In the World, But Not of It: Transforming Everyday Experience into a Spiritual Path by David R. Hawkins M.D. Ph.D

Author:David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D. [David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hay House Inc.
Published: 2022-11-29T00:00:00+00:00

The Power of the Present Moment

Think about this for a moment: if you live in the exact moment of now, you don’t have any problems. I like to use the example of a person who is about to get beheaded. He’s walking up to the scaffold, and at that moment, he has no problems. He steps on the stairs, and at that moment, still no problems. And then he places his head on the block—at that moment, he still doesn’t have any problems.

If you’re living in the moment, nothing’s happening. And then wop, off goes your head, and guess what? You still don’t have a problem! Even in the worst scenario, if you live in the instant of the exact moment of now, you see the creation of anxiety and negative feelings is based on projecting into the future. The anxiety and fear and disappointment is about the future or the past. If you watch your mind, you’ll see you’re usually either regretting something from the past or you’re fearfully anticipating something in the future.

It used to be said, “Keep your mind where your body is,” meaning in the exact moment of now. The average person is worrying about the future or hanging on to the past. For the future, you’re going to anticipate positive responses, but also you anticipate fear.

Beginners in spiritual consciousness research tend to get confused because they mix consciousness levels. What’s meant in one context cannot be criticized from another context. You can’t contradict a statement from a different level of consciousness any more than you can criticize theology from the viewpoint of science. They are different paradigms. Science is a paradigm, and spiritual reality is a different paradigm. You can’t criticize mathematics from the viewpoint of spirituality. That’s mixing levels. For instance, a person might say, “Well, yes, I’m living in the now when I worry; I’m worrying right now. I’m living in the present when I regret the past; I’m regretting the past right now. So if I live in the right now, I’ve got regret over the past and anxiety about the future. Then that’s what I’m worried about right now. And that’s my now, my now is full of anxiety and regrets.”

Then they say, “Well, to get rid of regret and anticipatory fear, I need to get out of the now. By tomorrow, I’ll have figured it all out.” This is also denoting time. Just because you’re paying attention to something doesn’t make it the now. A contemplative lifestyle, which we talked about in Chapter 1, can help take you out of the ambiguity about now and not now and the future and the past; because when seen from the viewpoint of the witness of consciousness itself, there isn’t any now, there isn’t any past, there isn’t any future.

Phenomena are unfolding, but they’re not unfolding within a linear time track. There isn’t a time track within consciousness. In consciousness, all things are equally present all the time because it’s beyond time. There is no place within the infinite field of consciousness because it’s infinite.

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