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I ONCE heard a quote from an elderly Tipperary man, when he was asked about time, he said “there are three important aspects about time when doing anything”
Be on time.
Take your time.
and
Go home in time.
Mankind has always been baffled about time. Imagine if you could, asking any animal for instance a cat or a dog “what time is it?” they would look at you with a certain amount of bemusement wondering if you were mad to be asking such a silly question as the answer is obvious – “The only time is now”.
You see if you think about it, the past doesn’t really exist, it is gone. Similarly the future doesn’t really exist either as it hasn’t arrived just yet. The only time that ever really exists is Now.
Yet for some strange reason the human mind finds it very hard to remain in the Now. It is always trying to bring us into the past or the future but the untrained mind finds it very difficult to remain in the Now.
It’s as if our mind feels threatened by the Now and is constantly trying to get us to worry about the past or be anxious about the future yet it always seems to regard Now as unimportant. Yet Now is all we ever have got.
Anyone who is familiar with the book –‘The Power of Now’ by Eckhart Tolle will be familiar with the style of reference to The Now that I have written about above.
But the truth is that Eckhart Tolle is only rearticulating a truth that man has known about since the beginning of mankind.
Jesus and The Buddha among many other sages have shared the common theme that the main route to happiness can be achieved only through access to the Present moment i.e. accessing the Now.
There are many names given to this subject – Zen Beginners Mind, Mindfulness, Meditation, Living in the Now, Being Still, The Power of I Am, The way of Tao, amongst many others.
The one thing that they all have in common is that they all recognise the Present moment of time which we call ‘The Now’ is the vital link to our inner happiness.
When this is brought to its highest level it is known as enlightenment.
On a lighter note, one day I was in a hurry to go somewhere and I was halted by a fellow Kerryman wondering what was all the fuss about.
“I have to go somewhere says I”
“My dear boy” he said – “There are only two ‘Have tos’ in life, the lavatory and the cemetery.
