No matter when that is.
No matter what’s going on.
And the now is where everything happens.
It can be a painful, scary place. And it can be ecstatic. Or it can be calm, steady, almost unnoticeable.
Our level of penetration into the now is called presence. We are only present to the degree that we can bear being in the now.
If the now is too painful, all or part of you will tend to check out. And there are lots of ways to check out.
Not checking out comes down to your ability to relax.
To allow what is true to be true.
Just for a moment. While you get yourself together to change to change what is true. Or to enjoy it.
And in order to relax, to allow what is true to be true, you have to love yourself.
Presence requires self love
True presence, true residence in the now, is characterized by reverence.
Always.
Reverence for all things. All people.
You can’t be fully present to someone or something without the empathy or celebration evoked by reverence.
If you don’t empathize or celebrate, some part of you is missing from the equation.
Some part of you is stuck outside the now.
Some key part.
You are the opposite of present. You are absent.
This happens because we can’t endure the now. There is pain that lives there that we cannot face. We’re looking for, even fabricating, a life raft out.
…an unadulterated experience of real life.
A momentary distraction.
A lifetime of self imposed failure or artificial success.
Whatever we think we might need to get us the hell out of an unadulterated experience of real life.
To be in the now is to bear witness to what is. With no protection from it except the ability to relax and let it be true.
If we had no pain or fear, we would always be in the now. We would not fantasize and we would not check out.
In order to remain in the now, we have to be able to endure the experience of it. That requires self love, because the self is 90% of what we experience when we drop anchor in the now.
If you don’t love yourself, you won’t be able to endure your own presence for long. And in the now, your own presence is everything.
The now is a gateway
Full immersion in the now is the uncluttered experience of love flowing through you. The giant love that holds everything in existence.
This love creates, and then flows into your unique expression of being.
It enters through a trap door in the basement. Down among the pipes and wires. In the place where you, the individual, emerge from God on the continuum of being.
The hidden place where you connect with the divine.
With the Source.
This is constantly taking place. With or without you. But it’s potency is limited if you don’t participate.
And you can only do that in the now.
That’s what the now is.
When you go to the now, you go to the place where that connection, that emergence happens.
Self love is the only limitation
The love that underlies all things fills you from within.
An inner fountain fed by the divine.
It floods you, bestows your unique potential, activates it, and overflows out into the world through your talents, actions, words.
Through your physical presence.
Your relationships.
The net effect of what you think, do and say.
You realize your God-ness.
Without self love, there will be obstacles to this flow. You will avoid the now.
The degree to which you love yourself is the degree to which you you limit or allow the manifestation of God in the world.
In the now, God, flows out through you and is revealed to the world in a way only you can present.
In the now, God shows up as you. You realize your God-ness.
To a degree, this happens without your help or intention.
But only to a degree.
Because it’s voluntary
This flow, unimpeded, with all its details and particulars, is full life. Life washing over you and through you. And it’s taking place constantly.
But only in the now.
Everything else is distraction, and stands at a remove from the experience of what’s really going on.
Inside you and out there in the world.
Love surrounds you and holds you in being, yes. But unless you give it the green light, it will not show up in your thoughts words and deeds.
It does not flow through you with out your permission. You need to remove the obstacles to its flow.
Obstacles like fear. Resentment. Self doubt.
If you do that work, love will characterize your experience.
It will come to be who you are.
But for that to happen, you have to deliberately participate in it. To learn it. To be guided by it in thought word and deed.
Your life, the fact that you are alive, is an invitation to participate in the now.
To gain all the benefit it presents.
And to do the work that makes that possible.
Did you find this post useful?
It’s the first of two, or possibly more, in a post series. Part two lives here. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to chime in with a comment!
About Peter Crowell
