Past and future can influence the present

So the past can also influence this moment. My experiences and my prejudices in the past can affect how I deal with this moment. I can also think of the future and what is likely to happen and I can become absorbed in that so much so that it affects my present moment. It can create excitement or it can create depression as I explore the future in my mind, or being.  So there is the past, there is the present which is now, this moment, and there is the future, and both past and future can influence this moment that I am in.   If and when I allow that to happen, then this moment is influenced in a very powerful way.   If I am not careful then they can influence my present moment very negatively taking my power away, taking my energies away. This can happen in a very natural way where you do not even realize it is happening.  In a dynamic sense when you are in action in the world, it can happen so quickly that you are not even aware of what is happening, but it is happening.

You can meet a person for the first time and because the person resembles a person you know and you don’t like that person, then when you see this person you bring that same prejudice and expect that the person will be just like the other one, because they resemble each other and even talk like each other. Then you bring the prejudices of the last person to bear on this person.  Of course, that is not fair because this person might be different.
There may be other things as well, you can bring your fears from the past, you can bring feelings of loneliness, misery or despair when you are faced with certain situations and they are associated with negative or limiting feelings of the past. So you need to be extremely aware of how the past or the future affect the present moment and try not to let that happen.

Treat the present moment objectively

In other words, you should treat every event in this life as though you are facing it for the first time. Even if a past thought comes do not allow it to disturb this moment.  You have to tell yourself, “ I am not going to allow the past to disturb this moment. If the past is bringing  up some information that I may need for the moment that’s fine, but I must be fully conscious that I am bringing that information from the past and I am going to use it in the present, but I am not going to lose the power of this moment to manage the moment.”   So when you are fully in the present, you can use information of the past or perhaps what you are thinking of the future, but do not let it disturb the present moment.  You need to treat the present moment in an objective way. By objective I mean neutral, without prejudice.

Hold each moment fully in your awareness

Sometimes when we are in relationships and we know people in a deeper way who are familiar to us like parents, children or friends we tend to take them for granted because the “newness” has gone.  So we forget important days or important needs because they are common. The challenge is that in order to keep the relationship rich and powerful, we treat those persons as if we are seeing them for the first time.  So there might be a lot of gratitude and sensitivity.  We pay attention to them because we are in the present.  So we need to be very careful when we allow ourselves to take things for granted, when being in the present can make the relationship so much more powerful.

The ordinary becomes extraordinary

There is a saying that life is so short, we never know when our time comes.  How important it is to hold the moment to say the things we want to say, that we may not in hindsight say, “I wish if I knew”.  So that is really a desire to be in the present moment and to hold each moment fully in your awareness and to enjoy every moment fully.  When you are able to hold every moment fully in your awareness then you can experience the extraordinariness of life. You see that every event that happens is extraordinary:  walking on the earth, feeling the wind, touching a person’s hands, playing with a child, looking up into the sky, looking at an ant crawl, looking at a bird fly, looking at a hummingbird defy the laws of aerodynamics.  You see how beautiful nature is.  It is just that we don’t see sometimes because we are so wrapped up in the past or the future.

Therefore, being in the present allows you to see so much more.  It allows you to listen more, to be more attentive.  Sometimes we take our physical body for granted saying, “Oh, this is a little pain here, it will go away, it is a little indigestion”, failing to look into it closely when it repeats itself.  So when you are in the present moment you are with your body also- your body organs and body cells, your body’s condition, its health and well being.

The present gives power of choice

As you can see, only the present moment exists. If you are in this moment now, this is the moment that was the future, and this is the moment that will be the past.  So past and future have no immediate reality, only the present because we are always in the present.  So the truth is that only the present exists. The past is a memory and the future is a dream, but the present is the reality that we have now.

So whatever the level of our consciousness is, it is important to live fully in the present moment that we may enjoy the extraordinariness of the moment, and that we may give importance to the things before us. Every moment holds so much possibility and the more you see into it, the more you can do.  The more you can see the possibilities in this moment the more you can see your choices, the more power you have to make the right decisions in this moment.

Be fully in the moment

Sometimes when we are not in the present fully, we can’t see all the choices available to us and we are driven by what is around us without seeing fully, which may not always be the best.  So it is extremely important to be present moment aware, or to be more present in the moment.  It gives so much power; it brings so much joy if you can extract it, if you can bring it out. You have much more choices and it allows you to express the best that is within you. So try to be present moment aware everyday.  Try to be conscious of all that is happening within you and if you are active, around you.
 
There is a saying “If you are eating eat, if you are walking, walk.” The idea is, be fully into what you are doing because you could be eating but a part of you is not with it. You could be walking but a part of you is not with it. Be fully in the moment.