The Now: Our Refuge, Our Place of Peace

Ask yourself: what experience do I have of the past? Not the memory taking place now – the actual past. Can I step out of now and visit the past? Or the future? With no experience of past and future, do we experience time? How long does the present moment last? What becomes of our search for happiness, enlightenment, or God, if we can’t experience a future, the realm in which we hope to find happiness, enlightenment or God? Why meditate when, without reference to an imaginary past or future, we find ourselves in effortless meditation? Do you subtly strain at the edges of here in order to get there? ‘I am always here’ is really the ultimate yoga posture, placing the body moment to moment, in an effortless fluid posture in harmony with the universe. Our suffering always exists with reference to past and future. The now is our refuge, the place of peace.

Ask yourself: what experience do I have of the past? Not the memory taking place now – the actual past. Can I step out of now and visit the past? Or the future? With no experience of past and future, do we experience time? How long does the present moment last? What becomes of our search for happiness, enlightenment, or God, if we can’t experience a future, the realm in which we hope to find happiness, enlightenment or God? Why meditate when, without reference to an imaginary past or future, we find ourselves in effortless meditation? Do you subtly strain at the edges of here in order to get there? ‘I am always here’ is really the ultimate yoga posture, placing the body moment to moment, in an effortless fluid posture in harmony with the universe. Our suffering always exists with reference to past and future. The now is our refuge, the place of peace.