丧失当下时刻：幻象的核心

即使我完全接受这种观点：时间是一种幻象，那么这会对我的生活造成什么样的影响呢？我仍然必须生活在一个完全由时间控制的世界里。

你从大脑上同意这种观点，对你来说是一种信念而已。这种信念不会对你的生活起到很大的作用。为了实现这个真理，你必须把这个真理实践出来。当你体内的每一个细胞都处于当下时刻并能感受到生命的律动，同时，你能感觉到生命的每一刻都如此愉悦时，那么我可以说你已经从时间中解放出来了。

但是明天我仍然需要支付我的账单，而且我还会像其他人一样不断地变老并且最终死亡，所以，我怎么能说我从时间中解放出来了呢？

明天的账单不是问题，身体的衰老也不是问题，失去当下时刻才是真正的问题。或者当核心的幻象将一个简单的情况、事件或情绪变成一个人的问题乃至痛苦时，这才是个问题。丧失当下时刻就是丧失存在。

从时间中解放出来就是：从你在过去中寻找认同感的心理需要以及在未来寻找满足的心理需要中解放出来。这是一个你所能想象的最为深刻的意识转变。在极少数的情况下，这种意识的转变会发生得很戏剧化、很彻底、并且一次就能完成。它通常是在人们感受到剧烈的痛苦并且对痛苦臣服时而发生。不过大多数的人必须下很大的功夫才能达到。

当你初步觉察到无时间的状态时，你就会在时间层面和存在两者之间不断地徘徊。首先，你会注意到你的注意力极少地放在真正的当下时刻。但是，如果你能意识到你没有真正地活在当下，就是一个伟大的成功：这种觉察就是临在——即使它开始时仅持续短短的几秒钟。然后，慢慢地，随着你这种当下意识的逐渐增强，你就会逐渐将你的注意力集中在当下，而不是集中在过去和未来，并且，任何时间当你意识到你没有将注意力集中在当下时，你就已经进入了当下。这种过程不仅持续几秒钟，还会持续更长的时间。所以，在你完全地进入当下之前，也就是说在你完全意识到存在时，你会在意识和无意识之间，临在的状态和思维认同的状态之间徘徊一段时间。每当你丧失当下时刻时，就一再地回到当下，这样不断地重复。最后，临在会成为你的主要意识状态。

对于大部分人来说，临在意识永远不会或只会在一些极少数的情况下才能被体验到。大部分并不是在意识和无意识之间徘徊，而只是在不同程度的无意识中徘徊。

LOSS OF NOW: THE CORE DELUSION

Even if I completely accept that ultimately time is an illusion, what difference is that going to make in my life? I still have to live in a world that is completely dominated by time.

Intellectual agreement is just another belief and won't make much difference to your life. To realize this truth, you need to live it. When every cell of your body is so present that it feels vibrant with life, and when you can feel that life every moment as the joy of Being, then it can be said that you are free of time.

But I still have to pay the bills tomorrow, and I am still going to grow old and die just like everybody else. So how can I ever say that I am free of time?

Tomorrow's bills are not the problem. The dissolution of the physical body is not a problem. Loss of Now is the problem, or rather: the core delusion that turns a mere situation, event, or emotion into a personal problem and into suffering. Loss of Now is loss of Being.

To be free of time is to be free of the psychological need of past for your identity and future for your fulfillment. It represents the most profound transformation of consciousness that you can imagine. In some rare cases, this shift in consciousness happens dramatically and radically, once and for all. When it does, it usually comes about through total surrender in the midst of intense suffering. Most people, however, have to work at it.

When you have had your first few glimpses of the timeless state of consciousness, you begin to move back and forth between the dimensions of time and presence. First you become aware of just how rarely your attention is truly in the Now. But to know that you are not present is a great success: that knowing is presence — even if initially it only lasts for a couple of seconds of dock time before it is lost again. Then, with increasing frequency, you choose to have the focus of your consciousness in the present moment rather than in the past or future, and whenever you realize that you had lost the Now, you are able to stay in it not just for a couple of seconds, but for longer periods as perceived from the external perspective of dock time. So before you are firmly established in the state of presence, which is to say before you are fully conscious, you shift back and forth for a while between consciousness and unconsciousness, between the state of presence and the state of mind identification. You lose the Now, and you return to it, again and again. Eventually, presence becomes your predominant state.

For most people, presence is experienced either never at all or only accidentally and briefly on rare occasions without being recognized for what it is. Most humans alternate not between consciousness and unconsciousness but only between different levels of unconsciousness.