep up with the rush of supposed necessities, supposed duties,
The effort to catch the flying point of light, to reach the haven
of Peace – always in the future –
Amid all, glides the little word Now.
As when the winds of March with their long brooms sweep the dead leaves from the surface of the ground, and the Earth in virgin beauty with the growing grass once more appears;
So when all this debris of thought from the Past, of anxiety about the Morrow, is at last swept away,
Does the vast ever-Present beneath reveal its perfect rondure.
Photo: Rick Erbach
The astrological winds are blowing and I’m being called inward – since June’s full moon lunar eclipse and Grand Cross on the 26th, in fact. Potent astrological alignments like this are invitations to go within, availing ourselves of rare super-charged transformational energies. They offer us the possibility of making a leap in consciousness. Personally, I feel like a veil has been lifted. Consciousness has shifted and I am different – oh so subtley, but palpably, the out-picturing of this yet unfolding.
Taking time for meditation each day is in no small way making a bid for spiritual power. In meditation we prepare to meet the Divine, accessing our conscious awareness, and our lives change in profound ways. At the very least, we ride the inevitable waves of change with more ease, grace, and equanimity. If we also incorporate a process of self-inquiry with the intention of processing and clearing our limited personality patterns, we find ourselves accessing greater and greater levels of transcendental light. We grow and change, moving steadily towards Absolute Truth and the experience of what is real beyond the personality.
There are many beautiful writings by sages and mystics who, across time, have written about the benefits of quieting the mind. The Lake of Beauty is a favorite poem of mine by a more contemporary mystic – Edward Carpenter. Can you feel the power of this poem as it calls you home to the truth of your nature – to Self?
Let your mind be quiet, realizing the beauty of the world,
and the immense, the boundless treasures that it holds in store.
All that you have within you, all that your heart desires,
all that your Nature so specially fits you for — that or the
counterpart of it waits embeded in the great Whole, for you.
It will surely come to you.
————————————-
Yet equally surely not one moment before its appointed time
will it come. All your crying and fever and reaching out of
hands will make no difference.
Therefore do not begin that game at all.
Do not recklessly spill the waters of your mind
in this direction and in that,
lest you become like a spring lost and
dissipated in the desert.
————————————-
But draw them together into a little compass, and hold them
still, so still;
And let them become clear, so clear — so limpid, so mirror-like;
at last the mountains and sky shall glass themselves in peaceful beauty,
and the antelope shall descend to drink and to gaze at his
reflected image, and the lion to quench his thirst,
and Love himself shall come and bend over and catch his
own likeness in you.
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