Good morning. I was trying to understand today's Daily Inspiration quote — "Think of time as a radiation outward from your own center. Past and future move not only like a river, but also in a circle around their center in the unchanging NOW." It seemed somewhat cryptic to me. Whereas on a larger level, I understand that the barriers of space and time are not real, how can one apply this message to one's day-to-day life?
—Vidya, USA
Dear Friend, at and from our own center, which only exists in the Present, we project into our thoughts, feelings, and actions our reactions to past memories and expectations of the future.
Leaving aside the macro level of time and space, and considering only our own consciousness, there is only NOW. But oddly you could say that there are TWO NOWS! (I know, like WOW!). There’s the NOW that I’m immersed in and identified with, like a child throwing a tantrum (“tantrum yoga”). And, there’s the NOW of the watchful state of the soul. Either way, immersed or transcendent, now in the present moment is all there is. Our memories of the past and our thoughts, fears, and hopes for the future are only now as we think, feel, or act upon them.
The key to wisdom and the happiness that follows is to live in the Eternal Now, even in the midst of our joys, sorrows, pleasures, pain, peace, or indifference. In that great inner river of NOW lies the timelessness that embraces past, present and future in an expanding circle of joy.
Perhaps with this the more cryptic quotation that inspired your question will resonate intuitively with you.