Richard’s Journal

This Moment of
Being Alive

Peter’s Journal

Related Questions & Objections

What is the Answer to ‘How Am I’?

The essential method is to undertake a total investigation into anything that is preventing me from being happy now – after all, the point is to be happy now, if I was happy ten minutes ago it is of no consequence, nor at some time in the future. The question to ask yourself, each moment again, is

‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’

Now is, after all, the only moment I can experience being happy. Any feeling such as anger, frustration or boredom that is preventing my happiness now, becomes of vital interest and can be traced back to its cause – the exact incident, thought, expectation or disappointment. At the root of this emotion is inevitably found a belief or an instinctual passion . The ruthless challenging, exposing and understanding of these beliefs and instinctual passions actually weakens their influence on my thoughts and behaviour. The process, if followed diligently and obsessively, will ultimately cause them to disappear completely. The idea, of course, being to eliminate the cause of my unhappiness, so that I can experience life at the optimum, now.

The method soon presents success incrementally, as freedom from beliefs, morals ethics and psittacisms and the feelings and emotions that arise from the instinctual passions is indeed a palpable freedom that results in increased peace and harmony for oneself and in one’s relating with one’s fellow human beings. The method does bring up fear and resistance, because one is dismantling one’s very ‘self’, those very beliefs and passions one holds so dearly. Of course, the major fear is that it will work and as a consequence ‘I’ will ‘be’ no more.

It sounds so simple, but most people when confronted with the idea are unwilling to take even a small step along the way. Most people would seemingly like their life to be better, but faced with the prospect of actually having to do something themselves, or having to change the way they are, they soon sneak away, only to re-run the ‘tried and failed’ methods.

But the choice is simple. It is either a miserable, painful, death-like life of not fully living or a quick death of what is clearly seen as the problem in the peak experience – the ‘self’ or ‘psychological entity’ within.

This method of ‘self’-awareness is both concise and down-to-earth in that it concentrates one’s awareness on this moment in time – this very moment, right now, in this very place. The whole emphasis is on ‘how am I experiencing myself now’? This is not to deny that one doesn’t have a goal and that this goal is in the future – to be happy and harmless, 24hrs. a day, every day.

It does take time to work through each of the beliefs, morals, ethics, psittacisms and instinctual passions – to thoroughly investigate them. By bringing one’s attention to the fact that this is the only moment I can experience being alive, and that if I was happy ten minutes ago and I am not happy now, the fact becomes obvious: I am not happy now. If not, why not? What is the cause, the source? One then has something to do, something to investigate. It is simply nonsense to delude oneself with the spiritual belief that one is already perfect, ‘That’, or ‘Enlightened’ when one knows otherwise.

Always one’s immediate aim is to be happy now, in this only moment one can experience being alive, and one’s ultimate goal is to be happy and harmless 24 hrs. a day, every day.