The Here and Now 

18 April 2009

Yesterday, a colleague in the office asked me where he would be tomorrow. I answered that he would be "here" tomorrow, even though I knew tomorrow would be Saturday. He initially interpreted that as meaning that he would be "in the office" tomorrow until the moment that I told him that he would always be "here" no matter where he was. I said that the "here" and the "now" are the only things one can always be certain of. He asked me if I had studied psychology, which incidentally I have, although my remark was probably more a philosophical one.

In any case, thinking more about the remark that the "here and now are the only certainties you have," I realised that indeed notions like "past" and "future" or "there" and "nowhere" are all just relative things that in fact do not exist. The past is not here anymore, the future is not here yet, so all we have is the present, the "now." At the same time, wherever we are, we can only be "here" as in the place where our consciousness is centred. Where we are physically (as in where our body is located) is irrelevant because our body is just part of our consciousness and not necessarily the same as the location of the consciousness. Also, that tree over there is part of our awareness or consciousness, otherwise we would not be able to perceive it. Hence, the tree over there is also "here" in our consciousness and nowhere else.

Finally, to be fully aware is to be focussing on what happens here and now only as that is the only reality that exists. It is that awareness that brings us closer to ourselves.

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