Living in the now

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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Okay so russiantank asked me to explain living in the now, and I thought hey why not make a thread :smiley: Lol. Okay so… well how I stumbled upon this philosophy was through reading Krishnamurti. Recently a new author/teacher has emerged by the name of Eckhart Tolle. His book has become very popular and has been on the new york times best seller for quite some time now, it is entiteled “power of the now”. Before becoming a writer, Eckhart was a philosophy teacher at a university.

 Now this is just my quick summary.  If you really want to study it I would reccomend picking either the writings of Krishnamurti, or that of Eckhart Tolle.  Basically the majority of mankind today live in they're heads.  We are conditioned to do so.  We live through thought, and we live via the self.  The definition of intelligence is mental awareness.  Intelligence is not knowledge.  Living in the now is the ability to allow the operation of thought to cease so that one can be aware.  Now yes we do need thought, to drive a car, to do our jobs etc, so I'm not saying that we should live our lives without thought, but there is a difference between letting thought run our lives, and letting thought work through intelligence.

 I know that no one wants to read a book here, and if you do I've mentioned some.  So I'll just go over a few basic principles of the philosophy.

There is no experience without the experiencer; now I’ve caught a lot of flack for this statement, but It does not need to be so. The basic problem most have with that statement is they think that it is solopsism, and that “if I’m not here the universe will still exist”, but this statement does not need to be accepted on the universal level, but on the individual level, and as for solopsism that is a belief and brings about the ulitimate ego I would say, and to live fully in the now one has to dissolve the ego.

Individually you must be able to accept that if you ceased to exist, then for you, there would be no experience. I’m not talking about dying either(since some people think that they’re soul lives on, or they go to heaven) I’m talking about ceasing to exist completley.

Now surely you can accept this statement on the individual level. It is very simple. Now if there is no experience without the experiencer, then that follows that the experiencer, and the experience are one and the same. There is no reason to seperate the two. The experience, life, the mind, it is whole, it is one.

There is no time psychologically speaking; Now there have been many threads about time, but again you do not have to accept this on a universal level. To me it seems fairly clear that physcologically speaking there is no time, there is simply the now. When the future comes it comes as the now. What we have is the illusion of time via memory, but when you remember, that thought process is happening within the now.

Thought seperates and dulls awareness to the present; Thought creates the self, and this is how we meet everything in our lives through the self. This causes seperation and conflict. It is not simply one whole experience, it is “you and me”, “them and they”, “I and you”. The I the self is an illusion. Do you truely think that that is what you are? the self? thought? When I say “I” hurt(again talking about the psyche, and not physical pain) who is the “I” that is hurting? Most people are in a constant state of becoming. I am not happy now, but I will be in the future, if I can get money, if I can find love, if I can find enlightenment. We turn our attention away from the present, and are in constant pursuit of the future, to become, and this state of becoming never ends. We are not aware in the present and are therefore destroying it.

Nationalism, religion, the very ideas we fight wars over are the products of the self. We fight and kill, and destroy eachother based on ideas, based on our self image. We create a belief in ones country, to give us psychological security, and we kill for it. The self takes upmost importance over everything else, and it is nothing more then an illusion.

When you are in conflict, when you wake up in the mourning and a part of yourself say “I have to get up” and another say “but I want to stay in bed”. That is conflict, who is it that wants to stay in bed, and who says I have to get up. This is a very light example, but you see the mind is whole, there is no reason for seperation, one part of the mind trying to dominate another, this brings about conflict, and wastes energy. Most people live there lives in a state of conflict, which is the cause of suffering. Yet it does not need to be so.

When one meets the present whole and fully, then suffering ends, becoming ends, the self is dissolved, there is no fear, and in that there is security. There is only now, and the experience is whole. Psychological suffering can end, hate conflict and seperation can end, when one realises the present moment.

Well thats my summary for living in the now.

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if you hit starbacks sometime after yoga class the milfs would love this shit and they’d be wearing neon spandex jumpsuits.

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MILF… there is a term I never expected to see at ILP lol.

Thought creates the self? What creates thought? If thoughts just randomnly happen how is the experiencer and experience one and the same, as thoughts seem disparate, random particulars making a composite. Is it predetermined? If it is how can you live in the now if it was already determined that you wouldn’t think that you were?

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Do the MILFs really wear neon spandex jumpsuits? :astonished: That sounds vaguely disturbing to me.

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i’m an artist.

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Wouldn’t it be more enlightening to see this topic in a little different light? We do all live in the now. It is the only place we do live. Past and future do not exist. We may agree that the past did exist, and we may have fragmentary memories of it. We may agree that the future will exist, and we may fantasize about it. But the only thing that does exist, must exist now.

This simple truth helps us understand the benefit of living “in the now.” Since it is the only place we can live, it is to our benefit to be fully aware of our place in time and space. If we are drifting off into the past or future, locked in our memories and fantasies, we are absorbed by illusions. We are disconnected from reality.

Krishnamurthy in his search for the truth and for freedom found that the secret was total awareness. This can be achieved only by putting aside the illusions of past and future, and becoming fully alert to all that exists here and now. It is our total awareness of reality (truth) that gives us power to achieve all that can be achieved.

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Krishnamurphy, in his quest for solitude, folded himself into a wall…

-Imp

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Yes you can look at it in many different ways. Explaining any state is very difficult, language becomes a hinderance. In general all thought is of the past, thought is the accumulation of our experiences, and if we constantly meet the present with thought, the past, then we can never see clearly. When we see things clearly there ceases to be a problem, and out of this state creativity is born. A creative mind can deal with the present much more effectively then a static mind.

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I think you have hit on something here, however we need to reflect on this more deeply. Thinking is something that we do. We cannot deny it even if we sat for 9 years meditating, ceasing all thought.The moment there is movement/action there is thought. Bodhidarma mediated for 9 years, waiting for the one who he would be able to pass the dharma to. So when the disciple arrived, Bodhidarma was forced to think and he was able to use the stillness borne out of meditation - the origin of truth, the Tao, to think and therefore direct the thoughts out of the source. Bodhidarma said “One creates all things and all things return to One”. Thinking is the nature of the mind. There is nothing other that the mind can do. So rather than trying not to think and concerning ourselves with trained responses based on the past, we, through experienceare able to direct those thoughts from the source of creation. Thoughts are the tool.

Incidentally if you believe what you say about our thoughts being the past - then even a creative mind is the past and therefore does not exist - merely a trained response - you will have to modify your belief on creativity as a creative mind would not be true creativity.

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Im sorry guys, but all this seems like nonsense to me. As far as I can tell, all you guys are doin is trying to make a simple idea much more complicated. That idea being not to worry… Like Bob Marley said, Dont worry, be happy. As I see it, people aquire pain by focusing on painful memories, or pain from anxiety of the future. They dont relish the pleasure they are experiencing in the present. That happens sometimes, but more often than not, they arn’t experiencing enough pleasure, or are in pain in the present. Thus thinking about getting some more pleasure in the future is the best thing we can do. Sometimes, hope in a better future is all people have. Try to sell your idea to an african Tutsi, whose family and people are being murdered by Hutus. See if he likes living in the now. Also, whats the point of experiencing life if not for relishing the memories. I have plenty of great memories and stories, and sure, maybe they are illusions in terms of the present, but I still aquire pleasure from re-experiencing them.

So you guys are suggesting to give up these two fundamental actions in life, remebering and looking forward to the future. I would heartily disagree. I would agree we should not ruin our lives with these actions. Ie:dont worry about them, but instead, milk all the pleasure you can out of them. I for one can tell which situation has the most pleasure in it for me. When I am sitting in my room with nothing to do, I might remember a great moment in my life, get pleasure out of that, or I might think about the future, and fantacize, get pleasure out of that. But if I am presently in a situation where pleasure is abundent, I will not waste my energy on remembring and fantasizing. I will be living for the pleasure in this “now”. Personally, I have never found remembering and fantasizing to be problematic, though I know it can be for some. I only think about the things that make me happy. I never dwell on things that make me sad. Its that easy for me. And there is nothing you can say to convince me that thoroughly focusing on my room with nothing to do, and just being perfectly aware of everything in it is better than remembering that awsome party I was at, or fantasizing about that awsome party im going to be at.

Basicly, I think we shouldn’t try to concentrate on only the present, but we should get good at assessing how much pleasure is to be had from past, present, or future, and choose where to live accordingly. Sure, maybe you guys are living in reality more so than I, but my illusion is so much more fun, and if I so choose, I can jump right into your reality and have as much fun as its worth.

I think “Dont worry, be happy” is a much better doctrine than “Living in the now”

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Actually, that was then. This is now.

Can you see my difficulties?

Homo Mysticus

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Thought just IS…thought is God!..thought is a fabrication of humans… God created creatures that think they think for themselves…Thought is not yours and you’re not yourself…you can never be, because air is what you know is the life force…what your thoughts originate from is living!..and Life can’t be predetermined, it just is…your option if you want it or not and what you’re going to do with it…

and to RussianTank…what’s wrong with creativity??..you’re always being created, we’re still motion beings who are constantly created…every movement, every change in pattern has to be created…every illusion you create in your head is a change is a new reality!..every blink is a new reality…every motion is a new image on the canvas of God!.. Living in the now is living knowing that your movement is unhindered, your mind is unhindered…your SELF is not yours but it IS your BEING…Being is not a fantasy, being is not and illusion…but all of that is a part of Being!..

I’m loving this topic…ahhahahahahaha…it’s so real…hahahaha…

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oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…k