Accessing The Moment
An excerpt from Practical Enlightenment
by Ariel & Shya Kane
The mind plans. The mind thinks. The mind draws upon what it already knows, rearranging a finite set of data in an attempt to create something new. This isnât a problem. This is normal. In fact itâs something people routinely do when organizing their days. But enlightenment includes something else. It includes accessing this moment rather than being lost in thought. It includes an active engagement with your environment and the people who inhabit it. It also includes saying Yes to how your life is currently unfolding rather than being fearfully preoccupied with worries from the past projected into a fantasy future.
Each of us is encased in a forward-thinking machine that references the past in order to improve upon what has gone before. And so, we fear the future, afraid of doing our lives âwrong,â of making bad choices, of falling behind, of not getting ahead, not reaching our goals, of dying or enduring the death of a loved one.
When youâre living in a state of fear, you are not accessing the moment. When you fall prey to your fearful mind and the machine that drives you forward, you lose your experience of the interconnectedness we all share. You lose sight of God Consciousness, your higher self, your connection to the Vedas, to the oneness of all â depending on how you wish to view or term it.
You have the potential at any given moment to be in sync with life and with the universe at large. Your universe is taking care of you right now and itâs going to take care of you in the future. You never need to scheme, connive or manipulate to make it work out the way you think it ought to be or the way you would prefer. The current moment of now is perfect and you donât need to be different than you are to survive it.
The challenge is that weâve all been raised in cultures based in survival. The forward-thinking nature of our cultures drive us toward future fulfillment or satisfaction that is never forthcoming because it dismisses the current moment in favor of some future âbetterâ moment. When you strive to achieve what you think will be better, there is no satisfaction because all you have is the current moment. Even if you achieve your goal, satisfaction will elude you because this moment leads to the next moment, which leads to the next moment and if youâre dissatisfied right now, the future will arrive as an extension of your current dissatisfaction. You are dissatisfied whenever you think that something else in the future will be âit,â and what you have or where you are isnât âit.â
The simple truth is that the current moment is all there is. The technology of Instantaneous Transformation allows us to step out of that survival dynamic if we choose to and discover a creative lifestyle â one in which weâre not only driven to achieve and accumulate wealth but one where we can also experience our lives. The game of self-realization, of living a transformational lifestyle, requires us to retrain our values. It involves reining in our predisposition to strive for a future fulfillment so we can appreciate what is happening in life right now. The mechanical predisposition to upset and irritability can be dissolved if you honestly see it and feel it without blaming the circumstances for how you feel. It is about being in the midst of whatever is happening rather than doing anything about it. This âbeing hereâ allows for the completion of your forward-thinking nature. All it takes is a moment to be in sync with your life once again. All it takes is saying Yes to how your life is showing up â right now, even if circumstances are not meeting your preferencesâ¦and even when they are.
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This article is an excerpt from Ariel & Shya Kanesâ new book, Practical Enlightenment, now available on Amazon.com.
Since 1987, internationally acclaimed authors, seminar leaders, radio show hosts and business consultants Ariel and Shya Kane have acted as guides, leading people through the swamp of the mind into the clarity and brilliance of the moment. Find out more about the Kanes, their seminars in NYC, in the UK, Germany and Costa Rica, the Say YES to Your Life! Meetups their work has inspired, their Being Here radio show or join their email newsletter. Also get information about their four award-winning books.
