Being Present: Reflections

""Make sure the present moment is your friend, not your enemy. Honor it by giving it your fullest attention. Appreciate it by being thankful for it. Become internally aligned with it by allowing it to be as it is. That is the arising of the new earth."

—Eckhart Tolle, October 2015. Preface, A New Earth — Ten Years Later

For so long, due to focusing solely on living for the eventual afterlife, I have been living as a passenger, a viewer to my own life. To the world around me! I'm realizing now that I cannot neglect that side.

That is to say, I cannot afford to neglect the world around me whilst also in pursuit of another one, a better one.

It is so important to practice gratitude for the present moment. I am so grateful and lucky to be in a time like this! The world is full of opportunity and complexity, and I am now seeing that I am both IN the world and OF the world. I truly believe in the Biblical principle found in Genesis 2, saying that was formed of clay — of earth — and became living into existence with the breath of Life, that is the breath of God. Therefore, we are inextricably both states — of a human physical state (OF the world) and a spiritual state relating to the Source God (IN the world). This fundamental truth is also relayed in the teachings/inspiration Joseph Smith Jr. recorded, found in the LDS Doctrine and Covenants 29:31-32, which states that God created all things spiritually before creating them temporally. We must embrace BOTH our spiritual state AND human experience. If we want to nourish our spirits, we have to also do that through our human experience and existence. We cannot separate the two as they work coequally, but we must acknowledge their difference.

It is important while on this earth to embrace the spiritual aspects of life found on this earth every day... like nature! and animals! There is powerful spiritual witness in tending to plants and animals, which also have spirits. They nourish our own spirits through the connectedness of The Spirit, The All shared by all life forms. I will also add that this connection extends to other humans. When we connect with other humans on a spiritual level, it makes our hearts sing! Sharing love, compassion, inclusion, gratitude... these are all the fruits of the Holy Spirit of Light and Love — Father and Mother Spirit. We cannot neglect those sweet, precious fruits.

Mindfulness is crucial to your spiritual journey because of learning gratitude and self-compassion. It is okay to recognize and even accept that you are not where you desire to be in the present moment in your life — I know I'm not there yet. However, I believe that it is important to be grateful for the experience of exponential learning and growing that we get to experiencing every day. One of the most beautiful mindsets in life to embrace is being comfortable and being able to accept the validity and virtue of not knowing. The Spirit of God — The Source, The All, The I Am, Love, Light, Compassion — cannot thrive in an environment where closemindedness is found, for if your door is closed, It has no room to enter.

I find myself these days embracing open-mindedness, gratitude for the present moment, and mindfulness of everyday virtues — breathing, smelling, hearing, tasting, seeing, and experiencing all that life has to offer, both its challenges AND its triumphs. In this process, it has allowed me to appreciate the nature of God more fully and pervasively in my life. Just taking a moment to breathe...

embracing stillness to hear the skid and roll of the tires of cars passing my bedroom window...

...hearing the choir of birds who nest just atop my bedroom window...

...or even acknowledging and feeling the lengthening of my muscles as I expand them in Cobra Pose or Downward Dog in my daily morning asanas...

...has allowed me to feel closer to God and in tune with my Spirit in a richer form than I have previously known to allow peace and self-love and self-compassion to abide within me constantly, which I hope I can give a taste of to my readers through my writing.

There is so much richness to be found in appreciating and maximizing the experience of this life, that if we get caught up in the afterlife, we will miss the chance to appreciate and still ourselves and allow ourselves to commune in the beautiful collective consciousness, collective Spirit, which will bring us closer to the Source that God, the All, the Spirit of Love and Life.

And so it is.