In keeping with portal guidelines here, I will venture forth and offer a little of where I am at right now. Some of that private stuff.
This is perhaps the strangest part of my present so far. Long ago I determined not to just leave, content with what I had gained spiritually speaking. My intent was to take my vision and anchor it as firmly as possible in the midst of everyday life. If I let escape any hint of spirituality I would consider it a mistake on my part. Jesus was my model at that time, the undocumented years of his life. I figured if I could successfully anchor this light here deeply embedded in the world then that light would shine in its own way and it would draw to itself and illuminate in ways I might not even be privy to. That was twenty five years ago. But that was then this is now.
I was not aware of the consequences of such a decision, how could I? it has been quite a ride. Now it matters not if I speak or nor. Silence and speech and action have become the same thing.
Along the way I had to deal with hope and fear. It is not easy to become detached from these two passions, especially hope. But it became clear that these two passions were keeping me from the present. Hope keeps one looking ahead and fear keeps one looking back. Different spiritual traditions speak of the importance of being present in “the now” and this was certainly one of my aspirations. My thoughts at that time were that had to be a good thing. Oh like everyone else I had had brief moments of being completely in the now some times some very extended periods. But along the way something unexpected has crept in with this. It is not what I had expected at all.
I now seems to be present more than I am not. Oh I can still do most of the things everyone else does and to an onlooker it would appear that there was nothing special going on at all, if fact it is becoming that way for me too when I am able to consider myself.
What I can say is that “I am acquiring a taste” for this. (A theme I saw in a thread here somewhere). But that is the unexpected part that I would have to acquire a taste for this present. You see at first I found extremely distasteful, I still do to some extent although I am accustoming myself to this after years of it. Being present cost something. In fact it costs everything, even much of that good spiritual stuff. My aversion to this present now was the loss of a perceived spiritual life that would bask in the joys of spiritual accomplishment. The fear of losing that would keep me tied to the past. Learning to live without what was so hard won is not for the timid.
When I look at the elderly, (my work takes me into nursing homes everyday) and I see the dementia and the aloneness and the alzheimer’s, I can relate. I am not unfamiliar with their silence. This present requires a certain amount of forgetting. But it is not just a forgetting of precious memories and the identity associated with those memories it is disengaging from memory itself as a viable way of navigating this present. Part of the distaste is laziness. Reaching for the familiar through memory is so easy and it is right there available, until it is not. Access to tried and true routines now require attention that were just automatic before. (This is very disruptive to a golf swing.) I mean standing at address over the ball and it all feeling like it was the first time ever! Very disquieting, especially when everyone is looking at you and you are wondering “How long have I been standing here,” lol.
And yet, as I am being swallowed whole, without a trace, I am still present, pellucid. Just a lazy urban yogi!
