An enormous depth in my understanding and awareness of the Present Moment has been opening up recently for me. Michael Singer‘s online course “Living From a Place of Surrender” is responsible for this opening. I absolutely love his description of how life from the big bang on has invested 35.8 billion years in the making of this awesome moment right in front of me right now. There is no other moment just like this moment, nor will there ever be, nor has there ever been. And even more, no other being can experience this moment in exactly the same manner as I can, since no other being exists as I do. Mind boggling.
Of course my few sentences cannot convey the enormity of this understanding in the way watching Michael explain it for over an hour in this section of his course can do. Nevertheless, I wanted to put these words on paper – so to speak – just to express my awe and gratitude for information and inspiration that has expanded my awareness in such a manner.
If I think that my liking or disliking a moment in time has any real impact on a moment that is the culmination of 38.5 billion years then for sure I must be crazy. The weather is horrible, he shouldn’t have done that, I hate it when she acts that way, life should be easier etc. etc. etc. Those whiny voices interminably carry the conversations in my head, on and on and on and on, until an inkling of awareness appears that gives me a moment’s respite and I can feel a tiny bit of the essence I truly am – joy, love, laughter, freedom. So I keep doing that which I think has brought me that moment of respite in the hope I will feel those good feelings again.
That is, I like, or cling to, that ‘out there’ that I think makes me feel good, and I dislike, or resist, that ‘out there’ that I think makes me feel bad. So much power we give to whatever we see ‘out there’ to create how we live our lives.
And yet, there is another world ‘out there’ that exists entirely independently of whatever it is we think about it. That world is going to continue to exist whether we deem it to be good/bad, right/wrong, happy/sad, or any other designation we care to assign. Somewhere below all those opinions, are facts. Somewhere below all those opinions, exists the most incredible and astounding universe, far, far beyond anything we could ever even begin to imagine. After all, 35.8 billion years is time enough to create worlds within worlds ad infinitum, and worlds beyond worlds ad infinitum, irrespective of anything we might happen to like or dislike about some minute aspect of some minute world within a world.
Just spend a minute looking out into a star filled night and ask yourself, “Now how important was that drama that consumed me today?”
The only way we can really catch a glimpse of the enormity of that which lives far beyond our likes and dislikes of the way the world unfolds in front of us, is to truly surrender those likes and dislikes to the true power which lives within each and every one of us. This is the power from which we are created, from which our lives are sourced. This power has no opinions, it simply exists in all of its magnificence at the center of our beings and when likes and dislikes no longer dominate the mind, it is set free to flow through our cells, through our hearts, through our life experiences, bringing more joy than that small, opiniated mind can ever imagine.
Beyond the smallness of the mind that thinks the world revolves around it, lives the greatness of a mind surrendered to the magnificence of its creation. And it all lives in that 35.8 billion year old moment, right in front of us, right now!!!
You can find Michael Singer’s work here.