A Modern Parable

Once upon this current time, there is Every Person who lives a limited life – a life predominately of striving, worrying, and never feeling good enough or that he achieves enough. Most of the time EP lives in his head, dealing with his day by fretting about the future, having regrets about the past, and fantasizing about what could be. Every once in a while, however, EP experiences the security, the creativity, the completeness that make him feel truly wonderful.  Then he says, “Now, this is how we are supposed to live!” It is as if he hears a familiar bell signaling to him that he has arrived home.  These occasions are rare, however. 
 
One day, in a rare and most enjoyable “bell” moment, he suddenly finds himself back at the office with his heavy “To Do” file, worrying about twenty things.  “How did I get from the Here-Now to the office tomorrow?” he asks himself.  “What happened?  Why can’t I just continue to enjoy this moment?”  These sincerely posed questions set him on a course of exploration and self-observation.  He notes that it is thinking that takes him out of his present contentment and into other times and places.  Continuing with this self-observation he discovers how certain feelings and thoughts work together.  He notes how it is when he feels fear, anger and guilt that he starts thinking in a way that takes him on disturbing and useless journeys away from the Here-Now.  He follows this back further and finds that it is when he isn’t feeling secure, in control and adequate that he starts feeling and thinking this way. 
 
Then an amazing thing happens. As EP continues in this awareness, he finds he starts to experience more and more moments of just enjoying being with himself with no thought.  This is so new an experience for him that he finds it hard to describe to others.  The joy and ensuing benefits of this experience lead EP to intentionally go back to the Here-Now  many times a day; he especially knows to go there if something or someone threatens his inner equilibrium in ways that bring up his needs to remain secure, in control and adequate.   The more often he goes back to this inner place, the more he finds his life changes in wonderful ways:  he finds he comes up with creative ideas and solutions to the challenges of life as he meets them.  He finds he has more energy and is able to focus on what is truly important in life.  He finds he worries less and less and enjoys each moment more and more.  His family too recognizes how much more at ease he is and how he seems to really enjoy being with them fully.
 
EP realizes he has made a great discovery.  He feels like he has removed a central brick from a wall, and with that one brick’s removal, brings down the whole limiting structure so that he can now see beyond to a new reality.
 
EP marvels at how his life has changed so suddenly, how he is able to toss away his worries, his feelings of inadequacy, and his artificial needs so easily. It is as if he has moved to a different territory and because of that experiences life differently.   “How did I get from my former way of life to Here-Now?” he asks sincerely.
 
“Ah,” says his muse, “this is what the book in your hand is all about."

 

In the Self-Powerment Model, the structure of thought is where the thought takes us in time and space.  Where we are in time (past, present, future), and where we are in space (where our attention is focused) is a new awareness for most of us.  We have never been told that where we are in time and space is so important.  That’s what is so exciting!

 

I am not the first person to know that the Here-Now, the ‘I Am’, is the place where people are self-powered.  We see the ‘I Am’ when Woods plays golf, Jordan plays basketball, McGuire plays baseball or the Williams sisters play tennis.  We often call it the ‘Zone’.
 
When we are in the Zone, we are able to intuit our experience totally.  We do what is necessary by completely participating in the experience.  For example, when your child is hurt and you go into immediate right action or when you call a parent or relative spontaneously because you just know something is wrong, you are in the Zone, accessing data from direct experience with an expanded sensory database.
 
When attention is focused inside ourselves, we become aware of the extraordinary amount and variation of information accessible from our senses.

 

Inherent in the experience of a feeling is the action necessary to stay self-powered.  Feelings are nature’s tool to maintain balance, clarity, focus, control, and self-confidence.  Feelings are the fundamental tool for getting and staying in the Here-Now.  When we are experiencing feelings, there is no attention to thought.  Attention to the present moment experience of the feeling – with our focus on the physical sensation – allows us access to the information needed to stay self-powered.

 

For practical purposes, we have to go to the future to plan; we have to go back to the past to remember.  Sometimes we want to think about other people and things, and sometimes we want to look at our own strengths and weaknesses.  When we leave the Here-Now by choice, it serves us.  Any other time, it becomes the vehicle for discharging feelings.  My experience is that, when asked, most people say that they spend most of their time “flying around out there” – not in the Here-Now.  It takes an incredible amount of energy to move a feeling onto a thought, energy that could be better used to participate fully in life.

 

Today, as never before, an increasingly large number of individuals all over the world are searching for ways to experience living in the Here-Now.  We know that the wisdom gained from accessing and utilizing direct experience is no longer a luxury; in fact, it is requisite for our survival as a human species.  How fitting that the modern science of Quantum physics wed with modern psychology has pointed us to another gateway to the Here-Now at this pivotal time in human evolution – a gateway that is universally available to us all – right here, right now.

 

When we live in the Here-Now, we are able to drop all human conditioning with its entrenched and limited thought patterns and start anew.  What world can we create when we do this?  A world of infinite possibility.

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