The eternal NOW

originally posted by: 3NL1GHT3N3D1
a reply to: bb23108

No, the now is not in the past, it never is, it's always happening right now. That's why I use the term "now". It doesn't matter when my brain processes an event, all that matters is that I experience the now when my brain processes it.

originally posted by: DrunkYogi
a reply to: bb23108

Most people live in the past or the future psychologically. They remember events, usually painful ones, and replay them in their minds. They also project imaginary scenarios about the future and constantly worry over some event that will likely never occur. It is unusual for a person to be living in the moment. I am not saying that some memory and some projection are wrong, it is the way in which they are constantly used that is the problem. If you live life constantly in the past or future then you are not living at all.

I agree with your description, Drunk Yogi, of how people typically live - lost in thought, concerns, anxiety, and seeking for consolation.

However, what I am addressing is this widespread presumption that if you release the past and the future by simply perceiving what is apparently happening in the moment, it does allow a certain intelligence to emerge, even the observer position; but this is still of the mind and is not truly in the present. The body-mind is a machine that provides experience relative to whatever is arising, and that experiencing is already in the past as far as what arose is concerned, as I have explained in earlier posts. So identification with the body-mind is identification with the past.

To truly live in the present one must be released of all identification with the body-mind, including all perception, conception, and even attention itself. Identification with the observer is still of the mind, and thus still an experience of the past.

When there is recognition of reality beyond the body-mind, then not only is there the present, but a great yogic transformation of the body-mind can ensue. This is beyond the mental insights relative to non-duality that are looked at these days as enlightenment and endlessly talked about as Truth.

Without such whole bodily yoga, and fullest surrender to reality itself, such insight is just a kind of mental disposition of abstracting from life, similar to the search many yogis engage to ascend out of life into mystical experiences, etc.

a reply to: bb23108
Is it possible for you to say where and when you are?

The body-mind is a machine that provides experience relative to whatever is arising, and that experiencing is already in the past as far as what arose is concerned, as I have explained in earlier posts. So identification with the body-mind is identification with the past.

The word 'experiencing' means in the immediacy. The word 'experienced' means in the past. What is arising is arising as experiencing. Even a thought of yesterday arises in the immediacy.

To truly live in the present one must be released of all identification with the body-mind, including all perception, conception, and even attention itself. Identification with the observer is still of the mind, and thus still an experience of the past.

One can only believe in time if one identifies with the body mind.
The observer and the observed arise as one.

Nothing can appear to arise without the aware presence being present.
When are you?

Now doesn't matter to someone suffering only justice and compassion.

What is "now" doing for the world? Keeping Justice? Equality? Compassion? No, it does not care for anything. Things just happen.

a reply to: arpgme
What is wrong with right now..................until you start thinking about what is wrong?

originally posted by: arpgme
Now doesn't matter to someone suffering only justice and compassion.

What is "now" doing for the world? Keeping Justice? Equality? Compassion? No, it does not care for anything. Things just happen.

Now is arising as what actually IS.
Is there anyone there who can stop the next thought or sensation from arising?

No one is doing now. But caring can arise as now and compassion also.
And no one is doing the future. Future just appears as a thought now - can you see or hear the future?

originally posted by: bb23108

Clearly no perception is the same as the actual event or object that is being perceived, as it takes time for the perception to occur, and thus the perception is an "historical" re-presentation of the event itself.

The perceiver and perceived are one - indivisible.

Time is an illusion created by the fact that the perceiver feels separate from the perceived - the perceived is moving in/on the perceiver, which is not moving. The movement gives rise to the idea of time - that there is a past existing somewhere and a future existing somewhere - the illusion of time gives rise to an illusionary separate person living in time.

You are the space of now and an image moves on you.
Now could be compared to a tv screen with moving pictures and sounds appearing on it. The screen is always present even when there are no pictures appearing - imagine deep sleep where nothing appears and then imagine waking and the light is switched on - it is like turning the tv on. The movie moves but what you are does not.

You can't get away from the fact that it's always now. The future hasn't happened and the past is gone so it's always now.

a reply to: bb23108

To truly live in the present one must be released of all identification with the body-mind, including all perception, conception, and even attention itself. Identification with the observer is still of the mind, and thus still an experience of the past.

There is no identification with anything bb. Just passive awareness of events rising and falling.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

Cause and Effect are real. When I let go off something, it falls. Everyone is doing something, and those actions creates effects/changes.

Can you get grapes if only thorns are in the ground? No, you must take action to plant them so you can harvest them /effect.

All are creating the now through existence/action. Is this not so that you see these words because I type them?

a reply to: Itisnowagain
Yes I understand what you are saying, and ultimately it is true that there is only the eternal now - however, virtually no one has truly and fully realized this altogether. It is mainly just talk of their mental insights into the ultimate non-dual nature of reality - but certainly not utter realization of this.

One can see and feel the ego in such people claiming their awakening to the non-dual nature of everything. And this is fine up to a point - but soon one sees it is just mental yakity-yak that may be insightful, etc., but does nothing in terms of one's whole-bodily (and necessarily yogic) recognition of the reality in which everything is actually arising.

Those who truly and fully surrender to reality itself are infilled by real love, transformed bodily through real discipline, and transcend all egoic identification with the body-mind. They are not deluded by their seeking mind and all of its talk about enlightenment, etc.

originally posted by: DrunkYogi
a reply to: bb23108

To truly live in the present one must be released of all identification with the body-mind, including all perception, conception, and even attention itself. Identification with the observer is still of the mind, and thus still an experience of the past.

There is no identification with anything bb. Just passive awareness of events rising and falling.

Ultimately that is true because there is only one reality or being. However, until this is actually and fully realized to be altogether true, it tends to just be talk, or as the Zen tradition has called it, the stink of enlightenment.

a reply to: bb23108

or as the Zen tradition has called it, the stink of enlightenment.

Lol never heard that one before

I recently said to a friend ... "You are so spiritual you just don't get it" ...I got a blank stare

a reply to: bb23108

Yes I understand what you are saying, and ultimately it is true that there is only the eternal now - however, virtually no one has truly and fully realized this altogether.

The whole point is that there is no one.
Separateness is an illusion so no one has to achieve anything.
Now is just arising as what is.

a reply to: bb23108

Very true bb. That is why action IMHO is better in life is better than just sitting around trying become enlightened with some strange meditation technique. Participate in life but be aware, no effort required.

These discussions always devolve into new age nonsense circle jerks, like alcoholics slurring their bs around the campfire after everyone else goes to bed.

I have a hypo. In year 2300, humans have finally completed a train which has tracks along the equator and circles the entire Earth. It runs about 99% the speed of light, and just keeps going around the Earth and around again, about 7 times per second. The government has mandated several safety features be on board, one of which is a hard land line telephone system. Essentially the telephone lines run parallel to the train tracks all the way around the Earth, and as the train speeds around it never loses contact with these telephone wires, allowing for passengers on board the train to make outbound calls for the continuous duration of their trip. On February 23, 2300, 20 wealthy passengers board the train for its maiden trip. All is well. After several hours, passenger Jimbo, after innocently flirting with the stranger seated near him, decides to call his wife, who could not travel and is instead at that moment sitting in a chair in a restaurant on land formally known as the great state of Ohio. The couple begins the conversation, as they have since they first met back in college, with a duet of a Nickleback song. Jimbo simply calls his wife, she answers by saying "hello", Jimbo the replies "hello", and then the two sing Nickelback in harmony for the next 2 minutes. As it stands, the National Security Agency directly monitors every communication, part national security part jobs program. As agent Hugo, who sits in a cubicle in Old York, listens to the conversation between Jimbo and his wife, Nola, what does he hear?

a reply to: miomo

As agent Hugo, who sits in a cubicle in Old York, listens to the conversation between Jimbo and his wife, Nola, what does he hear?

The sound of one hand clapping.

a reply to: miomo

Hic! He hears Jimbos wife Nola screaming at him for flirting with a stranger on a train. Hic!

a reply to: DrunkYogi

Yogman do stories about men on trains always get you this hot and bothered?

Do you find answering a realistic hypothetical more challenging than making stuff up while droning on about new age nonsense?