Was chatting to a friend (Aileen) this morning and the book The Power of Now came up. Living in the present and calming the Thought Monkeys is one of Eckhart Tolle's main themes, and after I finished chatting I re-read some of it.
He suggests a useful experiment.
Close your eyes and say to yourself: 'I wonder what my next thought is going to be?' Then become very alert and wait for the next thought. Be like a cat watching a mouse hole. What thought is going to come out of the mouse hole?
It can take quite a long time for the next thought to stick its thinky nose out of the hole. While you're waiting, you have that rare thing - a quiet mind!
03:11 PM
Been shopping. I usually hate shopping, but I'm finding even that can be pleasant if you shift perspective.
Instead of thinking: I don't want to be here... I don't want to be doing this... I can't wait for this tedious time to pass so I can get back to a state of Not Shopping...
I accepted the fact that I was in a shop. I was shopping, and that was fine. There were interesting things to look at; interesting people to watch doing the strange things people do; a chance to play cars with the shopping trolley...
It was OK.
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You started me thinking about the power of being in the now yesterday. I remembered a snippet of an article that I had read that was written by Deepak Chopra. Being in the now places you at point where you are all potential. You are no longer defined by your past, because in the now, your past does not exist. You are no longer defined by expectations imposed on you by future expectations because in the now, a predefined future no longer exists. In the now, you can be anything. Being in the now frees you to become anything and to step into that state of becoming to carry it into a new and different future when you step out of that state of being in the now.
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