Present!

I was eating dinner with my wife recently and thinking about my lucid dream tests and the idea that only consciousness is fundamental. I started getting a strange feeling of existing… of being here, but without the “here.” A detachment from reality I suppose you could say. It made me feel giddy like a child; as if somebody had whispered the secret of the universe in my ear.

During this feeling, a quote that I recently heard from one of Tom Campbell’s interviews popped into my head:

"What’s the purpose of life? Well, the purpose of existence is to grow up, to become love… get ride of your fear and ego. That’s the purpose. That’s why we’re here and this is our schoolhouse. How do you go about doing that? You do it with your intent. You make choices. You have 1,000 choices to make every day, and particularly I’m talking about the choices you have with interactions with other people. You can make those choices in a way that helps you evolve, moves you toward love, lowers your entropy… increases the value of your information; or you can make choices that can go in the other way… de-evolve, they go the way of fear, go the way of self centeredness, ego. Those things de-evolve you and increase your entropy. So, we get these choices and we get feedback immediately. If we have a fear based life, we generally get kind of unhappy, we’re not too pleased, life is difficult and unpleasant. So that’s the feedback trying to tell you wake up and go the other direction."

-Tom Campbell

My wife must have thought that I had lost my mind. Something huge clicked for me... very huge. My surroundings suddenly felt very distant and artificial and "I" felt very real. This idea of “now”... the present moment... came to my mind. This is difficult to put into words that will accurately express the understanding that followed, but what Tom said above hit me like a train: "You have 1,000 choices to make every day." I had been rambling on about all of this to my wife when it hit me. "It is right now!" I said with surprise. "I am doing it right now!" My wife responded with an appropriate blank stare. Somehow, I touched the truth that existing at that moment and making choices is IT. That is what it is all about... the choices that I make right now. Previously I had this idea that at some point in the future, I would be making these big choices... that I would grow into a state from where I could really start making more love based choices. My error was in thinking that this growth would mainly happen "over there" when I reached "that state" and at "that" future time. Suddenly though, as I sat eating dinner, I actually got it... tasted it. It is right now! Every now... constant, always. Everything counts. "I" am what matters... "I" as a part of the whole. The rest is just an environment in which to make choices alongside other beings that are also making choices.

An analogy: It was like I had been answering some questions on paper. I was going through the motions of answering these questions. I knew that I would be given a test at some point and that the test was very important. Once I organized some of this information, then I could really do well on the test. I was smart to prepare. When somebody brought me the test, I would be ready. So I continued on with this "time of preparation" so that I could be ready. Then suddenly, somebody comes by and whispers in my ear, "You are already taking the test. That is the test on your desk." I look at the person in amazement. The person smiles, winks, and moves on.

Every choice we make at every moment affects the whole. It does not matter if this reality that we exist in is real or virtual. It does not matter if you are in a dream or some other state. Every choice that you make as a conscious being is relevant and affects the whole. Is the choice based on fear or love, self or other? It is the intent that matters.