WHEN IS LIFE HAPPENING?

When is life happening?  It can't be happening in the past, for the past does not exist.  The past is only memory.  It can't be happening in the future, for the future does not exist either.  The future is only anticipation, planning, expectation.  It must mean that life is happening now. 

Yet "now" is illusive.  When is now?  Now is too quickly the past, a memory, and, as the future, too quickly not here yet, only anticipation.  So when is now?

To find now, the spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle recommends that one turn his attention inward, where he can feel life in his body, the surge of blood through his veins, the flow of air in and out of his lungs, the sensation of the surrounding temperature on his skin.  He should do this in a quiet room with his eyes closed, to block out the distractions that would force his attention to everything other than now.

He might then recall the words of Marcus Aurelius who said, “All we have is now,” remembering next the words of philosopher Alan Watts who observed, “There’s no place to be but here and now. There’s no way to be anywhere else.  Time is moving, yet there is only now.”

Once we find now, under our noses, the idea is to keep finding it.