“Forever is composed of nows.”
― Emily Dickinson

Right before you read these words, you were thinking about something. Perhaps you were replaying a scene from the past; or maybe you were projecting some outcome into the future. Only the moment where you clicked the link to open this page were you actually in the moment – and even that may have been a conditioned click while your mind swirled around other issues of your life.

We live our lives in the past and the future – rarely spending time to be mindful of what is happening in this very moment. That’s not a good thing or a bad thing – it just is how our brain works and how we respond to our senses feeding us experience…and we have conditioned ourselves to fill any gaps in that flow of activity with more activity.

Think about your day-to-day: How long does it take when you arrive home to talk, text, pick up a remote control, put on music, or the TV, or log on? When you get into your car alone, how long does it take until you put on music, call someone, text someone? We are creatures of habit and we habitually fill our stillness and silence with movement, sound, and activity.

Yet at our core, we ARE stillness and silence – pure unbounded, unconditioned consciousness. There are many kinds of activity but only one stillness and one silence. Every time we meditate we connect to that space…that nothingness…that NO THING ness. And when we return to our waking state after meditation, we bring back a thimbleful of stillness, a tweezerful of silence, an eyedropper full of your unconditioned self and over time…that becomes you.

So how do we get there? And how deep do we need to go to get to the Truth? How high do we need to soar to connect to our very essence?

We are already there…but the mist of daily illusion swirling about us often obscures the Light that is inside. But through BEing present, we can give our self permission to settle down just a bit so we can truly experience quietude and NO thing ness – we can actually experience pure, unbounded consciousness. When we settle down even more deeply, we can hear the whispers of the divine and tap into source at the most innocent level. And then we can take our next step into the realm of pure potentiality where our next thought, our next word, our next deed…is magnificent, unconditioned, and pregnant with possibilities.

An easy way of connecting to that in any moment is through our breath. Try it now. Take a deep breath in…and now exhale. Most likely that feels pretty good. Now let’s do it again and let’s witness the entire process. You breathe in – a full inhale. Then you breathe out – a full exhale. But now you are aware that there is a space between the in and the out. A sliver of nothingness that is neither a breath in or a breath out. That space between the inhale and exhale is pure present moment…no activity…no past or future. Let’s try it again.

The present moment is always within you – always resting at the core of who you are. And you can access it at any moment wherever you are…whatever you are doing. Just like the space between your thoughts is who you really are, the space between your breaths is another facet of the pure, unbounded consciousness that rests within you.

Try this beautiful re-connection technique as you go about your day and you will notice that your life unfolds with greater grace and greater ease. Whatever you are going through, remember to keep breathing. Love. davidji