Be Now!

Be  Now!

Martin Exeter   April 15, 1984

Preambles are important. We have had one here this morning in the congregational singing and in the singing of the combined choir. This preamble properly leads into a specific statement. This statement might be summarized in two words, one word of two letters and one word of three letters, all very succinct. The statement is: Be now. This is a statement that is rightly made this morning or at any service, but also to be made by anyone, anywhere, at any time. Be now. This morning we have the opportunity of sharing in letting this statement be brought to focus in our unified spiritual expression. It is not just a statement for me to make but for all of us in oneness to make. I may have the special opportunity of articulating this statement in a particular way, but all who are here present are included in the expression of this statement, in whatever way it emerges. When I speak I do not speak just for myself but include what is moving in the consciousness of all concerned in what is brought to specific focus in words. The clarity of consciousness in all concerned is therefore important if the statement is to be specific, clear and to the point. I suppose it might be possible for me to accept that responsibility just for myself, excluding everybody else. This is something that certainly was done in times past. But gradually the opportunity has been broadened, so that all who were present might share in the particular expression which should take form during a service. Each individual has a responsibility in this regard. And so it is this morning.

Be here. Be now. This is the only time we can be anyway, so we might as well be. There are many people who have considered “now” to be a nonexistent line between past and future. According to this view only the past and future are real; the “now” doesn’t exist except as this invisible line between past and future. Such a view is revealing of the reversed polarity in human consciousness. “Now” cannot be grasped by the human mind. In imagination it is possible to seem to grasp the future and the past, but it is imagination: the past, imagination based in memory of an event which probably was never experienced now. The future is speculation; again, imagination.

Factually there is only one reality and that is now, a reality incapable of being grasped or possessed by the human mind. The human mind itself is a product of being now. The future is speculative, unknown, blurred, because it is out of focus. The only positioning that is in focus is now. There is no way by which one may have clear vision and understanding except as one is present being now. The blur of the future also extends into the past. Memory is inclined to be faulty and what was experienced probably was not seen or understood because the person who was experiencing it was only minimally present now. We are concerned to be now. We have recognized that the present moment, which seems to be nonexistent—it can’t be isolated in human consciousness—is, in fact, a crossover point. What is in the future may be experienced when it reaches the point of the now. It may be known then. As long as it is in the future it is, to some extent, blurred and out of focus. Coming into the now, it may be absolutely crystal clear for anyone for whom the future and the past is in fact irrelevant.

If you stop to consider the matter, how much is your consciousness filled with expectations about the future or memories concerning the past? To the extent that the consciousness is so filled, there is no room to experience the present moment. Those whose consciousness is so filled—and that includes virtually all human beings everywhere, so filled with imagination concerning the future and the past—always seem to have the need to find someone to explain what cannot be clearly seen and understood in that condition. That condition produces a blurred view, because the endeavor is to look at something that is not in focus; and because it is not in focus it seems rather vague and incomprehensible, so someone needs to come along and explain it. Because human function is almost totally based in past and future, insofar as the mind is concerned, everything is rather uncertain. There is a condition that might be comparable to a degree of blindness. If you get far enough into the future or into the past there is complete blindness. Because a person feels at least partially blind it seems as though it is needful that a seeing-eye dog put in an appearance, someone who can lead the individual so that he need not stumble. Well I suppose this may be done for a while if there is someone around who is capable of so leading, but the leading is always to bring the person into the present moment. It is not to leave them speculating about the future and remembering the past, but to assist them to come into the present moment, so that they can forget their speculations and their memories and be now!

This is not to say that when one has the experience of being now there may not be some consideration given to the future and possibly to the past. However, insofar as the past is concerned you can’t change it Whatever it was—and you didn’t really see what it was anyway—whatever it was, you can’t change it. So why bother? There are those who say, “Well we can learn from the past.” I think probably you could almost count the number of people who have learned from the past on one hand. Do we note any repetition in human experience? Of course—because when there is a cloudy, blurred visionThe thing that is to be learned is that one shouldn’t be speculating about the future and remembering the past, as though that was going to tell you what the truth was in the present moment. It never does.

The only way that you can know the truth of the present moment is to be in the present moment, and being in the present moment there is something brought to focus. There is the clarity, because what is in the present moment is not blurred. It is not blurred to anyone who is in the present moment. The invitation that rightly is extended to all people—it was extended to us—is to be willing to come into the present moment, relinquishing speculations and memories. There are those who, particularly when they grow older, feel that their only meaning is based in what they can remember. That is a sad condition because the present moment is still here. Memories of the past, speculations with respect to the future, always blur the vision. And when the vision is blurred a person is inclined to imagine that he must have someone put in an appearance who will explain what the situation is. I receive requests in this regard myself from time to time, by people who should know better.

Initially most people don’t understand anything with respect to all this. So there is a need for leadership. But leadership can be provided only by someone who is in the position to which the person is to be led. You can’t do it standing off to one side somewhere and saying, “Well you need to go there.” There must be the factual reality in oneself of being now. Then that opens the door for anyone to come, because one is now and one may say of oneself, “I am now.” There is a place for someone to come. You have clear vision. Therefore it is possible to guide faltering steps on the part of those who do not have clear vision because they are not here now. They are still wandering in the wilderness of the past and the future.

Oh, this is a very fine point, ungraspable by the human mind.  The only place that we can know the truth is here and now. Life itself is now. It is impossible to live in the future or in the past except in imagination. Life is present now. Let it be now, because it is now! The only moment that we can ever experience what life is is now. The only time we have any contact with life is in the present moment. Be now. One of the evidences of being now is that of seeing and understanding with clarity. If anyone finds blurred vision and says, “I’m confused, I don’t understand, I’d like to talk to you—the fact that one’s vision is blurred, that one is confused, that one thinks one doesn’t understand, is simply consequent upon involvement in imagination with the future or the past. You can see that that is the case, because every time you are now, everything comes into focus. It’s clear. There is understanding. Do any of you need someone to make it possible for you to stay out of this point of focus now so that you can continue to dream, in imagination, of future and past? Would anyone be serving you, actually, by explaining to you the basis of your confusion, trying to sort things out for you so that you needn’t be confused? That’s not service. That’s not helpfulness at all, when there is an awareness that the only place where there is a clear focus is now. All right, if there isn’t a clear focus in anyone’s consciousness it is evidence that he isn’t in the now. All right, come into the now then. That’s all. No explanations needed. In the now there is clear-cut vision and understanding; things come into focus. The future is not yet, the past is gone forever, but there is always the present moment.

So there are those events which put in an appearance in the present moment emerging out of the future, and then disappearing into the past. If one stands in the present moment, then this is what is occurring in a horizontal way. The future is coming to us; we don’t know what it is until it puts in an appearance now. Then there it is! What’s to wonder about or argue about or try to understand? There it is! At the same time we have an awareness of a vertical component. There is what is describable as coming down out of heaven into the earth. That happens in the present moment. It doesn’t happen in the future or in the past. The only time that this truth can be known is now. The only person who can experience that truth is a person who is being now, so that what is coming down out of heaven into the earth may pass through the point of the present moment where one is. Ah! Now I know! If you’re not there you can’t know, and no amount of speculation or endeavor of any kind will cause anyone to know. There is only one thing to do; that is come into the present moment. It is peculiar that anyone could have the idea that being now is difficult, because the fact of the matter is that you cannot help but be present now, even though you may endeavor to get yourself out of the present moment by speculation and memory regarding the future and the past, respectively. How much time do people spend getting out of the present moment, and then complaining because the experiences are painful, are difficult, are confused? Well, one decided to have it that way. All these things are self-produced. We are constantly being assailed by interpretations about the past. The media are expert in this field, because what they are reporting obviously is out of the past; it’s already happened. And everybody concentrates their view upon something that has already moved into the past. How about coming into the present? Being present?

We are present here this morning, sharing these moments available to us now. To the extent that we are present now, what is being experienced is clear enough. We don’t have to speculate about it. We are now. “I am now” is the only true statement that anyone can make. Where are you now? Are you at this point which can be defined by the mental processes as having position but no magnitude? Where’s that? It has no dimensions. And the human mind has all its thinking based in the quality of its own state, which is a dimensional state. It can’t understand anything that is not capable of being dimensionally defined. And when you come to the present moment, for instance, which is a point with position but no magnitude, what is that? Well it must be where past and future bump together. But it’s such a momentary thing that you can never grasp it! You can never grasp it but you are always there! Why not accept the fact without trying to grasp it? Just be now.

The experience of being now is the experience of spiritual expression. This relates to something coming down from nowhere, apparently, to find expression in the earth. We’re all here, capable of giving expression to something in the earth. Of course most of us act like mirrors: what comes out of the earth bangs against us and is reflected back into the earth. We have a recognition of the natural state of being a window of heaven, so that you are not constantly reflecting what is present in the environment. That reflection comes because of what one has dragged forward—a lot of it unwittingly—out of the past. One’s heredity came out of the past; and people give a lot of weight to heredity. This is important in the view of so many, yet it is something that comes out of the nonexistent past. It’s gone forever; it cannot be changed. Let it go. Why drag it into the present? It can’t really be done. What it does is take one’s own experience into the past, so that one vacates the present moment; one isn’t present now.

It is well to pause from time to time and examine what is happening in one’s experience now. Is there thought being given to things of the past? Those things of the past which are usually seen as being most vivid are those things which were experienced with an intensity of emotion. Those things you remember, and they tend to be ghosts which keep cropping up. It requires a little deliberation to set them on one side. I don’t suppose there is anyone here who hasn’t had experiences which involved intensity of emotion back along the way. You may have found that some of those things which used to recur in consciousness from time to time, triggered by something else, have dissolved. Where did they go? It would take quite an effort to remember what they were. If that is so—and I trust it is, because something has been working in all of us that was designed to dissolve such things—then that is one way we have been freed from the burdens that we were carrying around with us. But there could be those things which still tend to be ghosts out of the past; very vivid ghosts. We’re haunted by these things. Why? Because when they arise we feed them. We look them over, we pay attention to them, and we re-experience our emotions again. Do you ever do that? That is what keeps these things alive.

Virtually all human beings are haunted. We’ve lived in haunted houses, because of all these memory elements which keep reasserting themselves by reason of the intensity of emotion that was known at the time of the original experience. And because there was an intensity of emotion at that time we certainly didn’t see or understand what it was that was happening, so to try to sort it out and explain it now is a waste of time. When such things arise in consciousness there needs to be a deliberate setting aside; and if you are a little persistent in this, after a while they will just dissolve. So we come finally into the present moment where there is peace, where we are no longer plagued by all these ridiculous ghosts. Sometimes these ghosts look so serious and ghoulish that we have, almost forcefully, to put them on one side. Others of these ghosts can be easily dealt with by laughing at them. There is one thing they can’t stand and that is to be laughed at. Remember that! Concerning any devil that puts in an appearance insofar as you are concerned, laugh at the devil. Laughter, they say, is good medicine anyway. It’s certainly good for the digestion. All we need to do is come into the present moment. And in the present moment, in the actual experience of life itself, that is delightful, sometimes amusing, but always delightful, always characterized by joy.

There is no place that we can live but now; and if we are in the present moment we are here as well, wherever here is. But we may all share being present now; that brings us all together. If we’re wandering around trying to get into the future or into the past we’re all scattered abroad, we’re all following out these devious paths which relate to our past and we continually are projecting these things into the future and skipping over the present moment in the process, or it flashes by so quickly that we never notice it. But we can be now. We are here together this morning now.

I am the way, the truth and the life. That is a very plain statement. A lot of people are looking for the way; and there are those who want to know the truth; and there are certainly vast numbers of people who are anxious to live. This can only happen in the experience of anyone in the present moment, now. It’s good to be alive! We may say, “Well it was good to be alive yesterday,” or more likely to say, “I have a lot to complain about with respect to my experience yesterday; I hope it is going to be better tomorrow.” It won’t be! It won’t be if you skipped over now. Be now! All the confusion, all the misunderstanding, all the things with which human beings struggle, relate to past or future. Let such things go, that we may share, in this moment and in every moment, being now, therefore being one because we are all in the same place at the same time, this cross-over point, the crossover point that can’t be located particularly. It can’t be understood by the human mind, but it is present and may be experienced by anyone who stops listening to the mouthings of the mental processes which have become habitually involved with future and past: "What is it going to be? How shall I be able to handle what it is that is coming up?” You can’t. It’s coming up; it isn’t here yet. The only person who can handle what is coming is the person who is present when it comes up. Then it’s now, then it can be handled; but you can’t get it all set up ahead of time. We don’t need to speculate. We don’t need to try to manipulate. At least the only reason anyone would try to manipulate is to make a profit of some kind, to gain some benefit for oneself. If you try to do that you take yourself out of the now into a never-never land, that you find out sooner or later is a never-never land. No, there is an easy way.

I am the way, I am the truth, now! Not in the future, not in the past, but now! I am the life. I live now. Here is my identity in the moment. I know life because life is now. And when I am where life is I know life. We have shared a moment this morning, just one moment—no others. We know is what is right now. We share this now. Let us share it consistently and continuously, that we may know what it is to be one. For “where I am, there ye may be also.” That was said by somebody who lived many, many centuries ago. It is just as true now. It is always true now. “Where I am, there ye may be also.” Come out of the past, come out of the future, be present where I am.

© emissaries of divine light