"How Can I Be More Present?"— Stop Objectifying The Now

Oliver Gohari offers a reassuring message regarding the present moment. On our journey into mindfulness, meditation or spirituality, many of us will eventually discover that the Now/ Present Moment, is a wonderful thing! We want to "be more present" or "in the now". However, this desire actually generates discomfort within us, because we are wanting to acquire something. Oliver gently explains how this is a normal process during our transformational journey, and that the "Now" is nothing that we can acquire - in fact, it's actually impossible to "have" or "lose" the Now.

Transcript

Right, So let's talk about the present moment guys. The now, That's why we're all here. Who here has heard the expression, Be more present? You need to be in the now. You're not present right now, You need to be in the present moment. Who here has heard that or been told it by a spiritual guru? We can all relate to this can't we? We can all relate to this idea of being present, Being in the present moment. It's a very commonly utilized phrase, Even in the non-spiritual, Non-mindfulness communities. So what does it mean? What does it mean? Well, What we're going to do today is we're going to unpack what it means to be present. What does it mean to be in the now? And also I'm going to provide you with some reassurance because this is a really important topic. So if any of you have heard of Eckhart Tolle, The author and speaker, Excellent work by the way. I love his, I love his work, I love who he is. He was one of the first people that I read books of 20 years ago. He often talks about the present moment. He often talks about the now. In fact, He wrote a book called The Power of Now that I would recommend anyone read. But one of the problems that it creates for us is it objectifies the now. It makes the now a thing that we have to acquire. The way that the mind works, The way that our cognition works, The way that our egoic voice works, Is that we look at the world around us and we wish to objectify it, To make it a thing. So for example, What's in here? This green tea. I will give it a name, Green tea, And I will consume it. We don't look at things for what they are. We don't look at things for just thousands upon thousands of millions of atoms gathered together, Sharing space in the quantum field. No, Our egoic mind looks at something, It gives it a word, It gives it a label, A name, And then essentially it wants to consume it if it's a good thing. So when we're looking around us into the world, Without even consciously doing it, We are giving a hierarchy to the world externally and deciding, Do I want that in or out? Do I want to consume it or not? We do it to people, We do it to products. And when it comes to spirituality, This is the real golden point guys, When it comes to mindfulness and spirituality, The now has become a thing for the ego and it causes agony, It causes agony for us. Because in spiritual traditions, In philosophical books that say, Be more present, Be in the now, Our ego hears that, And we all have ego by the way, Myself included. Ego is just the word for the psyche, Self-concept. Our ego hears about the now and it thinks, Oh that sounds great, I want to be present, I want to be in the now. And then it goes looking for it, It goes looking for it externally. And sometimes it will find it, Sometimes it will be thinking, Okay, I'm present, Yes, That's it, I know that feeling, I've got it, I've got it, And it holds it. And then the next day, The ego will be in meditation and you'll be thinking, I can't get the now again, I can't feel present. We try and hold on to the now and for example, You're sitting on a meditation on Wednesday and you're thinking, Oh, On Monday I was present, But now I can't be present, I'm struggling to be present, I can't find the now. Can you see that there's a bit of a paradox here? What happens is, Is every step of our spiritual transformation, The ego accompanies us, It never goes away. So it doesn't matter how advanced you become with your spiritual practice or your mindfulness or your meditation, The egoic voice is constantly objectifying things and ranking them. And that means when you do feel in a state of presence, In a state of centeredness, The ego does compartmentalize it and make it an object that it wants to hold on to. The present moment becomes a commodity. It becomes a thing, A desirable asset. We desire to acquire the now and what you're going to find if you continue to consume, Interesting choice of word, If you continue to consume my tracks, My free content, My courses, You'll discover that there's a reassuring message behind it all. And that is that the now cannot be acquired because it's already there and it never goes away. It never goes anywhere. You couldn't even make the now go away if you wished it to. That's a very reassuring message. It may sound a little abstract at this point, Perhaps it's the first time you're here with me, But give it time. It will sink in. The concept of the now will really deeply embed into your being and the whole philosophy of the now will become much clearer to you. Who likes the sound of that?