If you have children in school you might be aware of the nationwide Reflections Program.  This years theme is “The Magic of A Moment”.

I thought this was an interesting choice and began to think about what was so magical about a moment and more importantly how you would define it, especially as a Kindergarten student.

If you are a student of philosophy then you would agree with the expression The moment is Now. And, everyone agrees it’s important to live in the moment, but the problem is how.  Ellen Langer, a psychologist at Harvard and author of Mindfulness said it best “When people are not in the moment, they’re not there to know that they’re not there.”

So here’s the thing. Whatever we experience is Now, and only what is now is immediate experience.  But the word  “now” as used in ordinary discourse, is vague.  Anyone unexpectedly asked to say what length of “clock-time” he associates with their moment of experience would probably hesitate and be in doubt whether to assign to it three or four minutes or something less than a second.

However, the “moment” of “experience” is not vague, when its content is considered; it is then sharply distinguished from all other moments.  It is the moment during which experience is sense experience.  It is in the moment of experience that the mind and the world are immediately related.  That is the NOW.

Maybe this choice of theme means that we are beginning to realize that the external world isn’t as important as how we interpret and experience it.  Because in the end, the external world is simply a reflection of us.

The role of the external world is nothing more than to assist us in facing ourselves, and ultimately to help us remember that we are the ones projecting the light show, moment by moment. It is not there for us to point our fingers at… a mirror can only remind us of our own state of being.

First realize that your world is only a reflection of yourself and then stop finding fault with the reflection.

Remember that your perception of the world is a reflection of your state of
consciousness.

Thanks for reading. Please pass this on to someone who means something to you.