The Totality of Now
The totality of now sounds foreign, even meaningless, to most of us. Putting the words ‘totality’ and ‘now’ together is almost incomprehensible to people all over this planet. We clearly remember yesterday and understand tomorrow is on it’s way. Which is exactly true. The past is gone, and tomorrow never comes.
Yet we seem unable to get our heads wrapped around this central fact our biological existence. Very strange.
For starters, let us look to the truth. Now is an infinitesimally small moment of time. A second is host to innumerable ‘nows’, each leaking into the next. As we watch events like the Olympics, it is stunning what some small fraction of a second can mean in naming winners and losers. And even as this parade of changing energy swirls on, Now remains.
So how do we best define the idea behind this crazy word that has no time at all, but contains all of time? We call it Life.
Science might be a help in explaining. In the world of quantum mechanics, and in science at large, there is an implicit understanding that now is the only time when things happen. Yet even science leaves the notion implicit, instead of stating it as the central fact of Life. And science insists on gravity as the big deal. The big deal is energy.
Religion? Hardly, when it keeps trying to point us toward some future time where ‘heaven’ may wait for us. I do not know what awaits the end of biological life, but I very much appreciate this business of creating and of being together – a process that I trust continues long after these bodies are given up.
So, the fact is clear. We are always Here, Now, even as we are birthed, grow up, grow old and pass on. Indeed, it is impossible to leave Now, though most of us are so busted up from the old culture that we forget nearly all the time – stuck in our little heads. You will find it very difficult to believe this truth if your world consists of spending all your time in your thoughts and feelings, driven by your belief codes. What happened when I was victimized? When can I get that new pair of shoes? Who’s going to win the election?
Ask any plant, insect or animal where we are. They tell you by their very presence. Ask any child who’s not yet been distorted by an ugly world where fear reigns. They tell you the same. We are eternally Here, and all our millions of bubbled lives change this not at all.
Which begs the question, then what, indeed, is ‘This’?
This is simply Life, and this is our home. Which means we are all necessarily Here Together. The deeper understanding is knowing it’s two elementals, Awareness and Energy.
Awareness is Eternal. It is behind creation, and all that we know. Indeed, without Awareness we know nothing. It is our Source, the Force if you will. Some use the name God, or Allah, or Yahweh, or the Great Spirit. Yet Eternal Awareness [my preferred term], is the constant, the Presence within all that is.
Energy is movement, constantly shifting and changing. Energy is why yesterday is different than tomorrow, and it always happens Now, just as Awareness does. It is incapable of stillness, just as Awareness is incapable of movement. And yet it is only Here, Now, where both exist, and both are capable of existing.
This Is Tao, the yin and the yang of existence. This Is Life, where we always find ourselves. It’s actually quite enchanting. And yet we don’t feel enchanted. We feel broken and abused. Living within a harsh, diabolical and corrupt system does that.
And endless stream of urgent and upset thoughts, unruly emotions, belief codes that honor nothing – what can one expect when driven by such temperaments. All of these serve to keep us from the awakening and awareness of what I s. Rulers have kept us down for thousands of years by feeding us crap that serves to create fearful thoughts, unruly emotions and ugly belief codes. So this we must change.
And this change begins with the recognition of our common ground, our life here in Life.
Finally, do not let your uniqueness in space confuse you about our shared moment in time.