Once, when I was teaching, I was reminded of the importance of making connections through stories. I shared a personal story with my students and they, in turn, opened up with many stories of their own. I was grateful for this reminder and continued the practice in future class lessons. On the drive home from work that day, it occurred to me that it is the ego that keeps us from sharing personal stories because it is what causes us to be afraid of being judged. That thought revealed a simple fact to me; ego gets in the way of truth.
Zen Professor
A Path to a More Fulfilling Life
Tag: time
The following story is taken from my book, The New Season: Journey Toward Enlightenment. I have presented it here in order to demonstrate the symbolism of some of the most profound ancient teachings to be found. More importantly, I hope to provide examples of how to incorporate this wisdom into one’s daily life. I hope you enjoy it:
Life often gives us examples of how we are connected to everything. I once read a story about a man who could “tap” another person and cause them to turn around, even though twenty feet or more separated them! Is this even possible? In the story it was stated that, out of forty people who passed by, only four failed to turn around when this man mentally “tapped” them. That is remarkable! (From The Lost Season by Jeffry Beers)
“Part of life’s beauty is that we are all connected, so that beauty is in me as well”
A while ago I sat on the back porch and witnessed an amazing sunset. The trees framed vibrant colors in a select location, almost as if it were done on purpose just as a special gift to me. I could sense the difference of coming from the place of being a part of everything, intimately connected in every way, versus perceiving oneself as separate from everything and continually being acted upon by the environment. The former brings a sense of peace and joy while the latter brings a sense of pain and suffering. The difference is quite profound.
“Your brain creates the illusion of constancy, yet in truth the person or thing you believe to be in front of you is actually a ghost of what was in front of you a few thousandths of a second ago.” -Deepak Chopra
The great teachers of the past have been telling us for thousands of years that the idea of physical reality is a mere illusion. Now it appears science is telling us the same thing. It seems time for us to revisit the wisdom of the past and combine it with the new information available today in order to gain a better understanding of the reality in which we live. In turn, we can make informed decisions when eliminating belief systems that do not serve our best interest.
How important is our perspective when it comes to how we experience the world and all its happenings? How much control over our environment do we have? Do we create our own reality? In order to answer these questions, lets have a look at some of the overarching ideas in science, and how they seem to support the suggestion that we have more say in our everyday reality than we choose to believe.
“Change is the only constant in life.”
Heraclitus
When speaking of a deceased friend Einstein stated,
“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
In other words, there is no such thing as linear time. According to quantum physics writer Julian Barbour, the concept of time must be turned on its head. Instead of conceiving of time as a measure of change, he opines that it is change that gives the illusion of time.
We have been taught to think of events in our lives as pages of a book torn from their binding and spread randomly across the floor. The pages can be pieced together and ordered in such a way as to create a cohesive story. However, the pages are still independent of one another. Barbour concludes that time is actually an infinite number of nows overlapping in such a way that they give the impression of linear time flowing past us, but that the linking of the nows is done in the mind only.
In other words, everything in the universe is existing simultaneously and, in the words of Barbour, the cat that jumps is not the same cat that lands.
This ideology gives new meaning to the importance of the phrase be here now. Now is all there is. Thoughts of running out of time or of life being too short are stories in our heads that we can choose to stop writing.
Let go of the story and surrender to the now. In turn, you will access the unlimited potential of the unmanifested. This is the practice of accessing source energy. And it is where you will find your bliss.
Quiet the mind, and be here now… Indeed, that is all there is!
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In this book series I have described a path to total self-awareness. For me, it all started with reading inspirational literature, contemplative walking, introspective reflecting and journaling. In the first book of the series, Peace: The Art of Mindfulness to Eliminate Stress, I wrote about mindfulness and how we can program the mind to change our default progressively from constant mind chatter, to less inner dialog, to mindful chatter, to mostly silent with intentionally directed internal dialog.
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