I was asked to share my views of the “now.” The external now is eternally changing, and the external now is forever a mystery, and the external now is a lie. In the external now everything shifts, like shadows near a busy street at night. Much of what is said about the now is said in the spirit of encouraging letting go, but in anyone’s experience does that give you anything in return?

People do it mainly to get rid of frustration. Indeed, but do they experience lasting relief?  Now arguably it doesn’t need to give them anything, but does anyone know why? There is an element of every external now. It’s enduring, and endures even changes in self image. It endures learning new things about yourself, and I would ask:  When you “learn something new” about yourself, is it really something new? Is it a surprise, or is it a benchmark of acceptance?

It’s more something learned. You just weren’t aware of the new thing, or of what was there all along. The person you would be later, you are now.

When the cowardly lion asks for courage he already had it. He just worried too much to notice? He didn’t need to be given courage. The external now is not the true now, and the external now offers no guidance does it?

It jumps around a lot. And why does it jump around? Why does the external now seem so inconsistent? Is this inconsistency supposedly the rule of the soul?  It’s my view that there is a modern trend in spirituality that amounts to a baseless nihilism. They look at the external now, and how humanity is currently relating to the world, and say “this is the human soul”, and then try to tack on virtues to this nihilism.

This is the cause of people feeling humanity is evil in some way? Yes. It’s my experience that reality works in terms of identities.  What things are. Is this anyone else’s experience? I agree with the concerns about ego, but the anti-ego movement seems to me to be a form of negative egotism.

Do you mean the way we label everything regarding identities? Not that we label everything necessarily, but that things work on what’s there, and what it is, rather than what’s not there, and what it is not. And today at this stage, people focus a lot on what is not. Has this served anyone?

Ah, so all the ‘wars against’ stuff are causing the identity loss? Yes. The problem with ego is not that having an idea of self is bad.

Focusing on what we don’t have, and what is wrong? Yes, exactly. Having the idea that “I am this, and only this”, or that “I am this, and not that”. That is the error. The error isn’t having a sense of I am. I am. You are. We are here together. The unity movement seems to want to deny this basic reality, and say that no one should back up their own identities. Notice I use the plural. If I will not embrace any identity then what can I give you? What can I do, and why would I want to do it?

To use Biblical concepts loosely, God created the elements of the world, and said they were good, yet we think otherwise and claim it’s spiritual? The Buddha looked at the elements of the world, and was silent. What he spoke against was attachments, which were not identities. They were reactionary dependencies. He spoke against limitations.

Fixed identity? Well, fixed in the active sense of being invested in “preserving” them. This is a false identification of these identities as needing preservation. A fear of the mortal, because we are externally focused.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~