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“Life is long if you know how to use it. Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.”
Sound advice from Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now? Maybe words of wisdom from Be Here Now – Ram Dass’s great work from 1971? Actually On the Shortness of Life dates back to Seneca who died in AD 65. Maybe this is the first self help book.
So time and how we spend it has pre-occupied us since the first prominent philosophers. Seneca the Younger lived in Rome, he was in conflict with Caligula and was banished by Claudius for alleged adultery, but later was welcomed back to Rome as an advisor to Nero. He was a popular philosopher writing extensively. De Brevitate Vitae (On the Shortness of Life) expounds that any length of life is sufficient if lived wisely.
“Learning how to live takes a whole life, and what might surprise you more, it takes a whole life to learn how to die.”
Living In The Now
We have been nurturing ways to be in the present moment since the dawn of time. We can appreciate the lessons of the past but must realize that we cannot dwell in them. Nor can we spend our time projecting towards the future.
If we have a foot in the past and a foot in the future, we miss out on the juicy bit going on right now.
Now reading Seneca’s On the Shortness of Life, he was one for evaluating a life gone by, which generally as modern co-creators of our lives we are not encouraged to do! But there are still some gems in the following passage to make you rise up and celebrate each minute of each day.
“In the present we have only one day at a time, each offering a minute at a time. But all the days of the past will come to your call: you can detain and inspect them at your will – something which the preoccupied have no time to do. It is the mind which is tranquil and free from care which can roam through all the stages of life: the minds of the preoccupied, as if harnessed in a yoke, cannot turn around and look behind them. So it is with this unceasing and extremely fast-moving journey of life, which waking or sleeping we make at the same pace – the preoccupied become aware of it only when it is over.”
If we get too bogged down with our plans and our preconceptions, we can end up missing the poignancy of each moment and quite often misinterpret the signals around us. Much of living in the moment helps us to fine-tune our instinct and intuition – knowing which path to take, listening to ourselves, aligning with the Divine.
“…The world you see, nature’s greatest and most glorious creation, and the human mind which gazes and wonders at it, and is the most splendid part of it, these are our own everlasting possessions and will remain with us as long as we ourselves remain.”
The Challenge Of The Ego
One thing that Seneca does not touch on, which is a predominant force in more contemporary works is the ego. Ego keeps us hemmed in by the past and planning for the future. Ego prevents us from being in the Now. And to ‘Be Here Now’ as Ram Dass said way back in 1971 is the place of greatest transformation.
But it is one of our biggest challenges. The ego gives us a sense of who we are, what we like, what we know. Ego is usually at the centre of the dramas that we create.
We like people to see us in a particular way. We like to see ourselves in a particular way. We can create that illusion by the stories and dramas that we play out in our everyday lives. So often we repeat the same patterns, seek out the same relationships, create the same drama because it fits our idea of who we are. We create limits for ourselves.
The personality we have created for ourselves does not define us anymore, but limits us. It’s cosy, but limiting.
When we start to drop the drama, drop the ego, drop our limits, anything is possible.
Now for Seneca, he believed that the wise way to live was to study philosophy, but much of his writing in De Brevitate Vitae is as pertinent today.
“To quote Cicero, we hate gladiators it they are keen to save their life by any means; we favour them if they openly show contempt for it. You must realize that the same things applies to us; for often the cause of dying is the fear of it. He who fears death will never do anything worthy of a living man.”
To Live Fully
We hate the idea that we will die. That life will go on without us. We hate the idea that life is short. So we fill it up with pursuits and plans, ideas and dreams, distractions and deliberations.
From Seneca through to Eckhart Tolle, we keep toying with the idea that death should not hold us back when it comes to living. Life is to be lived… fully.
“No one will bring back the years; no one will restore you to yourself. Life will follow the path it began to take, and will neither reverse nor check its course. It will cause no commotion to remind you of its swiftness, but glide on quietly.”
Meditation to Be Here Now
Simply chant whole-heartedly, from the gut, at the top of your voice, using the force of your lungs. Chant and be happy! Chant anything you like, but you could try Hummee Hum Brahm Hum – We are We, We are God.