The Immediate Now

"The central core of the spiritual experience seems to be the conviction, or insight, that the immediate now, whatever its nature, is the goal and fulfillment of all living."

-- Alan Watts

This Is It. That's the title of the Alan Watts book from which the above quotation is drawn. And that's his main point throughout the book -- the eternal now is all we have, all there truly is.

There's no pie-in-the-sky heaven somewhere that we need to get to. There are no astral shenanigans in which we need to partake. In fact, there is no future accomplishment whatsoever towards which we need to strive. Merely being fully here, right now is both the best we can do and all there truly is.

Kind of destroys the whole game doesn't it? If, indeed, this is it, what the hell are we stressing about, busting our humps to achieve, or bickering about with our global neighbors? We can relax, and, as another spiritual classic reminds us in its title, "be here now."

Can you do it? Can you be here now? Can you give up all your favorite theories, divisive beliefs, and pet peeves, and just be here, spiritually naked and unadorned, in the present? Can you be in Reality without feeling compelled to filter it, interpret it, or resist it, and instead just let it be?

Today is a great day to see. Indeed, everyday our challenge is the same -- to simply be fully and consciously present in anything and everything that we do. Or, put another way: Our life, our home is in the present. Come home to your life. Come home to Now.