Can there be any doubt that
psychological time is a serious and dangerous mental illness? How does this mind pattern operate in your life? Are you always trying to get somewhere other than where you are? Is most of your doing just a means to an end? Is fulfillment always just around the corner or confined to short-lived pleasures, such as sex, food, drink, drugs, or thrills and excitement? Are you always focused on becoming, achieving, and attaining, or alternatively chasing some new thrill or pleasure? Do you believe that if you acquire more things you will become more fulfilled, good enough, or psychologically complete? Are you waiting for a man or woman to give meaning to your life?
In the normal, mind-identified or unenlightened state of consciousness, the power and infinite creative potential that lie concealed in
the Now are completely obscured by psychological time. Your life then loses its vibrancy, its freshness, its sense of wonder. The
old patterns of thought, emotion, behavior, reaction, and desire are acted out in endless repeat performances, a script in your mind that gives you an identity of sorts but distorts or covers up the reality of the Now. The mind then creates an obsession with the future as an escape from the unsatisfactory present.
If it is the quality of your consciousness at this moment that determines the future, then what is it that determines the quality of your consciousness? Your
degree of presence. So the only place where true change can occur and where the past can be dissolved is the Now.
Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of
fear - are caused by too much
future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of
non-forgiveness are caused by too much
past, and not enough presence.
I cannot believe that I could ever reach a point where I am completely free of my problems. You are right. You can never reach that point because
you are at that point now.
When the compulsive striving away from the Now ceases, the joy of
Being flows into everything you do. The moment your attention turns to the Now, you feel a presence, a stillness, a peace. You no longer depend on the future for fulfillment and satisfaction - you don't look to it for salvation. Therefore, you are not attached to the results. Neither failure nor success has the power to change your inner state of Being. You have found the
life underneath your
life situation.
Everything is honored, but nothing matters. Forms are born and die, yet you are aware of the eternal underneath the forms. You know that "nothing real can be threatened." When this is your state of Being, how can you not succeed?
You have succeeded already.