' Be present? '...

In enlightenment teachings, you may hear the phrase, “be present.” But if you look around, ‘you’ are the present moment. ‘You’ are not separate from it. ‘You’ are life itself. The only thing obscuring this realization is mental and emotional activity that continuously tries to move away from this moment into a dream of past, future, and resistance to now. The notion that you are separate from life is a creation of thought.

The personal will who tries to ‘be present’ and bring about a personal awakening is the dream. Instead of doing anything, including trying to be present, gently notice what is already being done. A dream of self is already being told.

Thought is replaying the past, searching into future, and resisting what is in this moment, all for the benefit of a “me.” That mind movement is a dream of control. It is a dream of personal will. Suffering and searching arise when you buy into the illusion of control and personal will.

When the personal will is seen to be a dream of thought, it dies on its own. That is true spiritual awakening. You realize there is nothing to seek. Paradise is already here, now. It has always been right here, right now under the dream that there was a “you” who was somehow separate from it and who needed to do something to find it.



-Kiloby, Scott. Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment