Past, Future and Present Moment Awareness
How to transcend time and karma, past and future, in present moment awareness
Enlightenment takes place in the present moment. Our soul exists independent of time... right NOW. Knowledge of the soul is the same as present moment awareness. We can not experience our soul if we are stuck in negative emotional blocks... always bypassing present moment awareness by projecting our fears, expectations and plans into the future or by experiencing blocks from our past. The future does not exist, and neither does the past. They are both illusions. The mind is nothing but jumping from past to future and future to past.
Karma operates through time. And we can see the whole game, the Maya (the veil of illusion) operating through time. In the world of illusion we are also affected by our past in relation to karmas, memories, previous attachments, blocks and traumas from our childhood. Therefore we are trapped in time, in our past or in our future. Trapped in time we can never FEEL any true peace and bliss, which comes from present moment awareness, the experience of our soul. Being trapped in time we do not know enlightenment, how to experience the now. Present moment awareness equals Brahma Consciousness, which is knowledge and awareness of the soul, of our true inner presence. It means transcending and dissolving time.
Someone who is always in the past or the future, is never fully present and available for other people. Such a person is not available to truly love or to enjoy life. Recognising and accumulating awareness of our own inner presence means to be truly available for loving other people- and to generally have a better and loving experience in life.
Layers of aura, karma, attachments and blocks in our emotional body prevent us from experiencing present moment awareness. Reprograming negative thinking patterns and positive affirmations for success may only touch the surface of what is operating in our lives as karma. Karma is beyond the mental process of being. We need to look beyond our thinking processes into our emotional body. Anger, depression, anxiety and other negative states and blocks are beyond negative thinking- they are purely emotional, repressed or suppressed energy. We have suppressed negative emotional energy that is the natural result of our upbringing and experience of coming into this world as babies and then children, which is a manifestation of karma. We accumulated negative emotions and experiences well before we began to learn to talk or even think. We can call this an negative emotional charge that is often beyond logic or reason.
Dissolving time and negative emotion is all an internal process, so instead of trying to do something in the world to find happiness and solve problems we need to look within our emotional body to take responsibility for and dissolve any experience of negative emotion (energy in motion). In the east they call this karma. It is completely an internal job.
So within our meditations and sadhana, we are looking to dissolve any trace and experience of negative emotion. This is the first place to start if we want to become enlightened. We should not have to be stuck in negative emotions. Whatever negative emotion you experience that appears to be caused by some circumstance or person we like to blame, that is what you need to be working with to dissolve. Negative emotions are the root cause of all suffering and karma. Negative emotion may include resistance, anger and fear, even confusion. Negative emotions have a pattern. For instance if someone does something to make you angry, you find that in the past you have become angry in the same way many times before. It is not the person or the circumstance that you need to do something with, but it is the emotional pattern in YOU that needs to be dissolved. You are attracting people and situations to give you the opportunity to dissolve that negative emotion in the emotional body of your aura. This is the operation of karma.
What does suffering come down to? The answer is a negative emotion. We are dealing with negative emotions here, not the circumstances of our lives. A lot of it is unconscious. We need to bring these negative emotions into our present moment awareness in order to dissolve them. It may not be easy to do this. In fact to begin with it may be very uncomfortable. That is why Kriya Yoga can be uncomfortable to begin with. Because all the crazy stuff comes up from your aura to be dissolved. If you are not prepared then you might feel like running away from spiritually or think, what the hell have I got myself into? But if you embrace this process then it can only leed to love and peace, once you know what you are working with.
When we try and come out of time... when we try to come out of the past or the future... we come face to face with all our crazy negative emotions such as fears and trauma. Therefore we are looking to FEEL, heal and dissolve negative emotion. When we feel a negative emotion we can ask ourselves when we experienced this emotion last- in order to fully feel and heal the emotion.
When faced with any negative, crazy or unfortunate experiences and situations that bring up the emotions... instead of reacting we should learn to respond. We should integrate and dissolve, heal and feel the negative emotions. Therefore love and be thankful to all those people and circumstances that cause you negative emotions such as anger, distress, fear, depression or despair. Because those people and circumstances are all part of a divine set-up to bring causal suppressed/unconscious emotions into our present-moment awareness/consciousness so that they can be dissolved. In the Presence process by Michael Brown we are advised NOT to shoot the messenger- those who bring up negative emotions in us. Instead we should learn to get the message. We can dissolve any negative emotional state to do with our past or future during our meditations. Such as rejection and fear - if you fear rejection, then learn about the physiology of fear to dissolve your fear in Divine Love. Whatever you feel consciously with awareness being open for love and God you heal. It is not always easy to feel your negative emotions and confront them face to face or rather to love them free, as we normally try to avoid and suppress them.
The Presence Process by Michael Brown, was recommended by a friend of mine who is a medical doctor, and a lot of what I am writing about here is inspired by this book. I strongly recommend to read this book.
Stop looking for happiness. Instead allow yourself to feel joy. Be in the present moment. Enjoy the silence. Allow negative emotions to surface and be dissolved. You do not have to do anything but breath continuously. Come out of the illusion of time, and experience your inner presence now. Go through negative emotions... until you experience the present moment. Become conscious of your own inner presence. It is good at least two times a day to be in the silence for at least 15 minutes and just concentrate on your continuous breathing- without any gaps no matter what. It will be difficult at first, but you can do it. Kriya Pranayama is the same mechanism as continuous breathing. But the 15 minute technique can contribute to any practice you do. Just to sit down two times a day, be in the silence and connect your breathing.
Lets look at some of our desires, some silly things that we may ask God for. We may ask God for more money, health, freedom, less suffering, a beautiful girlfriend, a nice house, a better job. This is all fine, but there must be some reason why we may ask for so many silly things, apart from truly spiritual requests. We can only spend time asking God for such things if we are feeling negative emotions, such as the feeling of abandonment, being left out, feeling unworthy of happiness, feelings of lack or inadequacy. Or the negative emotion of resistance or rejecting your present situation and all the lessons life is currently offering. Or maybe there is anxiety about lack, or being in the wrong place, or the negative emotions of feeling lost in life. Or maybe there is the emotional block of feeling hurt and distressed at being around people who bring up negative emotions that you want to run away from. Your present situation is actually doing you a favour to bring up these negative emotions that are waiting to be dissolved by you. Even apparent spiritual desires can fall under this category of a needy request.
Michael Brown in his book the presence process uses the analogy of a mirror. The nature of the universe is like a mirror. When you go up to the mirror and make the gesture of trying to take something from it, it tries to take something back from you in the reflection. In other words when you try and take from the universe with all these crazy desires and requests, the universe actually responds by taking away from you.
On the other hand if you are free from negative emotions, what you ask for is actually of a giving nature. Your nature is completeness and love, to give, and help the world. You may want a happy family, to make your environment happy. You then ask for such things as to become more loving like Jesus, to make people happy, to provide for all- to give and share with all- to live in a way that makes many people happy. Because loving other people is part of being one and complete- because every bodies soul is anchored in the same presence. On the highest level our souls are all one and the same thing, the paraatman or the parabrahmam, the absolute. Alternatively if you go to the mirror and make the gesture of giving something to the mirror- the mirror actually responds by giving to you.
A question to ask, if you had everything you want, then what? How would you feel and what would be do? The answer may be something like, we feel complete, we feel valid, we feel free, we feel loved, we feel enlightened, we feel qualified, we feel worthy. We can start by dissolving our negative emotions, and to give these loving emotions and feelings to ourselves that we need, by appreciating ourselves and loving ourselves. When we start giving to ourselves the universe will also respond by giving. But whenever we try and take in a selfish way, the universe will take from us. The universe gives when you give. But if all you are interested in is taking, in a selfish manner, the universe will just respond by taking from you. Hence in the biblical phrase, “Whoever has, will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.”
The main technique of the Presence Process is to sit down twice a day, such as when you get up and before you go to bed. Get warm, sit in a comfortable position for at least 15 minutes. Try not to move too much. Breath continuously without stopping or pauses- no matter what. It is a a very similar technique and mechanism to kriya pranayama. The 15 minute technique may compliment whatever practice you do. This technique generally helps you to become a better mediator. This helps brings you into present moment consciousness and allows your negative emotions to be dissolved. Obviously there is a lot more to the book that that, but this is something that you can start doing. I'm not lying, it may be hard at first. But you can make it easy.
An experience of vairagya to heal the soul, mind and body
For just 10-15 minutes, just forget about the future, even what you will be doing in 20 minutes time. Just become absorbed in the now, in the silence- like there is no past or future- only now. When you have had enough of the outside world, there is a stage where all your awareness becomes absorbed in your soul. You can then start to draw your awareness from the physical body, like a deep but conscious sleep. Your consciousness of the world, your life and situation is then replaced by something more pleasant- the conscious awareness of your soul, which is healing you from all your problems and worries in the physical world. You can become conscious and aware that you no longer have the physical world and body to concern yourself with and you are just in complete bliss- like taking a holiday from all of your problems.
The bliss of this experience heals you and also your body. Because all the time previously, the soul is suffering because it is absorbing all your concerns, thinking and attachments about your life that the mind is concerned with. But when you take your awareness off that for just one moment and put it in the soul directly and consciously- you are then just absorbing pure bliss and nothing else matters. The soul experiences itself and God. You then know the meaning of vairagya- non attachment and non caring, but in a healthy way of course. When you then wake up, nothing much bothers you because you experienced the bliss, and you experienced directly and consciously how everything in this world is an illusion- that the soul exists completely independently of this world. If the whole word disappeared you would not care when in this stage. We can only be bothered by problems and then suffer, if we are attached to the world. When we are experiencing our soul consciously we are complete- there is no past or present. We are spiritually at home when we are in our soul- our Kutashta - the location of spiritual center of soul within physical body. An experience like this brings plenty of bliss and healing into your life, mind, body and spirit.
