Everybody and their sister is teaching you to be in the present moment, to surrender to the present moment.
I have observed people who loved it in Eckhart Tolle’s book, and now I am observing a famous marketer marketing an ebook on the same principle.
But…
There is always a but, have you noticed?
Everything of this genre works for some people and doesn’t for most.
What is the difference between people, and how come the people teach it, don’t know the difference? Because they don’t…
Some people, accidentally, maybe, or because of some fluke, know, do, be something that others don’t, but because they actually never learned to do, be that, they have never distinguished it for themselves.
It is like music: some are natural at it, others need to learn it.
It is like balance, rhythm, grace… most will have to learn it…
A distinction is a little piece of the puzzle, mostly invisible, because it is not on the level of the conscious, it is like the pedaling feet of the duck… peace on top, activity below the water level.
So what is this invisible underwater action that separates the peaceful people that are productive, demonstrate grace under pressure, and are able to take life as it comes… good, bad, indifferent, so they CAN be in the present moment, where there is never anything wrong?
I have been writing about it, but it takes about a 100 readings, 100 articles, and one successful trial to get it… Just reading will never accomplish it, never switch the little tiny switch that is responsible for peace, or alternatively, in your case, for your lack of balance, lack of peace, lack of productivity, your swinging mood, for your restless life.
The tiny switch is: where do you locate yourself?
It is not a physical location, mind you! You have seen fans going crazy on the stands of a sports game, so much that they kill…
And you have seen people, probably in a movie only, who keep their head about them, and do superhuman acts like it’s nothing.
If you’ve been with me long enough, you know that I teach a lot through movies, and one of them is “Defending your life”. Another one is “Bagdad Cafe” There are a few more, but let me find the switch on, switch off in these two movies:
Defending your life: the female character played by Meryl Streep: funny, light, enjoys life, runs into a burning house to save everyone and even the dog, one after the other.
The male character, Albert Brooks, no matter what he does, in life or in this transfer station, he is, emotionally, consciousness-wise in the middle of it… It is all about him, it is all concerning, him, it is all life and death.
Meryl Streep’s character is looking at life from outside, while she is fully experiencing life, tastes, love, whatever, she is NOT STANDING THERE, she, the REAL SHE is observing, witnessing, i.e. she is standing in the WITNESS position. a little bit to the side, a little bit backwards… not in the middle of it, where the usual stressful experience of life hits you.
Bagdad Cafe: The owner of the cafe vs. the German woman… The Black lady, the owner of the cafe is completely immersed in every faint vibration of life, and reacts harshly, with shouting, or with depression. No power, no productivity, a life experience that can only described as hell.
The German Lady, on the other hand is never in the middle of it… and from the side, from the Witness position you can see a bigger picture, where nothing is a big deal, where it is playful, where it is all in a day’s work.
So she is stranded with her husband’s suitcase, not her own. She finds the magician’s kit and learns magic.
She catches the cleaning girl touching her stuff… she turns it an impromptu fashion show.
She is asked to model for an artist, she goes and experiments how much nudity she can enjoy… that others enjoy too.
Don’t you want to be like her? I did, that’s probably why I watched it over and over.
Now, it seems that when YOU are in the Witness position, you don’t enjoy life, but the opposite is true. You can only enjoy the moment of herenow if you are NOT in the middle of it.
Eating a bowl of hot soup is devine, but sitting in it is burning your buns… lol.
So, this is the little insignificant sounding step that everyone misses: some because they have it, by accident, unconsciously, and others because there is no one to teach it to them.
I first caught this during a meditation back in 1987. I wanted to revisit an incident in my childhood, but this time I had the idea to get a sideway view of it.
I didn’t know about Witness, or Observer… but nevertheless I could watch it from the outside, and got two experiences of it, the one I experienced being in the middle of it, the victim of it, the horror of it, and the other one watching it like a movie.
The two views were so dramatically different, that for the first time in my life I had a direct experience that “it ain’t necessarily so”, that my one point of view is not true, in fact non of the points of view is the truth… Reality, collective hunch at best.
Since then, 1987, I can step outside of what’s happening, and not participate in the drama of it, whether it’s a deadline, whether it’s slow traffic, whether it’s mites biting, or the pipes bursting in the basement.
I used to have a friend who was bla·sé 1 , but it is just a coverup for dead…
Being the Witness is not dead, not emotionless, it is just even. The emotions, the thoughts that go on don’t make the Witness different… it is like one person watching a movie: you don’t suspect that they are an angry person, then a loving person, then a fickle person, because what they are watching is angry, loving and then fickle.
You are clear that the person watching is the person watching. It is the movie that is changing, not the person.
And that’s what is missing: having a solid core where who you are doesn’t change with every thought, with every emotion, every minute or two.
And without that no teaching, no matter how lofty it is, is going to make a difference.
Being in the present moment is not available to you until you get that little piece in… because being in the present moment requires you to have being… a constant, solid, unchanging being.
Only one percent of one percent has it… but you could have one… with just some presence of mind, and effort.
blä?z?/
adjective
adjective: blaséunimpressed or indifferent to something because one has experienced or seen it so often before.
“she was becoming quite blasé about the dangers”
synonyms: indifferent, unconcerned, uncaring, casual, nonchalant, offhand, uninterested, apathetic, unimpressed, unmoved, surfeited, jaded, unresponsive, phlegmatic; informallaid-back
“these children have learned to be blasé about the sound of gunfire”
