Inside Yoga 38 (30/5/11)
“The past is history, the future is a mystery, and today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.”
This is often quoted sentence highlights one of the most important teachings within yoga, Buddhism and most spiritual traditions.
This was the theme of my classes last week. In yoga we learn about the present moment, how to become present, and how to return to the present. And if we are honest with ourselves, we spend most of lives either in the past or the future, or in other words, we spend much of our time lost in our thoughts.
In the language of yoga, our mind is a reservoir for our thoughts, it is where are thoughts come from, go to and are stored. And unless we are paying attention to the present moment, we are delving into our memories or we are planning our future.
It is a chain reaction. For example, we start with a memory, one thought, and perhaps it was an event that was not to our liking, something went wrong. We can spend quite a bit of time replaying this memory until it feels better. What started with one story can easily become a series, a whole book covering our life! The catch about this is that the event will still be a memory, nothing has changed – only we have perhaps wasted a lot of time caught up in this.
We spend much our existence being reliving the past, regretting old mistakes and reliving yesterday, when we can be spending out time in the present: Now.
And if we are not in past, we are stuck in the future. Planning something, and re-planning, and looking at the plan yet again. Or simply, being anxious about the future, anticipating tomorrow, racing against the clock, and basically, resistant to change.
There is a place for using our memories and also planning our future, but we waste so much time being in the past or future. We could be be more efficient with our time and time itself.
And this is by training ourselves to become more aware of what is like to be in the present moment, and also, and importantly, learn how to access the present, and to stay there for longer periods.
In yoga we learn through the asanas (exercises), pranayama (breathing), dhyana (meditation) and the other aspects of yoga to be present. It is these daily exercises that makes the philosophy accessible and real to us. As we repeat our practice, our understanding of the present moment deepens.
Hence the advice, that is often repeated to “pay attention”. By being attentive, we can be in the present moment. It doesn’t need to be complicated – if we pay attention to our present, it is a step in the right direction.
Deepak Chopra points out: “The present moment is really an opening, so it has no duration – you are in the now when time ceases to exist. Perhaps the best way to gain experience is to realise that the word present is linked to the word presence. When the present moment becomes filled with a presence that is all-absorbing, completely at peace, and totally satisfying, you are in the now.”
In fact there is only “Now”. Eckhart Tolle points this out, by first asking “Have you ever experienced, done, thought, or felt anything outside the Now?” He writes in his book The Power of Now, “is it possible for anything to happen or be outside the Now? The answer is obvious, is it not?
“Nothing ever happened in the past, it happened in the Now.
Nothing will ever happen in the future, it will happen in the Now.”
The past is a memory – stored in the mind – and when we remember this memory it is lived again in the present. And likewise, the future is an imagined Now that is projected onto mind in the Now.
Therefore, paradoxically, the past and present only exist in the Now, and if we indulge this process of spending a lot of time in past or future thought, we are wasting the precious Now, which could be used by us to be present in the present moment.
So why do we not spend so much time in the Now? One reason is that we are threatened by the timeless Now.
Perhaps because we are not used to being in that place, the present, which often feels quiet and still. And if we are not used to such stillness, it can feel unsettling. But, as many report, who have practised meditation and being in the Now, this soon becomes the place where everything falls into place, where true contentment lies, where clarity can be found and bliss experienced.
As Tolle puts it: “Ask yourself: Is there joy, ease and lightness in what I am doing? If there isn’t, then time is covering up the present moment, and life is perceived as a burden or a struggle.”
He then adds: “As soon as you honour the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out of present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love – even the most simple action.”
