Seeking or Being

Eckhart Tolle spoke to me today through his book Stillness Speaks that if I see myself as a seeker, I can expect to find self-realization only in the future. The amazing truth that Tolle shares with me is that I don’t have to seek, but just to discover Being.

If I think that I need time to find out who I am – a central paradigm for seekers – then that is exactly what will happen, it will take me time. Eckhart’s wisdom helps me to understand that the only place where I can truly find myself is in the Now, the present moment. There is no need to travel anywhere or wait for wisdom to come at some future time. What a relief!

But I’m still challenged (the mind will always find something to do that). It seems not easy to be and stay in the Now. Entering into the Now is not difficult for me, as long as I am mindful and aware of my situation. To enter Now, I drop all my concerns, return to stillness, let awareness arise, smile, and enter into Being. It takes only seconds.

Once there, however, the mind immediately fires broadsides at me to get me out of the Now. And it seems that Now itself is on the move continuously. Or is it me who moves? Being in the Now needs moment-to-moment awareness. The idea of staying in the Now makes no sense to me anymore.

So I just focus on being, on Being, like in a moving river, to be in it, and to be moved all the time by its changing currents. It reminds me of being like a strong bamboo, firm, yet flexibly bending with the winds, rarely still.

Early this morning I made this my task for the day, to be in the Now, with mindfulness. Ready to be moved by rivers, but not moving much myself, because I realize that Now is where all exists, all happens. Living outside the Now is to live in the past, in history, which is good for viewing and reminiscing, but not good enough for living because there is no more space to create. Or it is to live in the future, which is an illusion that is always at least a day away.

It takes me until evening to remember what I had set out to do in the morning - it is so easily forgotten. Practice makes perfect, and it is clear that I have a long way to go. And then the dots connect, and I realize that Being is better than Seeking.

Photograph: I want a clear, not blurred focus on Being in the Now, and to forget about time.