As the date of my leaving Israel is approaching (next Wednesday!), thus my life in Jerusalem is coming to an end this time, I've been witnessing one fundamental change inside me. I've finally starting living the now. This is something I've studied extensively and understood at least conceptually but haven't been unable to fully implement in my daily life.
This is a strange but truly amazing feeling. Man is also called "human being" in English, but most human beings are actually human doings, that is, our being, which is our essence, has been hijacked by our doing.
Our doing and being can be compared to waves on the surface of the ocean and stillness below its surface. Living the now must also mean shifting our consciousness from that of waves from stillness. At least I now have this consciousness.
Once I've started living the now, I've also become keenly aware that the most precious thing I can give to others, especially when my time is very limited, is my presence in addition to my time. Giving my presence to others means, among others, actively listening to them without my agenda.
When I look around myself in such a state of consciousness, I realize anew that most people fail to live the now. I also realize that what prevent them from living the now are not only the fact that they've totally forgotten that they are human beings rather than human doings but also the fact that they are trapped in their own mind-made prison.
There are at least two symptoms of the mind-made prison in this specific context of failing to live the now. One is that you are hijacked by your regrets of the past and your worries about the future. The other is that your thoughts are on autopilot.
I've already witnessed this autopilot again and again every time I tell people that I've leaving Israel soon and undertake some mission somewhere in the Diaspora. Almost all of them wish me "success" at the end of our conversation. Of course, I know they only have good intentions. I tell some of those who may be able to understand me that Eckhart Tolle, my most favorite non-Jewish nondual master, teaches that the biggest challenge in life is to continue succeeding as you'll lose this way precious opportunities to learn humility. After this explanation I ask them to wish me growth rather than "success". They do so, but some of them wish me "success" automatically after wishing me growth instead of "success".
Living the now for the first time in life is such an amazing sensation! This experience also arouses in me amazing moment-to-moment feelings, which I've also started to "vacuum-pack", so to speak.
I made an experiment - and a successful one at that - of "vacuum-packing" the now, including its precious moment-to-moment feelings, when I participated in Jewish life coaching in a group of frum Jewish men in Jerusalem fro ten weeks from December 2017, when my divorce crisis started. I listened to one Jewish tune again and again - probably more than one thousand times - during and after the coaching sessions. When I listen to it, I vividly recall and can reexperience all the amazing feelings I experienced back then.
I'm making the same experiment these days, but consciously this time. I listen to one klezmer music tune used in an Ashkenazic folk dance workshop by my former dance teacher, Walter Zev Feldman, by converting this dance video to MP3. Here are the links to this video clip and one free only converter from YouTube to MP3:
I'm also making another experiment to "vacuum-pack" the now by continuing to smell lavender, which someone has come to symbolize my life in Jerusalem, especially these days. Sense of smell is said to be the most spiritual of all the five senses. I can already foresee that every time I smell , I'll recall and reexperience all these amazing moment-to-moment feelings.