God Lives in the Present Moment

I have a cherished memory from a family campout when I was about twenty. It was a beautiful morning, and while everyone else still slept, I slipped away for a walk along a wooded trail. Before long, I came upon a stream, and sitting on a log, I watched the water sliding gently over a cluster of smooth boulders and stones.

As I gazed peacefully at the glistening reflection of sunlight on the softly flowing water, the sun’s warmth caressed my skin, and I was drawn in by the sounds around me—birdsong, the buzz of insects, and the gurgle of streaming water. A warm breeze gently brushed my face, and I slipped into a heightened state of awareness—I felt a quiet joy rising from nature’s living presence all around me.

Though I wouldn’t have called it that at the time, what I experienced that day was the presence of God. In the quiet beauty of nature, I was drawn fully into the here and now—into a state of inner communion with the Divine.

To experience anything deeply, be it a savory plate of pasta, a heartfelt talk with a friend, or even a good book, we must be present—wholly in the moment.

“Live now in God! Now is the only time you will ever have, since tomorrow too will be only another ‘now’ when it arrives.” —Paramhansa Yogananda

Early in his life as a disciple, Yogananda was listening to Sri Yukteswar speak to a small group of chelas when his guru suddenly broke off mid-sentence and exclaimed, “You are not here!”

“Guruji!” Yogananda protested. “I have not stirred; my eyelids have not moved; I can repeat each word you have uttered!”

“Nevertheless, you were not fully with me. Your objection forces me to remark that in your mental background you were creating three institutions. One was a sylvan retreat on a plain, another on a hilltop, a third by the ocean.”

Yogananda, realizing that those vaguely formulated thoughts had been stirring almost subconsciously in the back of his mind, glanced at his guru with an apologetic smile. “What can I do with such a master—one who can penetrate even my random musings?”

“Your architectural dreams will materialize later. Now is the time for study!” (In time, those three buildings would indeed become centers for Yogananda’s work in India and America.)

Sri Yukteswar was showing Yogananda the importance of being fully present in whatever he was doing—whether studying, working, or, above all, seeking God.

What is it that keeps us from being present in our daily activities? Often, it is restlessness that pulls our thoughts down the meandering paths of past experience and future possibility—away from the present moment, where alone we will find the presence of God.

And how often, when we are restless, do we reach for our phones and start scrolling? But the constant stream of newsreels, social media, and video clips makes it even more difficult to simply be with ourselves—to be present with whatever is happening around us—and to tune into the potential for true joy in each moment.

When we habitually seek out distractions to mask over our disquiet and boredom, we give away a priceless moment—one that could have been shared with the Divine Presence that is ever just behind our thoughts.

I would like to share a somewhat modernized old fable about a restless boy named Peter. When studying in the classroom, he longed to be outside playing. On the playground, he daydreamed about an upcoming family outing. No matter what he was up to, he longed to be doing something else.

One day, he sat down at the edge of a forest path near his home, and, leaning against his favorite tree, quickly drifted off to sleep. Before long, the sound of his own name startled him awake.

“Peter! Peter! Wake up!”

A gnarled old woman stood before him, holding a ball of yarn with a single golden thread sticking out.

“What is that?” he asked.

“It’s a gift for you,” she replied. “The thread of your life. Whenever your studies are boring or difficult, you can pull a little, and time will jump forward—skipping the dull parts and landing you right in the middle of the good stuff. Pull gently, and a minute passes. Pull hard, and days—or even years—will slip away.”

Intrigued, the boy gladly accepted the gift and wandered home. For a time, it was enough just to skip through a few tedious tasks now and then, but soon he found himself compelled to tug the thread more and more.

One day he realized he’d grown tired of being a child—he longed to be a teenager. So he tugged hard on the loose thread, and everything shifted. In an instant he was older: a teenage boy with a pretty girlfriend named Elise.

But still he was not happy—he now wanted to be an adult. He pulled on the thread, and again the world shifted. He was now a grown man—settled into a job, married to Elise, with three small children to feed.

He raced through his days, skipping meetings to get to weekends, leaping ahead months to spend time at the beach with his family—carefully stepping around every adversity, seeking a life of comfort and ease.

As time passed, he suddenly realized he was an old man. His hair had turned gray, his wife had passed, and his children were all grown with families of their own. In the quiet of his later years, he began to question the choices he’d made.

Feeling nostalgic, he returned to the tree from his childhood. Sitting with his back against the trunk—just as he had as a boy—he fell into a doze. Soon he was awakened by the sound of someone calling his name. “Peter! Peter! Wake up!”

Opening his eyes, he saw the same gnarled woman who had given him the magic thread—surprisingly, she looked exactly as she had before.

“How’d you like my gift?” she asked.

He thought for a moment, and then answered, “At first I thought it was wonderful—I got to skip the hard stuff. But now, I don’t know… my life has passed me by. I didn’t really get to experience it the way I should have—to be present in each moment, to learn the lessons life had to teach me.”

With anguish, he muttered to himself, “I wish I could go back to being a schoolboy and live my life all over again.” As tears fell from his eyes, he drifted back to sleep.

“Peter! Peter! Wake up!” Once again, the sound of his name startled him to wakefulness, and to his utter amazement, his mother was standing beside his bed smiling! As he roused himself from sleepiness, he realized the old woman had granted his quietly spoken wish. “Up, Peter,” his mother said briskly. “You don’t want to miss school today!”

“No, Mother,” he cried enthusiastically, “nor do I ever want to miss it again!”

Yogananda often said, “The minutes are more important than the years.” Each time we reach for a distraction to fill the time, or let our restless thoughts pull us from the present, we—like Peter—give up a precious moment in our lives: an opportunity for joyous communion with our beloved friend, God.

Let us make up our minds to live more and more in the eternal now.

OM Shanti Shanti,

Suryadas

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