Being in the Moment

So being in the moment is we do have this kind of cliche notion of what that might be in our minds. But and I, you know, I include myself in this right along with you because I'm a teacher. I use words all the time. I I listen to words. I hear words. I read words. I write words. Um and so I have to be careful. I have to be careful that when I'm either taking in words, reading, what listening, or when I'm speaking words that in both of those situations, I try to kind of consciously come at that moment as in in a fresh way as I can. So if I'm taking something in, I can actually learn something new instead of filtering it through well, in my case, 60 years of life experience. um that life experience is great to draw upon, but I don't want to be filtering every moment of my life through the 60 years of filter creating. Um I don't think any of us want to do that. So sometimes we do have to bring a little intention to things even something as simple just so simple as like hey let's start by trying to be in the moment. Let's be in the moment. and we all assume that we know what that is and and so we don't really listen at all. But I found that one of the things it's a little trick that I I'll use inside myself is sometimes to sort of prompt my mind if I'm going to be listening or reading something. I'll prompt my mind and almost try to tell my mind almost like okay we're going to pretend that you don't have this other reservoir of knowledge that you've gained. So, so that when you're listening to this or reading this that you can actually be be encountering it in such a way that it's that it's brand new for you, right? Because of course it is new. If I'm listening to somebody speak or I'm reading something, it's probably going to be brand new. But that doesn't mean our mind interacts with it as if it's new, right? Because like I said, we have all the words we're using or we've long since learned them and we we use them and they're familiar with us and we hear them using especially if they're used in familiar ways, we kind of start going a little bit to sleep. Um I've seen as a teacher when I use words, but if I use them in an unfamiliar way, people start to pay attention like, "Hey, wait a minute. that doesn't sound like the old familiar way he's using that particular whatever phrase or concept or something. Then we pay attention because it puts people back in that hey what does he mean? What back in the unknown right back into kind of an innocent curious place and that innocent curious sort of space of being that's the being that sort of uh uh just allows us to enter in really into the moment. as it is. And the moment is is it doesn't always feel extraordinary as it is. But certainly in our deeper moments of realization, we realize that the moment any moment as it is is that was the thing that was extraordinary all along. Right? That's why so many of us sort of uh laughingly scratch our heads for a little while wondering how did I miss this? You know, how did I miss this other this deeper reality when it's not hidden? Um how do you miss something that's that's right in plain view? And the answer is pretty darn easily. It's not it's pretty easy to miss um the deeper aspects of any moment of yourself even or of somebody else. Right? As soon as we enter into a moment consciously or unconsciously assuming that we pretty much know most of everything there is to know about that moment, we're not really there in a full way, right? It's like if you you're with somebody and you've been let's say me and Mukti and I have been married 27 years, 27 and a2 years. We've known each other a little over 30 years. And you know, when you know somebody that long, when you're married to somebody that long or longer, um you know that you can if you want to, you can you can predict a lot of their reactions and behaviors and ways of being. And you know, you can do all that with a fair amount of accuracy. not great accuracy cuz fortunately people aren't quite as um you know predictable as we we may imagine they are. But nonetheless, when you're with somebody or with a good friend or somebody, you can predict a lot about them before you're even in this particular situation with them. And therein lies the the challenge whether it's a long-term friendship or marriage or relationship of some kind when your mind decides at some level kind of like I kind of know this person because I can predict their behavior. I know how they'll answer the majority of questions they're asked. So it goes. We can stop paying attention. And when we stop paying attention then the other person starts to seem a little boring to us. But usually what's boring is our attention. Our lack of attention is what's actually boring, not the other person. That we've just allowed our attention to become unfocused um without real energy and curiosity and interest, right? Like if you're meeting somebody new for the first time, you ever notice how much of yourself comes to the four when you're meeting somebody or getting to know somebody? You know, even just a casual encounter with a stranger and you strike up a conversation, think of how much you're bringing to that moment. Like how much is sort of on alert and your energy is there and your awareness is a little, you know, it's it's almost it's almost a little hyperfocused. And then if it's somebody you know really really well, it feels different. Part of that we like, right? Part of that relaxation, that ability just to, you know, relax in someone's presence is always nice. I I've jokingly said to friends over the years, um I even used to say it to MTI earlier. I used to say, well, before I was married, my my idea of dating was to get over the dating phase as fast as humanly possible. So, we could get into the hanging out phase. I always love the parts where you start to just, you know, hang out. You do things together, you go places, but you're more sort of hanging out because that's where I always felt like, okay, now we're getting into now we're really getting to know each other, right? That's the that's the the place in which we get to know each other. And there's a sort of relaxation around that. And when we relax in each other's presence, that's a wonderful thing. Everybody likes to, you know, be relaxed when they're with somebody and you have a nice conversation flowing, whatever is happening. Um but you, you know, we can be relaxed but really vivid and present, right? with our heart present and our mind available and we're really there or we can be really relaxed in a very, you know, nor comfortable known environment with somebody we know and we can kind of like be half there, right? We're just our consciousness is kind of, you know, it's not really turned brightly on because we we assume at some unconscious level everything is known and so we're not quite as vibrant. And you know that can become almost a lifestyle because you know you live in a place for a while. You know that well enough. You're not you know excited about like every nook and corner of your house or your apartment or wherever you live after you live there for a while. And and your car you have that and so it goes, right? And so there's this familiarity and we've we've all been familiar with this thing called life. However many years we've been on the planet. Of course, there's new things happening almost with every breath, but nonetheless, we've all been we've been around for a little while. So, all these things can kind of make not just us sort of relax, but a consciousness kind of dim a little bit. Kind of dim now. It's like you I've heard lots and lots of stories. Most people I would say have some sort of their spiritual deep spiritual shifts. OP often follow a certain pattern where often they they get into a a part of their life that's more challenging than than it has been or maybe more tumultuous. Who knows what's what's happened or come up from them. But but something's stirring. something's making it difficult enough to where event you start to pay attention like hey what's going on um things aren't flowing I'm not quite as happy or carefree or you know that kind of energy of some some amount of dissatisfaction is often the compelling uh thrust or energy that motivates someone's spiritual search and so many many spiritual big shifts will uh happen you know in this sort of more intensified version of spirituality when we're suddenly realize I have to pay attention maybe some kind of suffering got our attention or something and and we realize that there's that something inside of us very deeply something needs to be addressed right and so our spiritual search can be born out of that sort of dis that sort of discomfort and the positive side, a kind of intuitive feeling that there is something there's something right there. There's something that perhaps I'm not seeing that may be uh important to me. The reason I bring this up is because when we're all these things I've just mentioned, when we we start to we have some some a little more conflict or some turmoil or something starts to occur inside of us or occur in our life that's a dissatisfaction as I said that often prompts a spiritual search. That dissatisfaction though, what it really does is it heightens our our awareness, right? We start paying attention like something's not something's a little out of joint, something's not working right, I don't feel quite quite right, I don't whatever the symptom that we feel is. And that's that brings us we start paying attention more. So it's not necessarily that say some life crisis leads to spiritual awakening. Obviously most crisises for most people don't lead to spiritual awakening. They can. Um but it's not like it happens every time, you know, we go into a personal crisis. Wouldn't that be cool if it did work that way? [laughter] But alas, um it's not quite that way. But but this heightening of our consciousness or heightening of our awareness, this way in which we're kind of leaning into the moment, right? Leaning into the moment, leaning into life, not like leaning into trying to get everything you can out of it and squeeze as much experience. And that becomes the experience junkiey's version of of being in the moment, trying to squeeze every make every experience bigger and better than as you possibly can. That's not it either, right? So there's there's those personality types that are trying to squeeze everything they can out of the moment. You know, the ego just squeezing as much desire as it can. And then there's almost like it's it's opposite, which is that kind of personality that's not quite sure that it wants to join the moment. And it may have its reasons that at least according to it seem pretty reasonable, may make sense why one would have some ambiguity about fully diving into the moment. And yet that's the heart of spirituality. So see being what the what I'm trying to convey here is is being present. >> [sighs and gasps] >> It may be as simple as we think, but it's certainly a lot deeper than we think to really be present.