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May/June 2007 Spirituality
You are Leaving the Now ? Where are You Going?

by Richard Moss, MD

Richard Moss, MD

We have all spontaneously experienced the grace of being fully present-moments where time stands still and we overflow with feelings of joy, wellbeing and gratitude.

These peak moments surprise us, perhaps while meditating, making love, being in nature, or engaging in a creative activity or an athletic pursuit that we love. The experience of being fully in the Now is when we feel most fulfilled, effective and alive.

Yet, to live consistently in the Now requires that we recognize where we go when we leave it. You will discover there are only four places you can ever go. Your mind will carry you into the past or the future, or into ideas about yourself or others.

Me, You, Past, Future

These four places are the poles of two basic dynamics in our experience of ordinary consciousness. The first: our brain's wiring that perceives time as a movement from past to future. The second: the dualistic, subject-object, nature of our consciousness-as soon as there is self, there is other, the observer and the observed. The subject is I or me. The object can be anything we think about: a person, money, our job, God. Once our minds leave the present, we easily become the victims of delusion. These delusions are self-made, built from the ways that we identify with our stories about ourselves, others, the past or the future.

The word story indicates that our thinking about ourselves, others, the past, or the future is always an opinion, a judgment, or a belief - we cannot ultimately know it to be true. On a rainy day, to say, "It is raining" is a fact. To declare, "It's a miserable day" is both a story and a negative judgment. Our stories become true for us because we believe and identify with them. Each story generates some emotion or feeling in us not intrinsic to the actual moment itself.

When we go into the future, we worry about virtually anything: our health, our finances, our children's futures. Alternately, we hope for virtually anything:  a promotion, winning the lottery, the perfect partner. The result of future stories is to fill the Now with fear or hope. Fear creates misery, but hope is also problematical. When we tell ourselves stories that conjure positive feelings, it is generally because we don't know how to connect with and accept what we are actually feeling.

Going into the past, we feel guilt, nostalgia, or regret. We blame ourselves or others for what happened moments ago or decades past. We tell ourselves everything would be better if only we, or they, had acted differently. We burden the present with what we have chosen consciously or unconsciously to believe about the past, rather than discover who we really are in the Now.

Living in the past we have no foundation, no true self, to stand on. This new moment, filled with infinite possibility, becomes the victim of recycled misery, or is disappointing because we compare it to some past happiness. Until this moment fills us and is enough, we can never know our own fullness.

When our minds carry us into me (subject) stories we create grandiose or depressive beliefs about ourselves. By identifying with them, we lose contact with our larger awareness that can allow us to simply see these stories and not become possessed by them. Grandiosity causes us to discount others; depressive beliefs create loneliness and insecurity. Believing these stories we cannot really love ourselves or invite love into our relationships.

Finally, when we move into you (object) stories we become angry, jealous, hurt, or make someone so special we give our power away. These emotions pollute us and blind us to who others really are, while we lose the ability to feel compassion for them.

This ceaseless poisoning of Now by our past, future, me and you stories is the principle source of the conflict, distrust and emotional suffering in our lives and in human affairs. Without them, we discover that we are sufficient just as we are. Life is good.

Dr. Richard Moss, author of The Mandala of Being: Discovering the Power of Awareness, is an internationally respected spiritual teacher and visionary thinker. His work integrates spiritual practice, psychological self-inquiry and body awareness. Visit www.richardmoss.com. Printed with permission by New World Library, www.newworldlibrary.com.