Thursday, July 31, 2008

The Power of this Moment

The last day of July, the last time I will be discussing the joys and challenges of being present in the moment. If you have been reading these posts in order, as written, I hope you have found something in what I’ve shared that resonates in you.

If you would like to explore the subject more, I would highly recommend reading Eckhart Tolle, who could fairly be called the master of the moment. His two books The Power of Now and A New Earth both explore this theme. I have read the latter and found it exceptionally clear. Millions of others have as well, since it was chosen as an Oprah's Book Club selection and was discussed in an online class for ten weeks in an impressive worldwide awakening to the moment. (If you have judgments about Oprah, you might want to take the opportunity to question your attitudes and beliefs in that regard. Holding harsh opinions can be the ‘dragon at the gate’ to your own awakening.)

My own experience with the power of now came from reading a different book twenty or so years ago. I found it a very odd book, done in a conversational channeling format by Jane Roberts, but for some reason this one line jumped out at me about this moment being our personal point of power and I felt it fully in my being and have never forgotten it.

Power is such a strange word, holding in it both a great positive energy and a ruthless negative connotation that makes many of us, myself included, uncomfortable with embracing it in any form. I certainly don’t want to have power over anyone else, I don’t want to wield power, or be powerful. None of that resonates with me.

But this kind of power is not about domination. It’s about sensing deeply our connection to all that is, feeling well-rooted in that awareness, and drawing on the infinite energy of which we are very much a part the way a plant draws energy up through its roots.

The only place we can root is in this present moment, because it’s the only one that exists. All other moments past and future are only thoughts now. So we root our awareness into this moment and it supports us fully in whatever we want to do. That’s the power of now.

As we head into August, I’ll be changing the focus of my explorations to metta, loving kindness. But I am happy to continue the conversation on the moment with anyone who would like to comment on any of these postings.

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