Fully Present...

My mind has been occupied with the idea of living fully in the present.  This has been going on for a while. The following 2 pieces has been key in forming my thought patterns:

If to enjoy even an enjoyable present we must have the assurance of a happy future, we are “crying for the moon.” We have no such assurance. The best predictions are still matters of probability rather than certainty, and to the best of our knowledge every one of us is going to suffer and die. If, then, we cannot live happily without an assured future, we are certainly not adapted to living in a finite world where, despite the best plans, accidents will happen, and where death comes at the end. 

The “primary consciousness,” the basic mind which knows reality rather than ideas about it, does not know the future. It lives completely in the present, and perceives nothing more than what is at this moment. The ingenious brain, however, looks at that part of present experience called memory, and by studying it is able to make predictions. These predictions are, relatively, so accurate and reliable (e.g., “everyone will die”) that the future assumes a high degree of reality — so high that the present loses its value. 

But the future is still not here, and cannot become a part of experienced reality until it is present. Since what we know of the future is made up of purely abstract and logical elements — inferences, guesses, deductions — it cannot be eaten, felt, smelled, seen, heard, or otherwise enjoyed. To pursue it is to pursue a constantly retreating phantom, and the faster you chase it, the faster it runs ahead. This is why all the affairs of civilisation are rushed, why hardly anyone enjoys what he has, and is forever seeking more and more. Happiness, then, will consist, not of solid and substantial realities, but of such abstract and superficial things as promises, hopes, and assurances. 

Working rightly, the brain is the highest form of “instinctual wisdom.” Thus it should work like the homing instinct of pigeons and the formation of the fetus in the womb — without verbalizing the process or knowing “how” it does it. The self-conscious brain, like the self-conscious heart, is a disorder, and manifests itself in the acute feeling of separation between “I” and my experience. The brain can only assume its proper behavior when consciousness is doing what it is designed for: not writhing and whirling to get out of present experience, but being effortlessly aware of it.The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety by Alan Watts

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air:they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow:they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat? ’ or ‘What shall we drink? ’ or ‘What shall we wear? ’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble

Matt 6:25-34

I found that whenever I am anxious, it is because of uncertainty about the future, exactly which both these authors warn against.  This brought up the tension between living in the present and planning the future in the utmost detail. They seem to stand in contrast with each other.  I always try to find the Truth  that resolves contrasts, so I applied this method to the contrast at hand, so here's the Truth I found:

I believe that my "instinctual wisdom" is inspired and inspired by the living God.  He uses this as a tool to guide me so that I can be who I am, guiding me practically and daily. I trust His Guidance and choose to live by it. I'm of the opinion that the safest future I have, in fact, the only future that is "secure", is the future He's planned for me.  The only way I can align with that future is lsitening to what He has to 'say' and doing it when he 'says' it.  To 'hear' him, I need to be fully present in the moment.  And this resolves the tention, this is the Truth.

The only way my future is secure is to be fully present in the moment now, the place where I can 'hear' His voice, and acting on what He 'says'!

Good times... 

Which way should I go?

Jus came across this quote from Alice in Wonderland.  It's one thing to ask "Which way should I go", a whole other ballgame to know where you'd like to end up...

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don’t much care where--" said Alice.
"Then it doesn’t matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"--so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you’re sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
(Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 6)

Water ski: I got it right

This weekend my lovely wife Karen and I went to a family weekend.  I've been there once before but for some reason this time was really special.  There's something about becoming one...


Anyhow, I tried my hand ar waterskiing.  I got out the water, took some rough blows falling but after a while I managed to stay on my feet.  


Amazing... 


Then I got bored...


I wanted to move around a bit, do a jump or 2... I decided to ski to my right but as soon as I came over the wake, I crashed hard...


My teacher informed me that the reason I fell was because I was looking at my feet when came over the wake.  He taught me that I should look up while moving across the wake.  I implemented his advise (speaking myself through it the whole time) and managed to stay on my skis!  Something amazing happened.  My body seemed to handle the transition without me quite understanding how, this time I didn't fall face first on the rock-hard water... 


I've got a feeling there there are many similarities between my ski-experience and our Spiritual journey...  Is it possible that we keep crashing hard when we get to an obstacle because we're looking at the obstacle, looking down, instead of keeping our eyes on the horizon, allowing our Aligned instincts to do the work and enjoying the trip? 


Share your thoughts...

Invited to the wedding?

So we're getting married in a week!!  Very very excited.  Just wanna straighten out one thing...


Obviously we cannot invite EVERYBODY, practically it is just not possible.  The way I selected people to invite was to ask the question:  Who's had a direct impact on my life in the last 6-8 months?  And I invited those.  So PLEASE don't take offense if you're not invited to the wedding...


We're having a after-party so if you would like to join us there, let me know and I'll make a plan!!

That "Inner Voice"

And so another legend of our time dies.  I'm confronted with many inspirational word, but especially these words from Steve Jobs, obtained from an article in Time magazine:


"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life," he said, sounding as if the very thought of living someone else's life infuriated him. "Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
Time Magazine


The similarities between Steve's words and this verse in the bible (The Message translation) struck me.  Check it out.  To say that he was on to something might be stating the obvious. 


"Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."
Romans 12:2

May we all learn something every day!  May we be wise enough to choose to trust "The Inner Voice".  May we be bold enough to  keep on learning, keep on growing, keep on exploring ourselves and  "The Inner Voice".

Transkei Explo Adventure no 1

So myself and Karen went on the "Transkei 5 day hike" along the wild coast of South Africa, hosted by Tuks Explo.  The 5-day hike started at the Wild-coast Sun on Tuesday 4 October 2011.  The first day was amazing.  Soon after we started I admitted to myself that my pack was a bit on the heavy side, but I carried it with pride.  After 3 (1 wet…) river crossings and only about 4 hours of hiking we reached our first nights sleeping place with fresh water, compliments of a nearby village!  We pitched our tents, had some coffee and prepared some food.  I was not long before a proper rainstorm hit us, without warning.  Everybody were in their tents in a flash and we spent the rest of the night in the safety of our tents.  We survived the night without getting wet!

The next morning we went through the drill of packing up camp and re-packing our backpacks. We started hiking @ about 09:00.  Little did we know how far we would have to go.  We soon figured out that we needed to cover 18km to the next campsite.  18km of walking on a soft beach with a heavy pack.  I was already wearing my knee guard because I know my knee does have a weak spot  and my friend Reinard recommended that I wear one.  I son realized I had a problem… My knee started acting up… We were looking forward to lunch…

After lunch I was in such pain, a familiar pain, the same type of pain I felt when I did the fish river canyon a year ago, a pain that resulted in my knee being so tightly strapped that I could not bend it for the last 3 days of the hike.  I knew what was coming so I discussed the option with Karen.  We soon came to the conclusion that we had one of two options:  Turn around and hike back for 2 days or bail out asap.  we discussed this with our tour guide and he suggested that we catch a taxi out at the next village, about 4 km away.  We agreed and got cracking at the last 4 km's.  The crew ended up carrying ALL my gear even though I fought hard to keep my full kit on my back…  Even without weight on my back I was struggling.

Since the taxi from the village only went to town early in the morning, our guide, Bongani, organized us a room to stay in in a village called Mtentu.  And that's where our ways parted.  The rest of the group continued on their way, our hike was over.  We retired to a small shack where we could relax and sleep. We soon decided to stay another day and relax, we were, after all, on holiday…

The next day was spent sleeping late, reading, eating… sleeping, some more reading and eating.  We had our own village-dog and a mouse that visited at night. At first we thought it was a rat the size of a small horse, but later saw the little guy looking for food for his kids…

Anyhow, this morning we had to catch the taxi from Mtentu back to the wild coast sun.  We met the local Taxi-business-owner, Thuleka Sonjica, who was our private guide on the way back the wild coast sun.  What a guy.  he owned 3 taxi's and drives one of them to town every day, transporting the people in his village to town!

He dropped us at the N2 where we got a taxi for the remaining 20 odd km's back to the wild coast sun.

What an adventure with an very adventurous Karen!

Pictures to follow, the internet speed here is really really bad....