Time Has Come Today #3 The Power of Now A Sermon by Rev. Michael Scott The Dublin Community Church July 14, 2013 Psalm 118:19-24 Luke 17:20-21 For the past two weeks I have offered a pulpit series titled with the old Chambers Brothers classic, Time Has Come Today. I ve been sharing with you some reflections about dealing with the struggles of life by looking back at the journey you have taken and by looking ahead to the possibilities that lie before you. Today, I conclude this series by putting forward, in the words of the Apostle Paul, A still more excellent way. At the urging of Bob Meissner I recently read Eckhart Tolle s now classic The Power of Now. I m not sure how I missed this book along the way, especially since as I read I kept saying to myself, I could have written that. Not that I m comparing myself as an author or a spiritualist with Tolle, mind you, simply that this book is filled with my stuff. I kept encountering things I have been writing about and preaching about for years, even though it deals with something I have yet to accomplish in my own life. Consequently, I ll be quoting Tolle extensively this morning. That doesn t mean you get the Cliff Notes version today so you don t have to buy the book. I encourage you to read it if you haven t; it could be transformational for you. At the core what Tolle is saying is this: Underneath your outer form you are connected to something so vast, so immeasurable and sacred, that it cannot be conceived or spoken of.... 1 That something is often referred to by people as God, but since the word fills our heads with unhelpful images and creates a sense of division of otherness Tolle, like myself, is reluctant to use it much. He prefers the term Being, a notion that embraces all (including one s self the deepest self). He says that you realize that connection with Being when you let go of past and future, and live fully in the Now. But that s pretty tricky business. I like to consider it this way: To live in and experience the present moment is actually inconceivable. That s because as soon as you identify a moment as present, it s already past. You can anticipate a moment, wait for it and try to grab it as it emerges, but in the very instant you do so, it s immediately in the past. You can run around like a dog chasing its tail doing mental gymnastics trying to seize this present instant it s impossible. So, like any impossible task, it requires that you go out of your mind to accomplish it. In a sense, that s exactly what Tolle is suggesting. The only way to move into the Now is to actually leave one s mind. That is to say, get to a place beyond the mind. To stop thinking so you can be. To do so is to achieve a self-less state of no-mind that results in a presence that is essentially you and at the same time inconceivably greater than you. 2 1 Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now, Namaste Publishing, 1997, p. 110. 2 op. cit., p. 19.
What makes this such a struggle for us is that you and I have whole life histories of living not in the Now, but caught up in thinking about the past and future. Tolle says that, You see and judge the present through the eyes of the past and get a totally distorted view of it. 3 That s one of the main reasons that we become miserable in the first place. We create narratives in our heads about our regrets from the past and our fears for the future and we keep playing them over and over or, as Tolle might say, they keep playing us. And it s true, you and I not only manufacture these mental narratives, we are constantly making up reality every instant of our lives. Using our five senses, we take information from our environment and our brains piece it together into a whole picture. But that picture is not reality. It s merely our particular mental construct of the moment. It reminds me of some ruminating I ve been doing lately about the whole notion of fiction and non-fiction literature. Is there such a thing as a biography, or a treatise on science or philosophy that is not at some level a fiction, because it s only a limited representation from one perspective of something an author draws up? I m inclined to think of non-fiction as an oxymoron. At any rate, the central problem that you and I face is the way our minds take over and get us thinking about one thing and then another, something from the past or our projected future, but always, at some level, a fantasy. We never or at least rarely find ourselves actually experiencing the reality of the Now. I think Jesus was trying to help us see the dysfunction of this pattern of living. In so many ways, on so many occasions, he suggested there was a more whole, more healthy, more real way to live. He said,... do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. 4 and No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. 5 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? 6 It seems to me that he was trying to shift our focus from regret about the past and worry about the future. He was calling us to live in the Now. And that Now is, as Tolle suggests, an entry point to participation in Being. In the reading this morning from the gospel of Luke, Jesus says,... the kingdom of God is among you. The verb translated among by the NRSV is the Greek word entos. And the normal and usual translation of that verb is within, or, as the King James relates it, The kingdom of God is within you. For Tolle, Christ himself represents that participation in the kingdom. He writes,... Christ refers to your indwelling divinity regardless of whether you are conscious of it or not.... 7 I have often spoken of faith as synonymous with joy, and of that joy as the experience of a connection with the very Source of Being. That is, I m convinced what, at one level, is meant 3 op. cit., p. 17. 4 Matthew 6:34. 5 Luke 9:62. 6 Luke 12:25-26. 7 op. cit., p. 104.
by the kingdom of God. It can be seen in this light as an inner terrain, a participation in something that lives at our very core, but that is far greater than oneself. The joy that is derived from that connection, that participation, is not happiness, it is that which abides even in the deepest sorrow. Tolle puts it this way: Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within. 8 That joy is achieved when we escape from the past and future tapes we keep playing in our heads, or, as Tolle puts it, let go of time to be in the Now. He quotes Meister Eckhart who wrote that, Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater obstacle to God than time. 9 So, how does one go about letting go of time? How does one experience the Now? Tolle offers very clear and practical guidelines for making the transition. The idea is to begin by simply stepping into a different space for a time and observe your own thoughts. He writes, Be present as the watcher of your mind of your thoughts and emotions as well as your reactions in various situations.... Don t judge or analyze what you observe. Watch the thought, feel the emotion, observe the reaction.... You will then feel something more powerful than any of those things that you observe: the still, observing presence itself behind the content of your mind, the silent watcher.... This does not impair your ability to use time past or future when you need to refer to it for practical matters. Nor does it impair your ability to use your mind. 10 This is a wonderful exercise that I ve been experimenting with myself. It implies that there is a you who lies deeper than the mind (the mind that is always thinking), and that you is capable of watching your own mind at work, impartially, non-judgmentally, simply observing. Tolle says that practicing that exercise can actually begin to transform your whole life. It can lead you into that experience of the Now that is beyond time. The implications of such a transformation could be staggering, for each one of us and for us as a species. For us individually, it could mean finding peace in life and letting go of resentment, hostility, hurt, fear. It could mean finding great joy in each moment and experience of life, instead of always looking forward to something better. Tolle says, The Now, of course, implies the here.... Some people would always rather be somewhere else. Their here is never good enough. 11 Wouldn t it be wonderful to stop doing that? Or it could also mean finding a way to get off the treadmill that I was speaking about recently of defining oneself by one s work or achievements instead of by one s being. He puts it this way: There is nothing wrong with setting goals and trying to achieve things. The mistake lies in using it as a substitute for the feeling of life, for Being. 12 And, You can still be active and enjoy manifesting and creating new forms and circumstances, but you won t be identified with them. You do not need them to 8 op. cit., p. 29. 9 Cited on p. 53, op. cit. 10 op. cit., pp. 55-56. 11 op. cit., p. 82. 12 op. cit., p. 86.
give you a sense of self. They are not your life only your life situation. 13 Living in the Now can also make a relationship infinitely richer and more meaningful. If two people join one another in learning to let go of the past and future, to experience Being, they can forgive the past and find joy in the present. Tolle says, Forgiveness is to relinquish your grievance and so to let go of grief. It happens naturally once you realize that your grievance serves no purpose except to strengthen a false sense of self. Forgiveness is to offer no resistance to life to allow life to live through you. 14 But there s also a greater, human dimension to this possibility. If such a presence in the Now could somehow be part of the evolving capacity of human beings, our entire civilization, indeed, our species, could be transformed. This applies to our seemingly intractable proclivity toward violence to one another, and, according to Tolle, to our violence to the planet. He writes, The pollution of the planet is only an outward reflection if an inner psychic pollution: millions of unconscious individuals not taking responsibility for their inner space.... If humans clear inner pollution, then they will also cease to create outer pollution. 15 Well, all of this is, for many of us I m sure, rather mind-blowing. And you may be asking if any of it is even possible for most people. Here s Tolle s answer: Your mind is telling you that you cannot get there from here. Something needs to happen, or you need to become this or that before you can be free and fulfilled.... You get there by realizing that you are there already. You find God the moment you realize that you don t need to seek God. 16 And, What is God? The eternal One Life underneath all the forms of life. What is love? To feel the presence of that One Life deep within yourself and within all creatures. To be it. 17 So, surrendering the fixation on past hurts and future worries, surrendering to the Now, surrendering to Being, this is a supreme achievement in life. And, in the end, Tolle asks what he knows is on the minds of his readers: How will I know when I have surrendered? And the answer? When you no longer need to ask the question. 18 I leave you with the words of the Chambers Brothers: Time Has Come Today.... Can t put it off another day, or, in the words of the ancient Psalmist: This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Let s sing it together. 13 op. cit., p. 183. 14 op. cit., p. 120. 15 op. cit., pp. 77-78. 16 op. cit., p. 146. 17 op. cit., p. 154. 18 op. cit., p. 229.
Pastoral Prayer God of all creation, we pray this morning that you will broaden our vision and deepen our insight. Sharpen our awareness, and help us to discern the work of your Spirit in ourselves and in those around us. Help us to recognize in others the same human concerns and motives that dwell in our own hearts, and to know then the oneness that binds us all together as part of your creation. We know that you are the author and sustainer of life. You take the broken lives and damaged relationships that fill our world and refashion them into stronger and wiser people. You reform the tragedies that befall us into opportunities for growth and goodness. You use the mundane and common as instruments of grace. Because of this, we know that we are all bound together by that grace. We know that everyone is given by you the opportunity to show your love in unique ways. We know that none of us deserves the goodness we find in life, and all of us in some ways fall short of the vision you have for us. So, keep us from erecting barriers between us. Help us to reach around the globe with our gifts, our compassion, and our willingness to learn. Help us to see your own hand at work in the world, and to offer our own efforts and resources in your work. In your spirit of unity, we pray for those who are shunned by others, that we might be instruments of grace. But more than that, we pray for those we ourselves might otherwise label as our enemies. We pray for those we do not understand, and ask that you would give us understanding. We pray for those who fail us, and ask that you would help us to see them as you do. And we pray for those we have never met, knowing that you know their needs. Creator God, continue to recreate us, we pray in the name of him who taught disciples to pray: Our father, who art in heaven...