Be Here Now

Be Here Now

Christopher Nyerges


[Nyerges is the author of such books as “Extreme Simplicity,” “Enter the Forest,” “Self-Sufficient Home,” and others.  He can be reached at www.SchoolofSelf-Reliance.com.]


“Be here now.”  Remember that mantra from one of the 60’s gurus?  Though the slogan was widely used and spouted by weekend philosophers, Ram Dass’ simple quote was perhaps the most profound thing anyone could have said.


It can also be said as “Now is now,” or “Now is the only reality.”


I recall waking up early one Saturday morning. I was still in my early teens, and though I woke up in the early morning, it was also a time of simply waking up to my own awareness, waking up to the larger reality all around me, still largely not understood. 


In my earliest years of childhood, I was always living in the moment. There was no other option. I think, based on my own experiences, the perspective of reality of the child is probably very much like a dog, a cat, a wild animal, in the sense that the animal has no choice but to be very intensely in the moment. Survival requires that. The animal does not think about things like getting older, planning for the future, what will I wear tomorrow, how I look to my friends, how can I get more people to like me, what costume I will wear for Halloween, how can I make money during summer vacation, why 
does time go so slow, what will I be when I grow up, etc.


In other words, once I became aware of how the “adult world” operates, I lost my innocence of my own self as an autonomous and pure being in the universe.


Somehow, I was no longer like the dogs and cats and deer and wild animals, focusing solely and intently on the moment.  I was no longer focusing on “being here now.” I learned though my osmotic study of adults that it was important to think about the future, even the distant future, even the unlikely future.


And slowly but surely, like the grown-up adults of the “real world,” I found that I was more and more thinking about, and worrying about, and planning for, the distant future. I was not in the moment.


This is not to imply that adults in the adult world should not plan and prepare for the future. That would be silly to suggest. However, somehow, we need to do both. We need to think about the future, while living and being in the moment.  We need balance because we have become obsessively and dangerously imbalanced. Why else would so many people have found meaning in Ram Dass’ quote?


Part of the process of “being here now,” I have slowly discovered, is the idea that the journey is more important than the destination.  How often have you driven on a long car ride, or been on a backpacking trek, and someone is constantly asking, “Are we there yet?” or “How much longer?”  Since that mindset has not found a way to enjoy and learn from the journey, once it reaches the destination, it will begin to ask, “When are we going home?” 


It took me a long time and concerted effort to enjoy the journey.  I remember one mentor, Linda Sheer, who grew up in rural Appalachia, who used to tell me that I needed to quit focusing on getting somewhere in the woods.  She slowly explained the process of being in the moment, little by little, and after awhile, it no longer mattered where I was, or where I thought I was going.


My childhood growing up in Pasadena was all about trying to do something “exciting” and “not boring.”  I believed that other people, elsewhere, lived exciting lives and somehow I should find them and try to be like them.  Gradually, as I actually met and interacted with some of the most “exciting” people in my orbit, I found their lives empty, hollow, mostly window-dressing.  Not only did I further my efforts to “be here now,” but also to just “be myself,” and learn to be OK to be alone, or to be comfortable with anyone, anywhere, under any circumstances.


In “The Education of Little Tree,” this idea is described in a slightly different way.  Little Tree’s grandmother explains that there is the body-mind and the spirit-mind. The body-mind deals with all the things of the world and the body (money, security, jobs, that sort of thing). The spirit-mind deals with trust, honesty, treating others as you would like to be treated, concern for others, and all the things we tend to think of as spiritually and morally-focused.  Grandmother said that both minds should be developed in life, but some people only develop the body-mind. Then, when they die, since they can only take the spirit-mind with them, they don’t have much at all to carry them through in the hereafter.  


A conversation with my friend Monica made me think back on these topics of childhood. We were discussing the concepts of “heaven” and “hell.”  Sometimes, we have everything possible that we need and yet we are not happy, and want more, and want what our neighbors have. Such a person should be in a state of heaven, but their desire for more physical things keeps them in a state of hell. I know that’s not what religions mean when they speak of heaven or hell, but my point is that when we are always thinking about what happens after we die, we lose sight of the fact that our countless everyday decisions are actually forming our very destiny.   We do better when we focus on each moment, what is right to do, what should be avoided, how we should treat people that minute. 


That is how I understood “be here now.”  It may not be how Ram Dass meant it, but the idea that I should never lose sight of the fact that now is the only reality has stayed with me life-long.