What is "the power of the present"?

What does "here and now" mean?

To understand this issue better, first answer a few questions:

1. Do you tend to dwell on the past, especially that moments when you think you suffered?

2. Do you tend to worry about what might come, fear it and assume the worst scenario?

3. Do you have a tendency to get angry, to fill sorry for yourself, or to reopen old wounds?

4. Are you afraid of change? Do you associate them with something bad?

5. How do you react to disadvantageous life situations with anger, frustration? Do you say, eh ... yes, it's only new experience?

6. Do you have problems with falling asleep when troubles occur?

If you answer “yes” to most of these questions, it means that reading this text may help you. I would like to share a few reflections on the basis of the wonderful book that I borrow from a good friend of mine. The book I am talking about is "The Power of the Present" by Eckhart Tolle. It gives a new look at the "power" of our minds and helps us to understand the obstacles we set on the way to happiness.

"I think, therefore I am". But, who am I?

You go to sleep and start analyzing the past day. A colleague at your work place behaved unfairly towards you. People are reduced and their duties are given to those who stayed. There are more tasks. You don't always have the right knowledge and qualifications to perform them. But no one cares. If you fail, you'll be fired. And in addition to this you have to go to a dentist and you are at risk of root canal treatment (!). You go home knackered. You are fed up of everything. You go to sleep and start remembering angrily events from work. You are unhappy that you agreed to take an extra work. You didn't object to it. You were late with your current job and the next day you may hear unpleasant words from your boss. A fear of the next day at work appears, and here what’s more, you have to call the dentist and arrange the horrid visit. How can you fall asleep in such circumstances? It would be almost the miracle. Now, the power over you have: the past - memories and the future - fears, while you should be sleeping sweetly. I am "here and now" and in "here and now" there are no unfinished projects, there is no boss who shouts, there is no threat of root canal treatment. Now you have to sleep and not think about the dentist. These thoughts, exhausting memories and projections of the future – there are underhand scheming of our mind. The brain can't be easily silenced, it wants to rule. The mind is our ego, and the ego always knows everything best.

In his book “The power of the mind” Mr. Eckhart Tolle writes that identifying with our own mind makes thinking a kind of a must. Not being able to stop thinking is a terrible disease but we don’t realize it because almost everyone has this problem, so it seems normal. This constant jazz of mind precludes us from reaching our inner peace and silence inherently connected with Existence. It also creates a false, born from the mind “Me”, a reflect of fear and suffering. René Descartes was convinced that he discovered the most basic truth when he made his famous statement: "I think, therefore I am.". However, in reality, he only expressed the most common misconception: a view that equates thinking with existence, and identity - with thinking. Someone who is forced to think - almost everyone - lives in a state of apparent individuality, in a world of constant problems and conflicts. 

Are you able not to think for a moment, clear your mind?...

It is difficult, isn’t it? Thoughts are still swirling. Even when immersed in meditation, we must first go through the chaos of our own thoughts and feelings.

After reading "The Power of the Present," I still catch myself on mistakes. For example, while waiting for a meeting that had big impact on my life, I couldn't break away from my thoughts on what to say and how to behave in order to do my best. Even if I try hard, my thoughts will come to me, break in, give me the pip, fill me with fear. The reunion will take place tomorrow, so why am I already stressed it today? I have other things to do today. I plant plants. I focus on putting them on the ground and then on watering. I do not think about the meeting that is to be tomorrow because IT WILL BE TOMORROW. And today I plant plants. When the meeting is the present moment, I will focus on the best self-presentation. My mind will be calm, receptive, rested because in the time for sleeping I will sleep, not analyze what and how to say. Sounds mumble? At first, yes, but when you read it makes second time and think about it for a moment, you'll find that it all makes sense.

In the book you may find a nice description how to understand past, future and present.  Let's say you walk a path in the thick fog at night. However, you have a strong torch whose light breaks through the fog and opens a narrow, clearly visible way in front of you. This fog is your life situation, including past and future; the torch is your conscious presence; clearly visible path - the Present. 

Now we understand what's going on with the “here and now”.

When our mind goes in some fearful projection, we can recall order to focus attention, repeating "I am here and now" several times, until the fear is gone. We are focusing on the present moment: the lady sitting opposite on the bus is wearing a dress with polka-dot. I’ve just been overtaken by a red car, followed by a navy blue car. It engages our mind in an experience of the present moment. In fact, they seem quite boring. Experiencing whether Bob will call you after your last date is more interesting. And this is the biggest trap. We are easily caught up and manipulated by our own minds. We easily slide into our own hell and just focus on what we are doing at the moment. It seems simple but very difficult. Difficult because our mind will do everything not to be marginalized. If we have to control everything, it means that we are controlled. It depends on us whether we let the ego rules. But after all, when I am hurt, I am angry, I want... I have to fight.

This is resistance. In this moment your mind takes over control over you. You resist, rebel, get nervous. You don't act. All your energy is directed towards producing negative emotions and create awareness monsters.

Eckhart Tolle told such a story: "One Buddhist monk once confessed to me: “I have been a monk for twenty years and all the knowledge acquired during this time can be contained in one sentence: everything that appears passes away. That's all I know". He obviously meant  this: "I have learned not to resist to things around; I have learned to allow the present moment simply to be, and I have accepted that all things and states are inherently impermanent. Thanks to this I found peace."(P. 201, translation from the Polish version of the book).

How to deal with giving up control? Mr. Eckhart Tolle called this phenomenon "surrender". This term doesn’t mean depressive surrender to life, "come hell or high water".  Giving up means unconditionally, uncritically accept the present moment, reject internal resistance to what exists. Internal resistance is a disagreement with what exists, expressed through mental judgments and negative emotions. Especially it intensifies when "something is not going well", that is, there appears a fracture between the demands and inflexible expectations of your mind and the reality. A pain appears. Resistance and mind are one. 

To give up does not mean to capitulate before life and what it brings. It's letting go, stopping the fight against windmills. A fragment of one of the songs of Polish singer Anna Maria Jopek is accurate to describe this situation: "swim with the stream of the river, don't struggle with it". I’ve also heard once: "let get over everything". It referred to my situation at work, when I started fighting alone against the system. Such a fight was cockeyed and its cost was enormous. I understood the warning and what it brings. I began to back down on the ambition of "saving whole that evil world". Unfortunately it was too late. Stress accumulated for a long time bore fruit, laying a solid foundation for a serious and incurable disease. When I lied on the operating table and was wearing a face mask with anesthesia, the last thought I sent was: "Now I give everything in Your hands." I gave up. Although the doctors had expected the worst in advance (in my case it was excretory ostomy), it turned out that it could be avoided. After the surgery I recovered very quickly and the wounds healed fast. I eased up.

AndI advise you to do this same. What is going to happen, will happen and it depends only on us how we approach problems. We will let them to be a life drama or we will "dissolve" them: now they are but finally they will pass. This doesn’t mean that I put you up to unconditional surrender, to suffer. We only agree that this is happening here and now. This doesn’t mean that we do nothing with it. Quite the opposite, after accepting the fact that an unfavorable situation is taking place at a given moment, we begin to do everything to change this negative state of affairs. This is a positive action. Example: you have lost your job. Your mind immediately gives you all possible fears of lack of livelihood, additionally embellish with a sense of harm and an attack on self-assessment. So you get frustrated, blame the whole world but you are really attacking yourself because "the whole world" has in the “deepest respect” that you have a problem. All these emotions have a negative effect. Anger and frustration lead to neurosis and depression. It is different when we accept the situation. We give up: yes, I don't have a job today. I want to have a job. I need it to have the livelihood. So I'm starting to act: to look for a new job. Or maybe this is the moment to start something new? I can requalify, start doing what was my hobby until now. After all, losing your job was something bad or just the opposite?

Most obstacles don’t depend on us but most fears, we produce ourselves. The fuel driving the fear additionally are media that like to convey bad information and fears flowing from people around us. Now think how many of your fears have turned into real trouble. Probably not much. What if you approach these artificially created scenarios as an illusion? What sense has fight against illusion? Illusion is an artificial creation, so is there any point in worrying about it?

I think it's worth taking this book's message to your heart (not your mind). There are enough evil and problems in the world, let's not create them ourselves. Our life may not get easier very soon but certainly calmer.