This is a guided meditation on Living in the Here and Now.
To get started, please have a look at the Meditation Image, next return to read this text (you may also want to print out the text).
Contemplate on the meditation image for a while. If your inner voice starts talking to your, listen to it, without interfering or judging. Allow yourself to go on the journey and return to this text only in a few minutes.
No matter in what way you looked at the image, chances are that the flower in the foreground attracted your attention again and again. No matter how deep you try to delve into the cosmos, your daily life brings you back time after time.
This is how most of us experience life, despite the far away goals that we set ourselves. It is only in the future that we will know the meaning of experiences and metaphors we encounter today.
Life apparently is a series of lessons, which we can understand only later, but have to take already today in order to reach the “later”. Until then what we need is faith that the obstacles and difficulties of our daily lives will make us mature and grow spiritually.
It is the shadows of the Here and Now that cast their gloom over our sunny skies. It is precisely these shadows that make us fear the new morning and the day when we have reached our goals. In the darkness of the shadows all that we have suppressed becomes alive and according to the law of cause and effect (also known as Karma) every small step we make in the present could cast its shadows on the future, making sure that one day we will have to face the consequences.
So we muse for a little while how we could live a life free from mistakes, what it would be like if we already knew the contents of our life’s lessons. Wouldn’t it be easier if someone or some power could tell us what to do to reach our goal? Are the ‘mistakes’ we make in the Here and Now supposed to happen? Can we not be different? – A confusing rainbow of questions. The clouds in the sky along with their shadows show us ways that seem to be predestined for us to choose. But the more we look at the chosen way, the more confused we get because more and more ways become visible. If there are so many ways, how can we know the right one? Again we are flooded with a sea of questions.
Finally the flower in the foreground gets our attention again, waking our consciousness and asking: “What are you worried about? Why are you wasting your energies? Are you so carefree that all you have to deal with is tomorrow’s tomorrow? You are like a traveler to the Northern Pole asking all the time how to get there. And if somebody told you that you are currently heading North but should head South, would you head South?”
Your present requests all of your attention Here and Now. Apply what you have already learned in your daily life, avoid the mistakes you have already recognized as such, and enjoy the flower of the presence when it presents itself. And even if it lets you anticipate your tomorrow, you have to take the steps yourself. Maybe the path would be shorter or less painful if you would know your lessons already today, but would it be your path or just the idea of your path?
Your life wants to show you the Northern Light with ALL its charms and when you follow, you can’t miss the right path. The knowledge of the infinity of life in the cosmos is rooted is this very moment of your presence, of the Here and Now, and grows into a gentle flower of hope that will accompany you on your journey to tomorrow.
If you succeed in becoming the flower of today, you will reap the fruits of tomorrow.
The Beginning
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