An Essay on Here and Now

An Essay on Here and Now

I am making this post to share my insight into practical metaphysical principles. I have encountered some controversy over the application of these principles and I feel obligated to express these concepts for discussion and to share knowledge. I have no links or quotes, the information I am sharing is from my own experience, not what I have read or heard.

I want to make it clear that I have in no way mastered these concepts myself. I have been studying and practicing metaphysics for over 25 years so I have had a lot of experiences and different practices. I have gone years without observing any fruits of my labor and I have had incredible moments of insight.

About Me: I am a Rosicrucian, currently a member in good standing. I have studied and have been practicing various meditation techniques (mindfulness, awareness, visualization, chakra, loving kindness, healing) for over thirty years. I practice Tai Chi, the Tarot, and I have experience with Ritual magic (although the majority of that was 20+ years ago).

Let’s start here:

HERE AND NOW and what it is not;

Being here and now does not mean ignoring your past and future. It does not mean making selfish or hedonistic decisions because you are trying to be “Here and Now.” It does not mean to just let things happen and accept the fate that manifests in your reality. It does not mean to ignore the suffering of others or yourself.

You cannot be here and now without mastering (or at least improving) awareness and mindfulness. Theses are two topics that are also greatly misunderstood and need explanation before we continue with “Here and Now”.

Mindfulness:
Mindfulness is focus. The most common practices include watching the breath as is practiced in Buddhism. It cannot be overstated how important this is to your practice. It may seem meaningless at first but you soon develop your ability to focus on a single concept or object for extended periods of time. This is important in all occult practices. If you are visualizing during rituals or simply walking your path to enlightenment this is a mandatory skill.
The effect of a strong mindfulness practice spills over your into your entire life, home, work, and self. The growth is slow so you don’t even notice until one day you suddenly think, “I am so focused on this!” and you soon start to find yourself mindful during your normal everyday life. First you can maintain your mindfulness for just a moment and then for a few more. Moments become minutes, and then hours, and then days.

Mindfulness is a gateway to awareness. As you learn to be mindful your ego will fight you. You will experience a million images, thoughts, ideas, concepts and emotions to keep you from taking true control of yourself. It’s a good thing. This fight is a natural part of the process and it is teaching you something. Enjoy the fight. I recommend as part of your practice to invoke emotions intentionally so you can learn to control your reaction or more so, just experience the emotion with no reaction at all.

When we experience emotions we are lost in knee jerk reactions, preconceived assumptions and emotional rage. The point of mindfulness is to be able to experience an emotion and not react to it. You will always feel emotions, you are human. Emotions are in important part of our experience and they are very important in magical work. The growth and development is to be aware of why you are feeling them, what the true source of their origin is and to be in control.

If you are mindful of yourself your emotions can flow through you. Your shoulders don’t tense, your back doesn’t arch and you don’t lose control. You don’t judge the emotions, you don’t label them or rationalize them or give them any consideration at all. You are mindful and you are focused on the task at hand not the nonsense inside you. Soon this nonsense gives way to quiet and calm. For most of us, we are re-learning how to think. You have to end the ADD theatre you have been acting in your whole life. Turn off the television inside your head and stare out your minds window.

Again the change will be very gradual and one day you will just realize how calm and focused you stayed during the crisis you just experienced. You are now mindful. Be cautioned though – This is a great spiritual high and you will come down. Allow the crash to happen, evaluate the experience and start practicing all over again.

Awareness:
What it is; Awareness of yourself - the space you occupy, the space around you, your breath, posture, the energy flowing through you, the incredible complexities that are your internal self, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Being aware of yourself takes years of practice to move beyond the shallow temporary focus of what is going on inside you. Tai Chi is fantastic for developing awareness but again, it takes years to have the deep experience that is awareness.

Mindfulness is tightly tied to Awareness and the two share the benefits you gain. Awareness, like mindfulness, includes awareness of your emotions. What’s causing them and beyond. Why did I create this event, environment, experience? By the way, you did cause this, whatever it is you are experiencing.

Awareness beyond the basic mediation practice is the understanding of the driving forces for everything you experience at the moment you are experiencing it. Understanding your interactions with others and what you did or are doing to manifest the reality you are experiencing and this exact moment.

Practical application of basic awareness helped me overcome anxiety attacks and has helped me “Reprogram” myself and change how I react to specific experiences. I became aware of what was happening internally and I mastered it.

Keep going because it gets deeper. There is also the awareness of our connectivity. We are of the same energy, we are the same person, we are one, all of us whole pieces of the same Universal energy that exists in every single cell in the universe down to the pulsating vibrating energy of electrons, protons, and smaller still. We are all the same energy, the same. Spiritually and physically you are I.

Once you become aware of all these mechanics that exist beyond the material, emotional, instant gratification, self thinking and self serving reality your told is important and real you have a personal responsibility to rise to the occasion spiritually. You have no choice really, because you will be stalled at this point until you choose to move beyond it.

Personal Responsibility

This brings us to personal responsibility. If anything is understated and under discussed in metaphysics it is personal responsibility for your existence and experience. This means everything you experience you have to take responsibility for, everything.

Caution! This is gonna piss a lot of people off. Please keep your flaming to a minimum but this is a universal truth we all have to accept eventually.

Before an event occurs all participants manifested the energy spiritually and then the physical reality occurred.
Anything that happens physically is the end result of spiritual energy. We are at the lowest plane for physical manifestation and nothing exists here that was not created at a higher lever first.

Yes, all these things in your life you agreed to and created yourself previous to the event occurring. It is a hard lesson and until you accept responsibility for the experiences that manifest in your life you will be a slave and victim to them. No matter how bad or good the experience is, you created it.

Back to Here and Now.

Now that you are mindful and aware you can be here and now.
Again, this comes in glimpses at first, and then moments. I must make the assumption that it becomes minutes, hours, and then days. I personally have only had moments. I have experienced five continuous days of mindfulness in my daily waking life but only moments of being here and now.

You allow the universe to unfold before you and manifest without interference. There is no questioning, doubt, fear, judgment, want, nothing. You are content and you understand the expression that you are experiencing.

You feel love for all around you and yourself. Your reactions are honest, true, and selfless.
You can give without concern because you are abundant. You want for nothing and now have everything.
You are not angered, shaken, scared, or seduced, you are grounded and calm.
You have love for all things for you know to love all others you love yourself. Serving others is serving your self. It all suddenly makes sense and seems so simple.

It is my deepest regret that people have followed these principles with the best of intention only to do themselves great harm. I have had several good friends with the best of intent destroy their lives with the misapplication and misunderstanding of these principles. I hope my experience and insight is helpful and I would love to hear about others experiences with mindfulness and awareness and thoughts about personal responsibility as it applies to metaphysics.

Thank you for your time reading this post and best of everything to everyone.

Keep in mind that the Universe expresses itself perfectly; it is we who misunderstand that which we are experiencing. If you can get out of the way and allow it to happen you are now in control. Congratulations. Please let me know what is next.

reply to post by sdocpublishing

Mostly skimmed it, but me likey.

The benefits that an increase of mindfulness and responsibility have already had on my life (and I'm just starting out on "getting it") have been so profound and rife with synchronicity that I cannot even describe it.

If I were to add a few things (for those interested), for one I would say not to give up on faith in powers outside your control (in my mind I say "faith in God" but I hesitate to use that word on a forum because of so much baggage and dogma associated with that word) that wish to help you learn. For me just starting out, acts of grace have been essential.

And if you're a narcissistic, neurotic mess like me, you'll benefit a huge amount from Karen Horney. "Our Inner Conflicts" and "Neurosis and Human Growth" are some of the most ingenious books ever written.

reply to post by sdc publishing


It is impossible to not be here and now, this is what is not realized. People can try for ever to be here and now and will never feel they have 'achieved' it. The misunderstanding is that 'people' try to be here and now.
What you are is the location - here and now. There are no people within the here and now, people 'are' the here and now.
Where you are looking (seeing) from is not separate from what you are seeing.
Nothing can happen without your presence.
Presence is what you are.

The mind can not see the present eternal now and will get very frustrated if you insist on finding it.
The mind can only work in opposites, so speaks about past and future, good and bad, right and wrong, you and me, this and that.
Here and now has no opposite. We can call it 'here', 'now' or you could call it 'I'. 'I' could be spelt 'eye', the eye of here and now. The meta being that i am has many, many eyes ('I's).

It is not wise to analyse. The world or life is not a puzzle that needs solving it is a work of art for your viewing pleasure. There is nothing to solve - this is it.
A person 'thinks' that there is something wrong (with themselves or the world) and tries to make it better.
Each and every 'person' feels there is something missing, something lost and is searching for that 'thing' to make them feel complete, whole. Some believe a new car, a new house, a new partner will make them happy, but it is happiness that we are all looking for inevitably.
Happiness, peace, contentment, we are looking for home.

Home is where you are! No amount of searching will get you there, because you are already there. Here and now.
Forget words like there and then, ifs and buts, these are no more than fantasy.

This.
Isness.
Suchness.

Life happens and all that can be done has already been done.
Just watch. The thoughts that appear, appear to you, all that appears is just an appearence. What though is it appearing to?
You are the blank screen on which everything appears.
You are space in which the whole world appears.

Nothing can complete us, no 'thing'. 'Things' are not important, they are secondary.
It is the 'thing' that is aware of all 'things' that we crave.
We have missed the SELF.
We don't see the Self because we only see 'things'.

It is the Self that is seeing and is the knower of all 'things'.
The Self sees the whole picture, it is aware of thoughts and feeling arising and does not see them any diferently than clouds passing in the sky.

The Self is not a 'thing', it has no objective qualities.
It is all there is.

It is a game of hide and seek.
The Self is hiding behind the 'things'. First we see the 'things' and don't realize that the 'things' are seen.
Really there is only seeing.
There is no 'me' seeing, there is just seeing.

We have separated this into 'me' and what is seen, but this is the illusion.
We are deluded when we 'think' that there is the experience and an experiencer.
There is the happening (life) and then this person i think i am comes along and narrates it and judges it to be good or bad, right or wrong. This is the suffering. Mind made suffering.
The mind can not accept that this is it, this is all there is, it makes up stories that go, 'along time ago, in a far off land....', tales of better times and better places.

The truth is there is only here and now. But the mind says this is boring, this is wrong, it shouldn't be like this or i don't want to be here. The mind wants to run from here and now.
Forget the mind made stories, or at least see that the mind does not know what it is talking about, keep the eye (I) of Self on the thoughts that appear and do not get taken in by it's BS.
It is only thoughts that make us unhappy, when thoughts are seen for what they are the veil will lift.

reply to post by NewlyAwakened


Faith in God is really just faith that everything is happening just as it should. How can it be any different than what it is? It is the acceptance that there is nothing i can do.
All that can ever be done is watching, witnessing and attending. Everything else is already done. By the time you have read this, it has already been done, can you choose to not do (read) it now?

reply to post by NewlyAwakened


Thank your for reading and your reply.

I am glad to hear your connection with synchronicity. I think it is great that we all develop different experiences as we walk our paths. I have had recognition of synchronicity before and it is a great thing to be aware of.

I did avoid the use of the word God to avoid any unnecessary prejudice as people read my post. I do not follow any religious dogma but I do follow a spiritual one and I do recognize the existence of a God.

Thank you for the reading recommendation, I need some new authors to learn from.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


Thank you for reading my post and responding.

I agree that we are always here and now but many of us struggle to be aware of this.

You seem quite advanced with your knowledge of metaphysical principles and I apprecitte your contribution to my thread.

You state that

Nothing can happen without your presence. Presence is what you are.

This is another concept that is easy to read and study but the application and practice is hard to master. Ideas like this must become part of our paradigm. We can't just muse these concepts at our leisure and convenience, they must be part of our belief system. Most of us are still working on that part.

I disagree that it is unwise to analyse this world. For the initiate that is all are able to do. They must practice, experiement, and find value in these ideas from actual practical application. Without this period of trial and error truths are only words we have read on pages. There is no "AHA" moment or epiphany of realization.

Knowledge alone does not create wisdom, knowledge and experience create wisdom. For me it is through analyzing and experimenting I have grown and developed myself spiritually.

This is a beautiful statement!

Home is where you are! No amount of searching will get you there, because you are already there. Here and now.

I look forward to reading more of your posts.

reply to post by sdocpublishing


It is the mind that analyzes and the mind is deluded. This is why there is so much confusion. The mind has been assumed as the owner of you, but it is 'your' mind.
While the mind terrifies us, there is a beautiful world in full veiw but we can't see it. The mind is full of stories of how it should be or how it was and how i can improve myself or the world.

youtu.be...
Mooji will show you home.

Namaste.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


Would you be willing to share any of your own personal insight and experiences?

reply to post by sdocpublishing


Yes, but i would rather you asked me direct questions. I really don't know where to start or what you would be interested in.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


I would like hear about you experiences with being Here and Now. Any success or struggle or experience that shaped your practice. Perhaps a moment of enlightenment?

reply to post by sdocpublishing


I had an awakening when i was 26. I hadn't looked for it, in fact i didn't hear the word awakening until i saw Eckhart Tolle on youtube many years later. I know many are looking for enlightenment, realization or liberation but i am not convinced that it can be achieved. Because i saw it first hand, when i found others speaking about it all made sense to me, it was recognized that they know the truth.
When it happened years ago all i knew was that life had gone from being incredibly painful to being delicious (this is the best word i can find to describe it). I used to say to people ' i wish i could wrap it up in a box with the most beautiful bow on and give it to everyone'. It lasted like this for about a year and then i felt that i lost it.
I couldn't believe that i had lost it, i was so sad, i ended up in councelling and on anti depressants. I wanted 'it' back, but i didn't know what 'it' was and didn't have a clue what i'd done to get 'it' or what i had done to lose 'it'.
Anyway years later i came across Ekhart Tolle and his 'now' thing, it all made sense.
What had happened to me had also happened to Eckhart Tolle and he spent many years trying to understand.
Thank God i found him and there are many others who know the truth on youtube. I stopped councelling and anti depressants shortly after discovering 'the formula', and have not looked back. Life is a breeze now.
Non duality helped me intergrate and understand what had happened to me and i now live in the now and only use my mind when i want to.
I have claimed the mind as a tool, it no longer has power over me.

reply to post by sdocpublishing


Everybody is enlightened, they just haven't realized it yet.
It is the realization of the truth of what you are.
We imagine ourselves to be something that we are not, that's all.
You will never find enlightenment, light is what you are but you are looking in the dark.
Any looking (searching) will lead you away from yourself.
You are already home.

There is nowhere to go and nothing to get.
When this is really known, you will have everything you could ever want.

reply to post by sdc publishing


There is no practice needed to be here and now. Nobody has invented a time machine yet so it is impossible for anyone to be anywhere else or any when else. Even if you had a time machine and could go to 2067, when you arrived, your location would still be here and now in your experience. It is obvious really.
Everything, every thought, arises in this present moment of now, there is no other time.
This is the truth.
But the mind can not speak of now, because it is wordless.
You are not 'in' the present moment.
You are presence itself.

When there is talk of tomorrow or yesterday then it is all mind stuff and it is not true.
In fact no true word has ever been said.
Time only exists as an idea, a thought.
Every 'thing' is made from thought and our belief in it.

Really there is only 'this'.
What ever is happening, is it.
Be where you are, nowhere. (Now+here)
The placeless place.

Everything else is pure fantasy of the mind.
The thoughts are always telling stories, leading you astray, there is no peace to be found in the mind.
There seems to be a fear of the silence in humans, but it is this that we long for, to rest in peace.

reply to post by Itisnowagain

In this thread you seem to have an attitude that is appropriate for somebody who has already lived quite fully.

And while a faithful, "everything is as it should be" attitude is an essential component of a successful life, try telling a man in his mid to late twenties who has never had anything resembling a successful social or love life, and who yearns for one, to just let it all be. Yes, that's a good attitude toward getting what he wants, but the truth of it is not going to register with him even if you tell that to him until you're blue in the face.

A much better approach in my experience is to get him to fully comprehend his neurotic baggage, develop mindfulness, develop a sense of responsibility for his own life, and finally see firsthand the value of courage and taking risks, of having a bit of a youthful, rah-rah, piss-and-vinegar "can-do" attitude. Yes, faith is important here, because without it to relativize everything else, everything else gets blown out of proportion and that's a primary reason for the self-sabotage.

Once he has been willingly (that is, with mindfulness instead of getting caught up in humiliation and erecting more barriers) humbled enough to realize his powers in the world are limited, and in his case more limited than those of many others, and has figured out the formula for moving forward and having some success in spite of this fact, only then he will start to see how the game works. Only then will he start to see things more objectively instead of being wrapped up in himself, and eventually maybe even start to discover some profound truths.

I'm not a big fan of M. Scott Peck, but I think he said it best in The Road Less Traveled:

"I do not have to go through all this," such a person may think. "I can give up trying to be an adult and retreat from adult demands into sainthood." Schizophrenia, however, rather than sainthood, is achieved by acting on this supposition.

Most mystics understand the truth [...] that we must possess or achieve something before we can give it up and still maintain our competence and viability. [...] The path to sainthood goes through adulthood. There are no quick and easy shortcuts.

What do we consider success?
I do not consider moving forward and having success as the name of the game.
Life is a sensation and if it feels uncomfortable then in my opinion i am not succeeding.
The natural state is peace and contentment and the world can be veiwed from here.

reply to post by NewlyAwakened


To yearn, to hope and to wish it was better is the mind having all the limelight. It takes us away from what is real, what is happening here and now. Why do we argue with reality the way we do?
We don't know the difference between what is real and what we imagine.
The mind makes up stories about everything, but it can only do this if it first makes up time. The mind creates time, from now to some imagined future event with me in it, all fantasy made out of thoughts that only you have. All mind stuff.
The mind stuff is pretty scary and because the being that you are is believing the stories to be true it distresses the physical body, here in the now.
When it is realized that the 'being' that you are can just watch the thoughts arise and pass like clouds in the sky, there will be a knowing that all is just as it should be.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


This thread was posted to share personal experiences.

Posting metaphysical buzzwords and phrases does nothing to further the discussion.

Have you ever had a personal experience you can speak to first hand or only what you have read in books?

reply to post by sdocpublishing


I am sorry did you not read my posts? I have told you of my story.