Be Here Now: The Art & Power of Living in the Present Moment

(source)

“Remember then: There is only one time that is important - Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power.” - Leo Tolstoy

It has been said that the main cause of suffering in mankind arises from the human tendency to live life in the past and future, totally missing out on the beauty and power of the ever unfolding present moment, the only time in which we ever actually exist, can act, and therefore live. It is for this reason also the only time in which we ever have any power. Understanding the power of living in the present moment and learning the art being conscious and aware in every moment by getting our mind off of a nearly constant dwelling on past and future is a fundamental key to achieving a free and healthy mind, spiritual and bodily healing, and true happiness in this life.

During my monthlong stay at a small commune in central California over the winter I was fortunate enough to be able to read Eckhart Tolle’s bestselling book on this very subject, The Power of Now. I didn’t actually have time to finish it, but I got far enough in to get quite a bit out of it and to see it was definitely worth the read, and that I would need to eventually get myself a copy somehow to finish it. Meanwhile, on one of my many evenings there, one of the fellow visitors said something to the effect that I was a master of living in the present moment, with others immediately voicing agreement, and it came as a surprise to me that this was the quality standing out to others, as I certainly did not see myself as having mastered the fine art of living in the present moment, despite it being a main focus of my life practice for well over a year at that point. However it got me thinking about it, and I quickly realized that I was in fact living just about as fully in the present moment as is possible during my stay there, without my even realizing it until it was pointed out to me.

And that is how presence naturally functions, when we are totally present we are often unaware of it until we begin to drift out of the state, for we are too present to be aware of our presence, we are too busy just being and living to notice any thoughts besides those directly related to the activity we are directly engaged in. As children we are naturally fully alive in the present without a constant stream of thoughts about past and future filling our mind, until eventually societal programming and ego development pull most of us entirely out of this natural state for most of our waking life. But everybody, no matter how terrible they are at being fully present in the moment, will eventually find there is something that consistently brings them into that natural state of presence again with no effort on their part whatsoever. For me, these activities include skiing, volunteering, and apparently also life at a commune. For most everything else I do, it’s still a work in progress, but I have at least become fully conscious of this particular cause of suffering, have come along way in learning to become more present in the now throughout each day, am usually well aware of it when I’m not, and over time with practice and dedication, the amount of my life spent being more or less fully present continues to slowly increase. So despite not having mastered this fine art quite yet, I figured I would take this opportunity to share what I have learned from my own experience, having never written more than a passing paragraph here and there on the subject before.

I would also highly recommend the short video on this topic below, that I found quite succinct and powerful, by John St. Julien speaking on how being present naturally deepens our breathing and connects us with nature and life.

Living on the knife edge of Now:

It is true that most people, especially in western society, spend the majority of their lives worrying about and planning for the future, or reminiscing and feeling guilty about their pasts. Among all the creatures on this planet, humanity alone seems to have this unique obsession with past and future, that in turn hinders us from being fully immersed in our life right now. I understand this mental pattern quite well from personal experience, and can say with certainty that, at least in my case, not living life fully immersed in the present moment was indeed a main source of my suffering, one that for the longest time, as with so many others, I was entirely oblivious to.

After all, it is difficult to realize that the way of living one has become accustomed to calling ‘normal life’ could possibly be the cause of mental suffering, frustration and depression. Indeed, most of us are brought up from a young age being taught the great importance of our history and of planning our futures down to the very details, but rarely does our schooling or any aspect of society teach us the great value and importance of the present moment. And yet the present moment is the only time we are ever alive and the only time we can truly live, with both the past and future only existing as a reality within our minds as a thought arising in the present moment. What this means is that most of us go through most of our life like a zombie, as one among the walking dead, going through the motions of living life ever day without ever truly living life to the fullest, apart from a fleeting moment of presence here and there.

Most of us have tasted the beauty of presence and the feeling of aliveness it brings, but only for a brief moment here and there, and even then we may not quite realize that the joy and beauty of these moments arose due to our minds being fully present in the moment at that time. As we watch a beautiful summer sunset or take a quiet walk through the woods, moments during a passionate romantic relationship or while playing a sport we truly enjoy and excel at, and often during a fun and relaxing vacation in which we forget the worries of life almost entirely, such are the types of activities that naturally bring our minds out of the past/future and into the present moment. Few realize that such fleeting moments of joy, peace and beauty can be become a natural part of every day life, the norm instead of the exception.

It is interesting that of all the animals on the earth, only humans seem to have the unique tendency to become afflicted by a constant stream of thoughts about past and future, and consequently are by and large the the least happy of all creatures here. As Dr. Wayne Dyer likes to point out, from our conception all the way to adulthood, we go through life with all of our needs being met without once needing to plan any of it, and then at around 18 years of age we suddenly stop trusting that the universe will continue to take care of us, and transfer that heavy weight onto our own shoulders. It is also a fact that the air we breathe is the single most important source of life here on earth, and yet none of us worry about where our next breath of air will come from nor do we consciously plan to keep breathing, and still we are all provided with plenty of air to breathe our entire lives and our bodies naturally take it in without any conscious effort on our part. But for some reason most of us still go through our entire adult lives worrying about and planning for the future, until there is nothing left to worry about except death, at which point most people revert to reminiscing about the past, until the day death takes us home, never the wiser that there is a far more enjoyable, fulfilling and easier way of life available to us all, at all times.

Instead of being the doer who is responsible for planning and scheduling every aspect of our lives, worrying about a future we are attempting to control while at the same time often haunted by regrets about our past, we can instead learn to let go and let life live through us, fully aware and present in every moment of every day, or at least much more of the time than we once were. As we begin to live more and more fully present in the now moment without a constant invasion of thoughts of past and future distracting us, we will not only see life as it truly is, unclouded by our thoughts, but we will eventually come to realize that life can, if we let it, begin living us, so to speak, rather than us living life. It is the state of being we all yearn for whether we are aware of it or not, and we just don’t know how to achieve or experience it on a regular basis, with this magical beauty and joy instead relegated to a few minutes of the day or a few days of the year for most of us. Thankfully that doesn’t have to be the way it is.

This state of presence is also known as the flow state, and is often experienced in sports, where the player loses all sense of self and simply is, playing, taking no thought for the next move and just making it, the body effortlessly flowing. Top NBA players have described this as the key to their basketball success, the ability to just let go and get into the flow state. The same is often experienced in dancing, where one reaches a state in which they no longer think of the moves they will make next and just begin to dance, effortlessly, muscle memory working hand and hand with the creative life force that flows through us all. Such a beautiful form of art can never be created by thought alone, only by letting go of thought and flowing freely to an inner rhythm most have become utterly disconnected with in almost all moments of their life.

This is why we seek and crave such escapes from ‘normal life’, whether a vacation on the beach, a night out dancing, or a backpacking trip deep in the solitude of nature. This is also why drugs and alcohol have become such a common escape mechanism in (or from) society, because they temporarily lift us out of the realm of endless thoughts from which arise our daily worries and into the present moment, giving us a brief glimpse of an altered state of consciousness. Most people just don’t realize they can learn to live their entire life from this flow state, and can reach higher states of consciousness without any drugs and the negative side effects that come with those drugs, as society has programmed us to do quite the opposite.

The essence of this state of being as a way of life is well captured by the seemingly paradoxical words of Lao Tzu - “I do nothing, and leave nothing undone.” For to the one who has mastered their mind by learning to still it of all restless thoughts, all things are possible without effort, for as the same master noted: “To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.” In other words, a still mind is far more effective at creating than a busy mind, and it does so effortlessly, whereas the busy mind is constantly striving and achieving very little in return for its efforts apart from the suffering being inflicted upon its host.

The way in which all things can be accomplished by the one who does nothing, is by life moving through them as a surfer gliding upon and flowing with the waves, instead of those attempting to move through life, like one who fighting against the flow. One who doesn’t learn the art of moving with the waves by allowing the waves to move them, will inevitably be dragged into the ocean and the more they fight the waves the quicker they will be dragged down. One does not cease from taking action altogether as one might imagine such a teaching implies, but they simply cease from being the doer of their actions and instead allow life or the Tao to move them. The way of striving only creates disappointment and suffering, while the way of effortless being creates peace, joy, and happiness. So Jesus taught his disciples: “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” It is only easy once we have completely let go of the part of us, the ego, that insists that striving is the only way to success and happiness, however.

This state of presence is known as both the flow state and meditative state, but is simply the state of being fully present in the moment, totally aware without any distraction of thought. Such a state is also often triggered in emergency situations, when people don’t have time to think about what to do next, left with the simple choice to act or not act, such as when witnessing a burning car with a passenger stuck inside or a child drowning in deep water. When the heroes of such stories are later interviewed, their stories are most often nearly identical in one way, that they didn’t have time to think and just acted, intuitively knowing exactly what to do. This just serves as proof that ceasing to think does not bring about a cessation of life as the thinking mind would have us believe, and in fact such stilling of our thoughts often brings about an enhanced life with much more peace and joy.

For me, this state of presence was most naturally and effortlessly achieved during skiing, and for a few blissful minutes every time I would ski, I would be fully alive in the present moment, all thought of past and future instantly gone as I pointed my skis downhill and flew down the powdery slopes, floating on the snow, carving turns, until it was all over, just like that, and thoughts would stream right back in. But for those few moments, I was in heaven, although it was only later I realized why this was, at the time just thinking it was the most fun I could find. It became my escape from the hell I was living in my mind, totally unaware that this hell was in fact created by myself in my mind, rather than by my circumstances. I think we are all prone to blame circumstances for our own suffering, when in reality it is our perception of circumstances that is the true cause of suffering, for we are not victims of circumstance but rather victims of victim mentality.

This of course leads us to seek a change in the circumstances we view as problematic, rather than focusing on changing our way of thinking, and so we go on through life endlessly planning how we are going to create better life circumstances that we naively believe will make us happy, and worrying about all the things we think could cause us suffering, oblivious to the truth that it is this endless cycle of thought patterns keeping us from living fully in the present moment that is at the root of most of the suffering and unhappiness to begin with.

I was, like the majority of my fellow brothers and sisters in the west, living life mostly from the past and for the future, definitely not in the present for the bulk of my life. My mind was operating in the natural state of a human mind, at least the natural state of one indoctrinated by western culture - a jumble of past references, regrets, guilt, and worries, anxieties and plans for the future. Like so many others stuck in the rat race, I spent the entire work week living for the weekend, or whatever my days off would be, and spent much of my time thinking about how I was going to grow and expand my business. We all live for something, and for most it is a future we think will make us happier than the present moment, and so instead of immersing ourselves in the present we spend our time planning and worrying about the future.

In such a state, each moment is typically seen as only good for getting us to the next moment. We drive to get to work, we work to get a paycheck and reach the weekend, we spend our paycheck to pay the rent, then when we get home we watch TV to distract ourselves from life, we go out on Saturday night to meet women looking for a romantic partner, and on and on it goes, as we treat every single moment as but a means to get to the next moment, and that one to get to the next. By the end of the day, we’re already thinking about and planning how the next day will go, and on and on the cycle goes.

We work towards getting that car, or that romantic relationship, that house, that degree, that body, that position, that career, that vacation, and the list goes on and on. But whatever it is we think will make us happy, that is what we spend our time thinking about and planning for, and working towards. And whatever situations we want to avoid, that is what we spend our time worrying and fretting and getting anxious about. Then the day arrives when we make it to one of our goals and we graduate and get that degree, or finally save up enough money go buy that new car, or marry the girl of our dreams, and for a few moments we are happy and content, and feel accomplished. But then the feeling fades, and we want more, and our mind conditioned to living in the future cannot be content in the present, no matter how good it gets, and so it goes right back to planning and worrying about what will come next. And when things aren’t going so great we tend to reminisce about the good times of the past, or maybe blame our present situations on past blunders. “The grass is always greener on the other side,” we think, and that’s the problem, no matter where we go, the grass is still always greener somewhere else, so long as we view moments as being only good for getting us to the next moment. Such is the nature of seeking happiness by running away from life, running from reality, living the only life we have right now for a future that may or may not ever materialize no matter how hard we work for it.

Eventually we will realize that no amount of material goods or achievements will bring us true happiness and fulfillment, the point at which we begin to look elsewhere for answers, and with any luck we soon realize the absurdity of living life with our minds anywhere but here and now. We must realize how our constant dwelling on past and future is a main cause of our suffering, namely by robbing us of our ability to live in the only time we are ever able to truly experience life - now.

The first and most important step to a life of presence is this realization, but the difficulty then becomes learning how to actually become fully present at all times and in all situations, as a body-mind conditioned to identify itself as a combination of its past failures and achievements who is working towards a particular future it has planned for itself will not willingly release this deeply ingrained programming keeping one from a state of presence, and it will at first not be easy to do so. Essentially, all that must be done to achieve this transformation is to train the mind to be still, and then one will naturally be present in the moment, but this is easier said than done, and will likely require much self reflection to find and root out the sources of thoughts constantly pulling us into the past and future.

First, a simple mental exercise will easily demonstrate the reality that now is the only moment there really ever is. And this recognition alone will begin to shift a person’s awareness more and more into the present moment. If you think about some experience of yours in the past, and ask yourself where this past moment is, the only honest answer can ever be, ‘in my mind’. One might say they had a past experience, but really all they had was an experience in the present moment in which it occurred, with any memory or recollection of that moment simply a thought called to mind in the current present moment it is being recalled. The future also only exists as a thought in one’s mind, for the only way the future ever actually ‘arrives’ is as a present moment in the now. We see ourselves as moving through time, from past to future, but we are always living in the now, and life is really but a series of present moments.

Such an understanding of time as a thought construct is rather incompatible with the common linear understanding of time as something we move through, like traveling on a road from point A to B, with the past where we’ve been, the future where we are going, and the present seen only as a fleeting moment connecting the two. This is the reason western society places so little significance on the present moment, because it is seen as something that is always vanishing as quickly as it appears, simply the transforming of past into future. When viewed in this way, the best use of our time in the present moment is seen as preparing and planning for the future, most often by re-living the past with a few minor adjustments we think will improve life. And so it is that history just keeps repeating in slightly different ways.

But in reality the now moment is really all we ever had, have and will have, with what we call past and future just a part of the one eternally unfolding present moment, what Eckhart Tolle and many others have described as the eternal now, or what Jesus called eternal life, and what could also be called the timeless Ultimate Reality. When we are caught up in time we don’t recognize it, but when we are caught up in the present moment, we don’t recognize time.

This is why the art and power of living in the present moment is such a fundamental aspect of the teachings of so many different spiritual paths and traditions, because it is the key to transcending the chains of time-bound 3D reality and ultimately the key to enlightenment. Any authentic spiritual path should eventually lead to enlightenment, with the Buddha defining enlightenment simply as the absence of suffering, while personal experience demonstrates that living in a state of mind focused anywhere besides the present moment is indeed a major cause of suffering. So the universal acceptance by so many different traditions of the importance of living fully in the present moment is understandable.

Buddhist monasteries, for example, often have bells that are rung throughout the day to bring any of the wandering minds of the monks back into the present. And the teaching of Jesus found in the Sermon on the Mount to “take no thought for tomorrow,” and to neither be anxious about the clothes one will wear or even what food we will eat to survive, captures the importance of living life in the now, and is directed towards bringing the disciple’s mind into the present moment by way of eradicating anxieties about the future, in this case by appealing to faith in our Creator to provide for our basic needs, looking to nature for evidence that such a way of life is not foolish as the human mind would argue, by pointing out that the birds who neither gather food nor spin clothes are nonetheless well fed and protected from the elements.

While western religions typically teach that heaven is a place we will go when we die to live forever in time, the reality is that now is the only time anyone can enter what Jesus called the kingdom of heaven, a higher state of consciousness that transcends time, also known as Nirvana or Samadhi in eastern traditions, entered through a complete awareness of the Self as eternally abiding in the eternal now, the realization through direct experience that the true identity is never born and never dies.

As foreign as such an understanding of time may sound to the modern western mind, the idea of an eternal soul is not, and the idea of the true nature of time being more illusory than the ultimate measure of reality is at least a recognized possibility in modern science, as even Einstein’s theories on the universe posited that time could in fact be transcended by reaching the speed of light. If the soul or true Self which is spirit is eternal, it naturally follows that to truly know oneself would be to know eternity, or to stand outside time, dwelling in the eternal now. So the essence of ancient western wisdom is simply to “know thyself,” and Jesus likewise taught that, “the kingdom of heaven is within you.” Quantum physics has also made more modern discoveries that, if anything, show us that we do not yet fully comprehend the nature of time, and modern materialistic science offers no definitive explanation for the many aspects of time and light that are not yet fully understood by the human mind.

Interestingly, Masters and Yogis of the East speak of transcending or going beyond or outside of time in meditation by merging with divine light. If Einstein was correct about the speed of light being faster than the ‘speed of time’, and that time was simply the 4th dimension by which this 3D world is measured and experienced, and that by traveling at the speed of light we actually go beyond time or into what would be the 5th dimension and beyond, then the eastern idea of reaching states of consciousness that transcend time by merging with the light no longer seems so far fetched after all. At the same time, in western spiritual traditions God is generally understood as being both the creator of time and therefore also outside or beyond time, while the Bible states that “God is light,” and Jesus taught that man can become one with God, which would by extension mean becoming one with the light. Maybe Einstein was onto something after all, and he just didn’t realize that it was actually possible for a human mind to reach the speed of light while operating within a body living in this 3D world that is at the same time seemingly bound by time.

Whatever time is, we can nevertheless easily see with the least bit of reflection that the only time we really ever have to live is now. And that is all we must accept to realize that, by allowing our mind to constantly dwell in the past or on the future, we are robbing ourselves of the full potential of the only moment we are truly ever living, the ever present now.

And so what is far more important than attempting to understand the true nature of time is actually experiencing more and more of our life from the state of presence, where the thought of time, regardless of how real or illusory it may be, does not exist, like a young child who is alive and aware but without any concept or thought of time. Time may still be passing us by, or we may still be passing through time or the illusion we call time, but we are no longer held captive by the thought of it, rather being fully immersed and captivated by life in the here and now where time seems to fade away like a distant memory.

One of the easiest ways to shift our attention from the jumble of thoughts constantly flying through our mind to the present moment is to become acutely aware of one’s surroundings. Take in the sights and sounds and smells, notice the details, look for the beauty and uniqueness around you, and shift your focus from thinking to feeling. The more aware one becomes of their surroundings, the less distracted they will be by any thoughts that arise. And that is all most thoughts are, distractions from life. Many will find it much easier to shift awareness to their immediate surroundings when in nature, as the sights, sounds and smells of nature are often more captivating, beautiful and soothing than the sights, sounds and smells in the city. Gentle music can also greatly aid in this exercise, or staring at a campfire or candle flame, for example.

Such practices are great for temporarily shifting our awareness to the present moment, but eventually we will need to eradicate the source of thoughts pulling us out of the present if we wish to retain our presence throughout the day and eventually our life, as those thoughts will always eventually re-surface until they are cut off at the source.

The main source of thoughts that drag us into the past are regrets and guilt. Forgiveness frees us from our ties to the past and to those who have wronged us, and so until we forgive both ourselves for our mistakes and everyone else who has wronged us, we will never be able to live in the present, free of these thoughts of guilt, regret, pain from past traumas, shame and the like. Like a ball and chain, we are chained to any action, event or being that we do not forgive, and therefore forgiveness is one of the most liberating practices we can engage in.

On the flip side, the main source of thoughts that pull our mind into the future is worry, anxiety and doubt, and the solution to all of this fear is faith. If we do not have faith that God, the Universe, or life will provide for us, we will always have an assortment of worries and anxieties about the future, and if we don’t learn to trust our intuition, we will be continually dragged out of the present moment by our mind. Love is the antidote to fear, where love is present fear cannot abide, a life lived from a state of unconditional love is a life without fear as perfect love casts out all fear; and love trusts, whereas fear doubts. If we struggle to trust our intuition or to have faith that our basic needs will be met, you can bet that there is some part of us dwelling in fear that just needs love.

We do not go through life worrying about where our next breath of air will come from or planning how to keep our heart beating, and yet the Power and Intelligence that created us and sustains life continues to beat our heart, take the next breathe, heal our body when get a cut or bruise. It does not take a big leap of faith, then, to believe that this same Power will provide everything else we need to survive if we let go of all thought and simply begin to live. This is not like turning our lives over to be run by a robot, and in fact as we shift from living life in our thoughts to living life in the present we will begin to realize that it is actually the previous state that was more or less a robotic program set on autopilot running our life. Over 90% of the average human life is run automatically by the subconscious, whereas presence is life experienced from a state of total conscious awareness, guided by intuition and a close connection to our Source. Our connection to our intuition and inner guidance becomes clouded and even blocked by a busy mind.

Our mind and all of its thoughts are extremely limited, whereas the creative Power of the Universe guiding us through our intuition knows no limits and always has our best interests in mind. The birds don’t plan the timing of their migration, but simply follow their inner guidance systems, which always alert them to the proper time of migration, and they always make their journeys at just the right time because unlike humans the birds have not become disconnected from nature through which Spirit speaks and guides all life. The ancient indigenous tribes were intimately connected to and guided by the Great Spirit, because they were in harmony and communion with nature, guided primarily by intuition rather than thought.

All we must do to become present is stop allowing our mind to run our life, and instead begin following our heart, making the mind a useful tool rather than our tyrannical master. In other words, as soon as we transcend the ego, there presence will naturally be found and experienced. The ego is simply the mental program that identifies with our thoughts, the fear-based survival mechanism telling us to worry, the voice in our head that is always beating us up for what it perceives to be mistakes and wrongdoings. So our simple but often difficult task on the path to presence is to withdraw identification from our thoughts and instead be the witness of our thoughts. The longer we engage in this process, the more still our mind will naturally become, until it eventually becomes as natural for us to be fully aware and present in the moment as it once was to be distracted by the steady stream of thoughts of past and future and guilt and anxiety that we once identified so closely with.

Forgiveness and faith is really all it takes to cut our ties to the past and rid our mind of its obsession with the future, leaving us free to truly live, fully present and aware wherever we are right now. It is only here that the world can be seen as it truly is, without judgment. In this state we are easily able to immediately respond appropriately to whatever situations arise, rather than reacting, often recklessly, to situations that trigger us.

Meditation is a wonderful aid to help still a restless mind accustomed to constantly thinking and planning and analyzing and worrying. When we first attempt to still the mind, a flood of thoughts will erupt, as we must process and release all unwanted thoughts in order to reach a state of true stillness. Simply be the witness, unattached to the thoughts, watching them rise and ebb, come and go, and patterns will soon be noticed that indicate what the root cause of any unwanted thoughts are. As we find and cut out those roots, and as we process and release suppressed feelings and thoughts that arise, our mind will naturally become more still with time. Eventually, as we cultivate a still mind, we will be able to more easily go into deeper states of meditation that take us to higher states of consciousness, where deep inner states of peace, joy, and bliss, and oneness can be experienced. As this practice goes on, we will be able to bring those states of awareness experienced during meditation into the present moment throughout daily life more and more, until life itself becomes an act of meditation.

Doing whatever one truly enjoys and finds fulfilling is also vitally important, as it becomes increasingly difficult to remain fully present doing anything that we are simply not meant to be doing, such as a career that we just know deep down is not a part of our life purpose, but we stick with it for the pay or out of fear of not knowing what would come next if we just up and left it with no plan in place. This is where trusting our intuition, true self love, and faith comes into play. If we truly love ourselves, we will not stay in a situation we know to be a source of suffering any longer than it takes to learn whatever lessons the situation has to teach us, but such love must cast out any fears inhibiting us from taking a leap of faith into the unknown, and a trust in our intuition and inner guidance will make such a leap of faith possible for us.

In the end, the exact process to a life of presence will differ a little bit for each individual, but the results will always be the same - more peace, joy, relaxation, awareness, and less suffering throughout each day. For most it is a long and slow process, but the magic of living life fully in the present is well worth it, mentally, spiritually and physically. Anxiety and stress are a leading cause of both chronic disease and depression, and presence is the cure to this disease - fear - that has permeated western society, and it not only brings healing and happiness, but also endless opportunities. For when we are living fully present in the now moment, we will never miss opportunities being presented to us, we will intuitively know exactly how to handle each situation and will naturally do so without endless thinking, we will become acutely aware of sensations we never knew existed and will be able to tap into a healing power and all-knowing intelligence we never realized was available to us, it is the energy of love, and it exists everywhere, in all life, through which all things breathe and live and have their being.

Whether approaching presence from a mental/psychological standpoint, or from a heart-based/spiritual standpoint, the results are the same, they are real, they can and are directly experienced by everyone who has ever had a moment of complete presence. We don’t have to wait for death to go to heaven, or fear being thrown into hell when we die. Hell is in our minds, and heaven is available to absolutely everyone, right now, in this very present moment. A slight shift in consciousness is all it takes to get there, and once experienced with conscious awareness, one can never go back to seeing the world, or time, in quite the same way as they once did before.

(source)