There are two things
that us human, love the most: Thought and Emotion.
We love them so much that we
let them take control of our lives. We are so into them that not even in a
second, we are willing to let them go. We are so full of them that we become them
and they become us. We adore them so much that we keep on denying that they
bring us pain. We’ve been blindfolded, yet we can’t help but to keep them
around, waiting for them to untie the fold.
Like us, Thought and
Emotion have their own favorite: the illusion of time. They like dragging us to
the past and the future.
“In the past,” said Thought.
“Things were better.”
“In the future,” Emotion
takes turn. “We will be happy.”
They are so
seductive that it’s almost impossible not to trust their words. Unfortunately,
it makes us detached from the present, the only time where we live, the only
thing Thought and Emotion dislike. Sometimes, when we claim ourselves as being
present, we still do judge and analyze. We bring over our two lovers to the
only moment that should’ve been for us to experience. We frame the now in the
eye of Thought and Emotion, ignoring the eyes of our own.
This might not be
easy, as we’ve been under their control for most of our lifetimes, but this requires
one thing only: be a watcher. Watch the now as it is: watch what Thought is
doing to our heads, what Emotion is doing with our chests. Head and chest, both
are part of our bodies, the most truthful character in this play.
We might be manipulated
by Thought and Emotion, but Body will always safe the day. Body gives us physical
signs of what Thought and Emotion have done to us. Once we become the watcher, we’ll
listen when Body tells us the ache in our muscles, or the pain in our stomachs.
Listening to Body means, we withdraw ourselves from the illusions and
bring ourselves back to the present. Thought
and Emotion will still be there, but they’ll lose their control over us. We know
that those little mischief guys are still inside, but now they’re under our
watch. They might still come and go, but they’ll no longer inhabit the life
that we own.
*this post was written after reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle