Edward’s Diary Entry 160: The inevitability of “Now”

It was a hot summer evening, and the waiter I know at a tavern was complaining about the heat. The third time he spluttered and gasped, he remembered I had helped him with the issue of overcoming an illogical fear of a certain type of insect, so he asked me if I had a solution for the heat as well. I said, “let’s write it down and see,” knowing that he liked to jot things down or compose a little drawing. So we wrote down in Spanish, “Can this moment really be any different from what it is? This very moment. Now!”

He thought for a moment and came to his own very appropriate conclusion. “No, I guess this moment can’t be any different, and if that’s inevitable, I guess I shouldn’t complain about it. It wouldn’t make any sense.” For the time being, he stopped complaining. And he returned to the note on the noticeboard several times after that. Months later, it is still hanging there.

So whatever happens “now” is totally inevitable, and so it is totally “perfect”. Human likes have nothing to do with it. Certain circumstances or conditions have preceded this “now”, or actions have been performed leading up to the present instant, so “now” ensues in consequence and cannot possibly be otherwise. If we constructively put our imagination to use and try to picture the immensity of Eternity, each inevitable instant in our experience can be seen to be entirely exclusive and unique… That’s means it is wondrous, wonderful, incredible. This moment –this “now” – has never come to pass before. And it will never come again. It is a completely one-off experience. And it is up to us to appreciate it – or it’s gone forever!

We often labour under the impression that something happening in the “now” either “should be” or “shouldn’t be”. This is only due to wrong thinking, which is a futile form of automatic data-processing based on the past, i.e., pre-conditioning, pre-disposition, fixation with our likes and dislikes, etc. Instead of simply seeing the perfect nature of “now”, our minds pounce on a thinking-based conclusion about what we imagine we perceive. We reject the immensity of the present moment before us, with its infinite possibilities, and grasp onto one single aspect of it: our own opinion of it! That is blindness; imprisonment. Being trapped by a fantasy, a thought-induced fiction that only corresponds to some pre-established bias. This happens because of low Self-Awareness.

So an intelligent student of the mind will always be concerned about how to stop wrong thinking about the present, enhance Self-Awareness, and get in tune with reality as far as possible.

Say an event happens in the “now”. We have two basic choices:

-       Accepting the event in the “now” as inevitable has a positive effect on the mind and emotions. We apply our Self-Awareness and see and accept reality. We do not start thinking that it is either “for or against us”. It is simply reality. This does not mean we don’t do anything about it. What we choose to do about it, how we act in consequence, if action is taken, will depend on our straight thinking process, after recognising the uniqueness of this instant, and deciding on the action to be taken, if any.

-      But immediately rejecting what we see as an event in the “now” has a negative effect on the mind and emotions. We have interpreted “reality” as being “against us” (but who are we anyway? just our image of ourselves?), and this causes a degree of turmoil in our minds, emotions and even body. It gives rise to senseless complaining, moodiness, envy, jealousy, anger, rage, all the way to actual violence. Plant a seed of rejection and you ultimately engender violence. You suffer. You always suffer when your Self-Awareness is low, and the mind simply reacts in habitual patterns. Nothing new ever happens for us in that state. We will repeat and repeat all our little mistakes and quirks and even occasional joys like a clockwork mechanism. We kill all the infinite possibilities of the “now” in one fell swoop. 

So now what? Be present and accept the inevitable now.