As is most often the case, the paradoxical reveals another and perhaps more important message. Take this one for example: Presence is more rewarding than productivity. Do you agree? Do you truly feel that by simply being aware of your current situation, with a satisfactory ratio of awareness to reality, that you will somehow no longer be required to produce tangible results? Or does your (as mine) distaste for the modern capitalistic model indicate other, more consciousness expanding possibilities? I hear the hum.
Looking deeper into the semi-koan, it seems to me that one is dependent on the other much as moon is to sun, dark to light. By our practice of dissolving the regrets of the past, along with our anxieties of the future into the light of the now - a discipline we repeat about a thousand times a day - the success and maturity of the practice naturally leads us down the yellow brick road of creativity. Our very presence, the awareness of non-distraction, opens Huxley’s doors to perceptions previously unimagined. Or, as it came to John Lennon, imagine there’s no heaven.
It takes presence to trust in this universal magic. One must sit with it, relax into it and let go of everything else that vies for our attention, often the very elements that define production; relentless effort, prioritization, efficiency, overtime, sacrifice, insurance, security, gross profits and margins, a robust 401K, quotas, savings, conservative strategies and predatorial behaviors. This happens to the best of us. We lose our way as the game swings from being happy and high to being successful and responsible. A grand example of this is the failed social experiment of the demographic known as The Hippies.
The Hippies, roughly 1964-1974, 1968 being the zenith, inadvertently created a social movement primarily as a backlash to an evil, immoral and unethical government backed war and the gross corruption of the politicians promoting it. They said tune out and turn on. Put peace, love and music at the forefront of consciousness and everything will be groovy. Free love and flowers for all who join our commune and don’t bogart that joint my friend. And it was the best thing ever! Until it became apparent about ten years into the utopia that what really made the world turn wasn’t pot and peace it was money and war. In response the hippie elders started to infiltrate the ‘real world’ taking jobs in sectors once considered obscene: Banking, government, law, real estate and even with defense contractors. The focus had shifted from the here and now of presence to the then and there of production. We had won couple of major battles but lost the war. We went peacefully into the good night.
Yes we hippies (I proudly include my tenure) started a number of sustainable ideas, ecology, recycling, land use, organics, access to tools, communications, energy systems and philosophical and political possibilities of higher consciousness and non-violent revolution among them, but we all, eventually and sometimes painfully, traded in our faded Levis for Brooks Brothers blue blazers and joined the corporations we once marched against. Failure or evolution? Good change or bad? Victory or defeat? Natural selection of natural progression?
We lost our way. We traded the present for the future. We got real - as society defies it - not as we once envisioned it. Power corrupted our dream, and absolute power corrupted it absolutely. Money was the new high. Who needs to meditate when you can manipulate?
The paradox remains aptly metaphorical. If we can find the path of presence once again, the simple movement towards it will inspire the truthful creativity and compassion we carry inside us, unleashing a torrent of positive productivity the likes of which even us former Hippies would surely approve and encourage. Be Here Now. Present or productive?
What could possibly be more peaceful and loving?
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