Living in the NOW: 5. Meditating - a key to living in the NOW
In our opinion, it is not easy, but on the other hand quite well possible to regain control over your life, your thoughts, your moods and your happiness. The most important ingredient in the desired cocktail of bliss seems to us living as much as possible in the present or the NOW. That means that the nice feelings and the emotions of happiness that are caused by peak experiences should be lengthened beyond a few seconds or minutes. We should be in a state of flow more frequently! On an average all of us live in the NOW for a few minutes per hour and are not disturbed by unnecessary and superfluous thoughts.
In our opinion we have already achieved a tremendous success if by means of this site, our course or any other method the reader can lengthen these few minutes to a longer period of time. We are convinced that if we succeed in this, things like vitality, health, inner restfulness and happiness will get a strong positive impulse.
Religion and Living in the NOW
It is interesting to see that many spiritual and even religious schools have started to look for ways to achieve such situations of BEING or living in the NOW. If we want to spend more time in the NOW we must succeed in getting our mind under our control and live more in accordance with our feelings. In many spiritual schools it is a central point to live more in the NOW and the ideal is to achieve a state of enlightenment in which you live fully in the NOW.
The Zen ideology is a good example of this. Witness the following meaningful Zen anecdote:
A Zen student asked his teacher: "master, what is Zen?" The teacher answered: "Zen is sweeping the floor when you are sweeping the floor", eating when you are eating and sleeping when you are sleeping."
This means that in Zen it is important to do one thing at a time instead of two or three. The activity becomes an aim in itself and that means that we meet an important requirement when we are in the NOW. Consequently it is a central point in the Zen ideology to live completely in the NOW. If being in the NOW is such a central point in Zen, in Buddhism and in many other schools of thought should not we learn something from this? Perhaps the techniques and philosophies from the East are not so silly after all and they are worth studying more intensively and applying them in our daily lives.
Meditating helps us to live in the NOW.
The social trends of today underline this idea. We see more and more frequently that for instance in the worlds of sports and business the techniques and philosophies of Meditation are applied to improve achievements.
Gerry Lopez, from Hawaii, a legendary figure in the world of wave surfing gives the following answer when a reporter asks him whether he applies yoga, Meditation and spiritual principles when surfing:
'You must purposefully empty yourself of all thoughts, images and consequently also fears. You are only busy with the moment. Thoughts create a separation between you and what you see. Then your view is not clear enough. You have to become one with your senses and that only happens when you are not thinking. When you are scared your tendency is to withdraw into yourself, you become nervous and you start to make mistakes. That is something that you can do without when you are riding a high wave. I think that if people succeed in focussing on other things in this way, for instance their work or their relationships, they will be much more successful.'
We think that with these words Gerry Lopez hits the nail on the head. Meditation helps us to reach this state of thinking clearly and living in the NOW without having to work hard for it. Meditating is the art of living in the NOW. By means of Meditating we can learn to relax quickly and effectively, improve our power of concentration and develop a clear view of life. Besides: we can also very well apply the Meditation techniques in our daily lives so that we live more in the NOW. Act! Start to Meditate and surf to Our Basic Course or our For Beginners Section on this site! If you would like to read nice Meditation facts and remarkable Meditation know-how, please surf to our special Did you Know? section!?
Read the sequel about living in the NOW in the sixth article Our potential in the NOW.
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