This drew my attention to the importance of the power of now by Eckhart Tolle. He describes how if we walk away from the present moment and expend all our energies on what happened yesterday and what will happen in the future we will miss a great opportunity of our life because we will lose the present moment. Based on yesterday's programing of our minds, we are crippled today because we worry too much about the future. However, the present moment is all we have. Until we shake off our anxiety for tomorrow we will not have the full potential to do what we have to do today to yield results tomorrow.
It looks like this is an old concept, because in Matthew, Jesus talked about the same principle of not worrying about tomorrow. Hence, we should not let today slip through our hands, for if it escapes us, tomorrow will bring more anxiety and thus unhappiness. "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" Matthew 6:27. Thus as we meditate daily, we should reflect on these words and embrace the now like there is no tomorrow. When you wake up in the morning and you are healthy, you've got it made. In spite of all your problems, health gives you an edge that gives you the flip to help you sow your seeds in the present moment so you can smell the flowers tomorrow.
3 comments:
I think you're seeing a clear thread when you mention what Jesus says in Matthew 6:27. The thread is all through scripture and because it is easily missed in our human experience, it is also easily missed in scripture.
What Tolle describes as going inward into a world of thoughts, the bible uses the word imaginations: inward images in motion.
For example, Genesis 6:5 is where God says the reason He was going to flood the earth: The imaginations of men are continually evil.
In the book of James in the New Testament, the writer is talking about people looking off in to the future saying, "In the future we will go in to this city and do this or that and make a profit." He responds with the phrase, "Come now." It is a reminder and a call to them who are chasing on in to the future in their minds.
James 4:13 Come now, those saying, Today or tomorrow we will go into this city, and we will spend one year there, and we will trade and will make a profit, (14) who do not know of the morrow. For what is your life? For it is a mist, which for a little while appears, and then disappears. (15) Instead of you saying, If the Lord wills, even we will live, and we will do this or that; (16) but now you boast in your presumptions. All such boasting is evil.
Thanks for your comment. You have hit the nail on the head. The bible remains as the source of our inspiration and help. With God all things are possible.
I feel your words echo in me and find a deep agreement. Words fail to appropriately and fully express the experience and then understanding arising from the experience.
December 24th, 2004 was a line in my life. The person on the other side of that evening is real, but the person on this side of the line is transformed.
Consider with me what I am pointing at with my words: Transformed. I was in one form and then changed form. The new form is different from the previous form. I did not make this transformation of myself or my power or will. The transformation happened to me. So, there is the source now of where I write from. It is now my testimony to God, to myself and to all people everywhere.
From my point of view, I sense we share a like transformation. For me, I know the source of the transformation -- God Himself and my connection to Him. Rather, waking up out of the self-made dreams of my mind and being shown the truth of who I already am in reality. That seeing of the truth then makes the connection real for me. The experience of the truth of who I am is the transformation.
I am not alone in the transformation or the experience behind it, precipitating it. I am nothing special, really. The truth of reality is how the transformation, the experience of reality (God Himself) is a heartbeat away for all people. The first and primary step is to hear the good news (gospel) and then experience the seeing. These are not words: it is a living experience with understanding then flowing from the experience.
I am happy to join the host and company of people before me and together with me who have experienced the veil lifted and sight to our blind eyes go from black and lost to a growing brightness of reality.
For me, Jesus Christ, the Father and the Spirit are the center of the experience: they are at the center of it because the universe and reality of my being is held within the being (I AM) of God Himself (Father, Son and Spirit, and again -- In Him we live and move and have our being).
What is awesome and amazing to me is how a man (myself) can walk in inward darkness, self made pain and suffering and then be transformed in a moment. It is what Paul says:
1Co 13:11 When I was an infant, I spoke as an infant, I thought as an infant, I reasoned as an infant. But when I became a man, I caused to cease the things of the infant. (12) For now we see through a mirror in dimness, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will fully know even as I also was fully known.
Honestly, I am simply happy to be in this experience and the understanding flowing from it and finding I am surrounded by people of a like mind and heart.
The last thing I am led to say here is: Do we hear His voice and another we will not follow? Reality is now a strong central core for me. It is from this singlular reference point, I use as a guidepost to everything else around me now. It is a solid rock pillar within me, the cornerstone of my own heart to which all my thinking is measured against. If my thoughts do not line up with this experience and understanding of reality within me, I throw them squarely on the pile of suspicion within me.
Thank you for walking this journey with me. I appreciate your brotherhood and friendship. I feel a deep kindredness together with you and indeed all who share in this awareness and sight.
God bless you deeply and warmly.
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