Live in the now is bad practical advice, but it's good existential advice Do you want a piece of advice that I've seen recommended by sages in virtually every spiritual tradition? It's this live in the present moment. I don't care if it's a Muslim Sufi or a Christian mystic and Indian Yogi or some crystal clutch and new age spiritualist The advice is there embrace the now live in the present moment Heck it's not even for the spiritual or mindful people as part of the accepted canon for living well Will Rogers the American humerus from 1930s. He was once asked what he would do if he only had five days left to live He replied quote just continue my present approach to life.
Take one day at a time on quote So when my sons were in youth boards, I tried to help them But my knowledge was pretty limited and I knew it so often offer humorous pointers like make the ball go inside the hoop Run faster It was sound advice but for one thing it wasn't helpful. I mean such advice dates the goal that tells you nothing about how to reach the goal That's the way it is with admonitions to live in the present moment That should be the goal. Yes, but it tells us nothing about how to get there live in the present moment run faster Now put your forehead in your hands Now, let's face it or let's be frank living in the present moment conflicts with life. It's that simple We learn from our mistakes only if we remember the past we are prepared for the future only if we think about it Our minds are as naturally pulled away from the present moment as our lungs are pulled towards breathing I'm not going to tell you how to live in the present moment heck if I knew that I'd got to be working on this article or this podcast Instead, I'll probably be outside right now looking serenely at the trees or pursuing a quiet craft like woodworking Maybe reading a poem What I'm curious about here is why do the spiritual masters unanimously seem to insist on that lame piece of advice live in the present moment?
Get the ball to go inside the hoop a frick Okay, I'll shift back to what I said at the beginning here of this of the section If I were a master of living in the present moment, I'd probably be serenely looking at trees or reading a poem When I wrote that or said that I pitched myself at the end of a process Which is where the spiritual master's advice to live in the present moment is at the end leaving us at the bottom beginning That's the problem But then again, maybe that's the point We have to get to the end so we can start at the beginning we picture the end serene tree watching or verbalize it live in the present moment And then work backward You know a scientist forms a hypothesis that conducts experiments The spiritual master gives you more than a mere hypothesis here She gives you a theory that is proven by in the phrase used by Aldous Huxley and the perennial philosophy It uses empirical theology Because the spiritual masters give you this answer live in the present moment this theory that's been proven by empirical theology All you have to do is conduct experiments in your own life to figure out how to get there You in other words now have a goal that you can trust and that's huge sure It's an even greater blessing if you can find a spiritual director you can help you get there to live in the present moment But it helps you know obviously just to know what the goal is You know one level is merely a case of not making progress. We don't know where you're going But I think it's more than that it's also visualization We put an image in our head of how we should be that we can start making progress and get into the image in real life I've been taking a dr. Kevin Majors optimal work master course. It's called optimal work highly recommended Anyway, it incorporates a lot of meditation one of the meditation techniques tells the listener the picture the ideal state of performing a task Then picture oneself doing the task in that ideal state.
It's a recurrent theme in the master course of optimal work A good friend of mine coaches youth sports. He tells his players to use visualization when they're away from practice He'll say like quote pick a quiet place in your house Sit quietly and just picture the ball leaving your hands and going through the hoop He says it's gender advice and sports visualization We're a complicated jumble of stuff body brain mind soul spirit ideas imagination neurons nerves memory fears hopes, etc The operative word here is jumble All those things are all matched together Sometimes cooperatively and sometimes conflictingly one part of us pushes another part pulls one ebbs one flows one ducks one weaves I have no idea how it all works. Heck. I'm not even sure the whole mess works at all But I do know it's all wrapped.
It's all tied together jumbled together somehow It's all together in one person yourself all those parts serve the whole you It's not remotely surprising that the active imagine yourself in one state yourself a chain reaction the rest of your existence That then actually leads you to achieving that state of existence When you think about it's kind of hard to think how could be any other way if everything is jumbled together one part will affect the others Your imagination will affect your body Which might strike us as absurd and tell you let your imagination run away and you suddenly find yourself your heart beating wildly Faster, I think we've all been there So yeah, when one part moves the other parts move So in all the spiritual masters council us to live in the present moment. It's solid advice Sure, they're only giving you the endgame. Well that endgame in mind the rest of you is more likely to reach it