Destiny and our Relationship to Time

hello everybody nice to see you so in the enlightenment context which is what this talk is all about in the enlightenment context the idea is to become more conscious of our relationship to life a big part of the Awakening experience The Awakening process is one of becoming more aware more conscious of one's relationship to life and the way one's operating discovering fixed ideas and assumptions and beliefs about the nature of reality that we often were not conscious of we know we were not previously aware of so a big part of waking up is becoming conscious of so much that is unconscious so in the talk today that's simply what I wanted to do was just try to indicate a couple of important important areas in which we may not be as conscious as we think we are of our relationship to time and I just want to bring some some Delight of Illumination to this question but time is very mysterious and I don't know what it is and I don't know where it is I don't even know if it really exists but um I'm a great believer in the relationship between Spiritual Awakening between the Awakening to Consciousness between becoming more conscious and the cultivation of a measure of Greater agency or choice I think there's a very clear relationship between becoming more conscious and developing a greater capacity for agency or freedom of choice so the more consciously become the more autonomous or Sovereign we can become and therefore we can ideally consciously choose to create the life that we're living that's the idea easier said than done of course but that's the idea how can I or how can we become more conscious choosers as I'm sure many of you are aware many sophisticated philosophers and awakened Souls don't believe that we had any choice we do choices of fiction I don't agree with that position I think we all are born with a measure of agency not very much because we're so deeply conditioned the more we discover about the nature of Being Human and the way we're constructed becomes more apparent how deeply conditioned we are on multiple levels simultaneously so but even in the midst of being conditioned beings conditioned sentient beings in deeply conditioned sentient beings and condition in so many ways that we're not conscious of I still think that we're boring by the a measure small measure very minute measure of agency of Freedom people make choices often it's a freedom that we're not even conscious of but I think a big part of the waking up process once we begin to become conscious and become more conscious is to work on and develop a greater ability to become more uh to gain more access to the capacity to create Freedom free choices because we want to create our destiny that's the idea if we are going to become truly Sovereign souls or liberated salts or enlightened Souls we want to be able to create our Destiny or at least at least have a lot to do with how it turns out either we're going to either we have a lot to do with duration of our Destiny or the other end of the spectrum so we become moderate victims of the life process which is the antithesis of everything that Enlightenment stands for so as I was thinking about this I realized that um most of us ually not very consciously have a very clear relationship with either the past the present of the future the question we want to ask tonight is what is my relationship to reality what is my relationship to the totality of reality what is my relationship to being alive but what is my relationship to reality how do I Define my relationship to reality how do I find my relationships we are like how do I find out what it is and it's impossible to exist as a self-conscious self-aware human being without having a conscious and unconscious relationship to life into reality we all have conscious and unconscious relationships to reality but we're not necessarily aware of what they are and as we think about this question it's usually the past we could say my relationship to the present moment is rooted in my relationship to my past to past events and my conscious and unconscious relationship to these events that happen in the distant past are fundamentally defining my relationship to the present and the future so if that's true for many of us and it is true for many of us if that's true that's something we would want to know about we want to become conscious of that we want to we want to say well if that's true if my relationships are the present in the future is fundamentally to Define my relationship between my past is that okay with me is that um how I wanted to be is that my preference because for many people that would be a preference our relationship to the Past can either be positive or negative it could be uh I mean as we all already know there's a lot of talk about trauma these days so many people are very focused on painful events that happened in the distant past that we have not recovered from or healed from in these painful events who have not recovered from are become they Define knowingly unknowingly the way we relate to the present moment opportunities have happened the present moment of events the experiences that happen in the present moment and also the way we think about the future if we're fundamentally identified with the past as a Locus identification of our cell and that's going to have a big impact on the way we relate to the present and to the unknown opportunities that exist in the future right so many of us who many of us have done some measure of psychotherapy or psychological introspection find that um a lot of our a lot of our ability to relate to life in the present in the future is very much defined by the past and of course if we discover we want to wake up we want to be free we want to be liberated we want to be spiritually enlightened it's usually something we want to free ourselves from it's a trap that we want to get out of being trapped in the past easier said than done but the locus of identification being in the past is not always negative it can also be very positive Maybe we may be thinking about extraordinary historical events that happened in the past that uh these historical events that it happened to us personally or culturally represent the greatest positivity we noticed that many older people tend to live live not living a lot of the intent to not live their life in the present but tend to live in relationship to happy events positive events that happen in their past but if we live a religious life or political life A Life That's informed by cultural Evolution we may be very warmly identified with events that happened a long long time ago and those events that would give the experience of life in the present moment a sense of meaning and purpose so then we were relating very positively with the past in a way that gives a strength and source of meaning and purpose Direction and confidence in life itself in the present and how we relate to the Future so is your is your relationship to the present moment being determined by positive or negative experiences that happen to you a long time long long time ago and I'm not saying one is better than the other I'm just trying to clarify this process because as I'm as I'm going to take you through these steps just be aware that our experience of Consciousness and cognition and emotion the experience of Consciousness and cognition is very much unconsciously conditioned on so many levels of of our experience we want to become more and more aware we're going to try to make the effort that I'm aware of why do I see why do I see an experience reality the way that I do in the present moment instead of just having an experience instead of just feeling and experience instead of just thinking about experience try to become aware of what is constructing what what what processes are you in the midst of that are constructed the experience that you're having right now and creating the giving rise to the kinds of thoughts the kinds of feelings what kind of perspective you have in this moment because our experience is largely constructed most of the time and a big part of this as I've said it becoming more conscious is becoming more and more aware of how The Experience we're having is constructed and becoming aware of these structures in our school and our experience it's a big part of becoming more foreign unconsciously trapped in our experience easier said than done so as you all know already know uh and a lot of spiritual teachers tell us that if you want to be free if you want to be liberated if you want to know what the Buddha was speaking about if you want to wake into enlightened awareness in the place you want to be is in the present moment in Here and Now so there are many spiritually realized Souls philosophically awakened Souls who tell us that the most important place to be in the closest to reality we can get is in the Eternal present in the presence of the Eternal present and um the new people who are on a spiritual path say well that's what I want to I want I want to be awake in the present moment I don't care about the past I don't care about the future because where the action is where the most potent and important experience of the real that which is real I can have is by is by being conscious of the present moment being fully present in the present moment because this is where the action is this is where everything happens Here and Now and there's a lot of Truth in that it's not the only truth but there's a lot of Truth in that the present moment is where the action is and where everything happens in fact and in terms of the Eastern spiritual disciplines metaphysical disciplines tell us that if we can truly awaken to the awaken to the presence of the present moment the infinite presence of the present moment we can be liberated from the past and liberated from the future and be living the Eternal now foreign and for a lot of people they think well that's what enlightenment is living in the present moment being free from the past and being free from the future and living in the present moment being awake to the Eternal presence of the present moment and if you can get into the if you can it's funny because that's where we always are anyway but anyway if you can get into the present moment if you have the spiritual capacity not everybody does but if you have the spiritual capacity to get yourself into the present moment which is quite entertainment but if you can get yourself into the present moment you will experience a revelation of inner freedom and the inner Freedom emerges when we no longer are unconsciously identified with the past positively or negatively and we're no longer concerned with the future with what hasn't happened yet and we can experience enormous Bliss and joy and profound release and relief and what could be called Eternal happiness if we awaken to the presence into the present moment and it's Eternal mystery and of course many people are one awaken to enlightened awareness want to find a way to get rooted in the present moment I don't want to be rooted in the past and I don't want to be fearful of the future I want to be rooted in the present moment and it's true as I've been saying that the present moment can be the source and the Eternal font a profound Awakening profound Liberation but um if the present moment becomes the most important thing to us there are some downsides to that also which is that um we may find that we're disregarding choosing to disregard in the light of in the light of the Bliss of Eternal presence of the Eternal presence of the present moment we may be choosing to disregard important truths that we've learned from the past both positive and negative it helps make up significant parts of our Humanity so being conscious of the past in a positive way and being learning how to be responsible for everything we've experienced is a big part of cultivating a mature state of Awakened Consciousness I believe so some people who say that the present moment is where it's at or the source of Liberation and source of greater truth and consciousness sometimes escape the past escape the challenging truth of the past and the challenge of the future by abiding the present moment saying it doesn't matter the only thing is to be present in the presence moment some people call that spiritual bypassing so the present moment is a good the present moment is a good choice but we don't want to disregard the past and the future as we choose to locate ourselves and relate our relationship to reality in the presence in the present moment if we want to if we want to if we want to cultivate a full spectrum awareness of relationship with all of time I would have to include the past the present and the future simultaneously now and now of course there's the few there's the future now I'm in I'm an evolutionary I'm my My Chosen metaphysical philosophical existential relationship to life is is is fundamentally one that it's based upon my Awakening to Evolution and The evolutionary and developmental context of life and The Human Experience so my personal preference between the past the present and the future is the future I'm a future oriented kind of guy so the future is what has not happened yet the future is a place of infinite potential infinite as yet unmanifest potential a future never exists in the present moment future always exists in the next moment that has not emerged yet so being an evolutionary my attention is more focused on what hasn't happened yet than what is happening or what has happened how crazy does that sound we're just to repeat being an evolutionary means I'm by choice this is a conscious Choice it's a free conscious Choice it's a metaphysical choice a philosophical choice in an existential choice I choose to be more focused on the future and what hasn't happened yet and what could be that I am focused on the present or the past so being a future oriented evolutionarily inspired aspirant a large part of my conscious attention is focused on what could be not what is so I'm very curious always about how how can what has happened in the past and what's happening in the present moment happened what's happened in the past and what's happening the present moment contribute to creating a more evolved as yet unmanifest potential in the future so and an evolutionary lives for the future to repeat they don't live for the present moment and they don't live in the past but they live they live for what hasn't happened yet I'm living for what I believe anyway I believe I'm living for what could be that's my spiritual existential metaphysical philosophical choice it's a metaphysical position in relationship to life past present and future Living For What could be but not what is so these three Vantage points are very interesting if the past is more important to us than anything else for positive or negative reasons we're focused on what was which could be a good thing it's not always a bad thing to be focused on what was sometimes what was was extraordinary profound miraculous incredible and unthinkably positive or it could be terrible so if we're focused on the past conscious and unconsciously focus on the past we'll focus on what was and if you focus primarily in Prince of God what was you can't get into the present moment we can't experience The Liberation the inherent liberation of being awake in the present moment then you certainly are not very interested in what could be if you're fundamentally located in the Eternal presence you're not so concerned about what was for good and bad reasons you're not so focused on what was and you are not so concerned about what it will be because the present is more than enough the Eternal presence when you when you discover it when you come upon it and experience it is overflowing with fullness it's like a milk boil we're milk boiling over the sides of the pot so the Eternal presence presence of the present moment can be soil consuming that we don't really care about the future because the president is all consuming and so gratifying in the past it's already over it doesn't matter anymore and once again as I was describing if you're fundamentally concerned with what could be we see the past in all of its positivity and negativity as a learning process it just brings us into the present moment is pointing us towards what could be and what's interesting about the evolutionary position is that the question of what could be always involves personal choice that's what's so unique and so profound about the evolutionary perspective in relationship to personal development to personal enlightenment is that when we are very focused on what could be we automatically have to address the question of what choice can I make that will best serve what could be not just from my own personal life but for the unfolding of all of life for all of Consciousness and all of culture and all of life itself what choice can I make to enable The evolutionary process to move forward on hindered liberated so you see where we are consciously and unconsciously focused primarily or principally where our North Stars if our North Star is the past it's going to relate to how we relate to the present in the future if our North Star is the present is going to affect the way we relate to the past in the future if our North Star is the as yet ought to manifest future it's going to have a strong effect on how we relate to what happened in the past and what's happening in the present and the influence of these usually was this unconscious positions that we're taking have an enormous impact an enormous impact and the way we experience reality that's why it's important to make the effort to build conscious of what you are narcissar is and you focus on the past the present to the Future now obviously most of us are focused on all three but but not equally they'll never be equal nobody's only focused on the pastor I'm going to press the moment around the future but we're usually going to have have one of these three to pass the president of the future that is going to be have greater strength and greater pull for us for good reasons are for bad reasons for free reasons or unfree reasons and so all I want I would like everybody to try and do what we there's nothing to do about any of this to become aware of it the choice you make is up to you and none of these is inherently better than the others there's no right answer but the idea here is to be conscious of where you're what the locus of your attention is and ideally if you want to if you're if you're aspiring for greater Consciousness and greater Liberation you want the choice that you're making the choices that you're making to be to be conscious choices to be choices that Express freedom of freedom and agency because as I said earlier we want to do everything we can to be in positions where we can begin to Define and create our own destiny as much as possible okay completely greater destiny but we want to be more responsible that we want to be as responsible as we can for doing that so this requires an enormous commitment to become conscious and to become more conscious and become more conscious and become more conscious and to see where is my North Star and in order to find out you have to be willing to be very honest with yourself examine your life examine your lot your life and then see if you can see if you can discover what uh what is driving the choices that you're making the choices that you have made the choices that Define your destiny and create your future creating life is the place that you're doing right now where did where did those choices come from and obviously to repeat what I've already said a lot of this is very complex and it's not half as simple as I'm making it sound but on some level it can be quite simple but I find it liberating to I find it very liberating and kind of compelling and thought provoking even to ask myself the question am I living in the past am I living in the present or am I living for the future am I it's my present relationship to life rooted in the past in the presence of the future because um we know that in the in the enlightenment context it's a I mean there's a distinction that I often speak about which I think comes from by Triana Buddhism which makes a distinction between relative reality and absolute reality so when we awaken to enlightened awareness we make that shift that extraordinary shift from relative Consciousness and relative cognition to Absolute Consciousness and absolute cognition we begin to see things very differently so even for example if we speak about the past well from a relative point of view my past is very different than your past your past is very different than my past and that usually means a lot of emotions and a lot of a lot of persons like that have a person like egoic identification but my past or you with your past but if we look through if we flip from a relative lens to an absolute lens and we look at my past in Europe actually then we suddenly see it's not my past or your past anymore but from our absolute perspective which is now it's the past not mine are yours losing the shift from a relative perspective to an absolute perspective the ego disappears so we see everything from a very impersonal process oriented perspective so now the past from an absolute perspective is no longer so charged with personal identification personal feelings personal memories but the past is simply what already has happened it passes what happened before it's not my past anymore so so strongly just the past and a big theme in in The evolutionary Dharma is that um as I was as I've been saying that the that uh followed on from this idea of struggling to freely Define our destiny and conscience to create our destiny rather than just stumbling into it it's struggling to be the architects of our future has a lot to do with what happens when we discover that especially as it relates to culture and cultural evolution the future has yet to be determined by us if we're living in a we're living in a time in human history where the next step or the next stages of cultural Evolution have yet to be defined I mean they've been defined theoretically but practically they don't most of them don't exist yet so for people who are thinking and through thinking with an evolutionary orientation to to life to their own life to your life and my life but we want to begin to think about how can I think about my life in the way that I'm living in it how can I engage with life in the way that I'm living in how can we engage with life in the way that we're living in in such a way they can contribute to creating the very next steps for the future of our species to the choices that we're making in the lives that we're living this is called living large and thinking in a very big heroic and spiritually inspired way about not just life but by but by about your life in my life this life the one you're living right now yes the little light that you're living right now you want to you want to learn how to think about this life that we're living right now in a very big profound and inspired way what how can the choices I make in the actions that I take now in my relationships in life I'm living help to create the very next steps for my speech for my for my species because obviously at the levels of species we've all got a long way to go we all know that South Pitts painfully clear how much farther we all need to go as a global species we all know that these next steps are not going to happen by themselves we have to have the courage to be we have to have the courage and these spiritual audacity to attempt to begin to Define what those choices might make through making small but not insignificant steps in our own lives and obviously to do that we have to be very much taken into consideration what the past is about uh the past has created the present in the future how the past creates the present in the future we want to make that process very conscious where we come from where are we now and where are we going this big stuff where we come from where are we now and where are we where are we going and how are we going to get there we don't have to know the answers to these questions but what is important is that we have this spiritually inspired courage to begin to struggle with these questions consciously struggling with them will will lead to the answers eventually but not engaging with the questions won't help us to evolve so a big part of embracing The evolutionary process and struggling with these profound and enormous existential questions that are very daunting and overwhelming but that's that's how we evolve that's how we actually get to make progresses by engaging with the enormity of the process and the task at hand and not shrinking away from it I'm not saying it's too big for me why should it be and of course if you don't do it who's going to do it you want someone to do it for you you want someone else to define the future in Destiny of our species for you probably not so I just once again as daunting as this is we want to try and embrace the totality of reality in the context of The Human Experience and embracing the the totality of reality in the context of the new experience obviously wouldn't apply to re-embrace the totality of the past in the present as we aspire to create the most informed choices to give rise in the future so it means we want to cultivate a relationship to the past to the present into the emerging future that is very conscious and very big see learn how to see your own personal presence here in the midst of the life process in a very big historical context not as an ego trip that is part of reality because the more conscious you become the more conscious we've become the more conscious we become of how big this is what's this is this which means life and when life becomes self-aware and self-conscious through us as us we begin to Glimpse the awe-inspiring nature of the anonymity of the process that we're already a part of so if we're asleep we're not aware of the enormity of the process that we're already a part of we're already participating in but if we as we awaken we become more and more awake to the onspine nature of the enormity of what this is life life is becoming aware of itself cause consciousness of the whole context of Life emerging becoming aware of itself it's impossible not to be overwhelmed with awe when you start to wake up this way we think we're living a personal life or so our egos tell us when we wake up before we realized that was never what was really happening but it takes a lot of courage to embrace the enormity of our potential to participate in life in a much bigger way takes a lot of Courage as I said he who takes courage and audacity and liberated inspiration to begin to transcend a personal confines of our consciously lived experience to try to begin to transcend it and include it in a much bigger context and that our life is not about our life anymore but it's about life itself and what's possible so I'm very much committed to living for what's possible that's the most exciting way to live I think but no one ever said it was easy and in this context you know in your own practice of contemplation and meditation of introspection think about when you begin to think in such a big an all-encompassing way about what it means to live your own life and you begin to get feelings of of awe and Terror which is very natural but the enormity of what I'm speaking about then ask yourself well as you awake as you wake up to more and more you know near the context that you exist and that you ultimately are and ask yourself what does it mean to be responsible what does it mean to live a responsible life in the midst of the enormity of how big this is and see what you come up with see what you come up with it can only be good if you don't shirk from your responsibility I know I know a lot of what I'm pointing to is just due to too muchness but the too muchness is where the action is it's it's when it becomes a little all becomes a little too much that's when it gets interesting and exciting and thrilling that's where we discover Timeless existential meaning purposefulness in this event called life so as you wake up to all these different dimensions of your own experience of life ask yourself the question what does it mean what does it mean to be responsible in this context and come up with you come up with your own answer your own answers and when you whenever an answer you come up with then have the courage to try and put it into practice and you will be living in earnest because that's all we can do is live in Earnest living live earnestly and sincerely nobody can do more than that but if you're doing that you can you can your soul can be at peace your soul will be at peace if you know you're doing everything that you possibly can nobody can do more than that