The shadow of an afterlife obscures the experience of what stands before me right now. Any notion of time added to a continuing existence inhibits my ability to plunge into the impermanence of existence. It restricts my ability to let go of notions of permanence and perpetuation, and I am less able to enter the depth of being.
I was well-schooled in the christian preoccupation with what is yet to come, what will occur after I leave the world of senses. The shadow of that notion has hidden the rich, all-embracing nature of the present moment and limited my ability to enter into it. The more I distance myself from that shadowing mythology of heaven and hell, the more sacred and precious the present becomes.
Even my preparing in small ways for my temporal future, for next week, shadows what is directly before me. Without a shadow of the future, I can more mindfully touch the loose soil around the Pansies as I push them into the open holes I’ve made in the ground. My fingers more earnestly sense what really exists. There is no shadow of the future. The sensation is both one of impermanence and one of touching all that exists. My fingers push into the timeless now. Without the shadow of what is yet to come, I know more deeply what touches my skin.
Without the shadow of what is yet to be, I am able to touch and see what is otherwise partly obscured. I relax, and there is no tension to the future. I am able to more deeply experience the body of myself and others with a fulness that is otherwise obscured by any leaning to the future. The sound of the chime in my garden drifts into a relaxed world of a forever now when I listen with no notion of continuance, of what will happen next.
I realize that much of my experience of life, of reality has been shadowed by the belief of an afterlife. It has distracted me from what is truly happening right now. The whole notion of merit or sin, the idea of future reward or punishment, have shielded me from a full experience of what is always happening right now.
I intend to plunge into a deep earthly experience. I desire a sacred earthly awareness that allows me to enter into the widest dimension of what is. I want my encounter of being to happen outside the shadows.