There exists a propensity towards the mundane integrated within the teachings of masters to their students. The 1984 film, The Karate Kid illustrates this magisterial concept casually during the iconic “wax on, wax off” scene. In the movie, Daniel (the protagonist) seeks the help of Mr. Miyagi (a martial arts master) so that he can defend himself against a group of bullies at his school that just so happen to study karate. One of the first lessons Mr. Miyagi gives to Daniel entails washing a car. Frustratedly, Daniel cannot understand the correlation between car detailing and self-defense skills. Yet, herein lies the dormant butterfly within the caterpillar.

It happens that the deepest spiritual truths are found in shallow waters. Nonetheless, our search for God is limited to the miraculously prodigious. We wait with unabashed eagerness for seas to part and the dead to be resurrected. But if we are to heed the teachings of the master, we must look to the prosaic.

We all seem to be disinterested in the now. This concept is brutally apparent to me whenever I am in traffic. I see drivers all the time, weaving in and out of lanes, furiously accelerating to a red light. An internal dialogue resounds the “weirdness” of this: Why would you be in such a hurry just to have to stop? However, we all take part in this “rushing through” of life in some form or another don’t we?

Whenever we are “here” it seems as if this condition of being human continuously coerces a desire within to be elsewhere. While at work, we endeavor with each passing second to move the clock closer to “time to go home.” While at home, we use our imagination to place ourselves elsewhere than the now as well; perhaps a white sandy beach would suit our disposition better. In the airport on the way to that white sandy beach, we impatiently scoff at the lines and other travelers, dreaming of a time, not right now. We’re poor but we want to be rich. We have money but we want more. Why does it seem as if the present moment is always lacking some sort of Divine anointment only garnered by a future occasion?

I have an inquisitive childlike mind even in my adulthood. I’m always questioning the purpose of life, reality, and the state of things so much so that I know God wants to just answer me with, “because I said so!” But She never does. The profoundly intrinsic theoretical concepts I portray to my Heavenly consort are rebuttal-ed with burning bush like paradigms… “shekinah glory!” When it comes to this particular question regarding the topic of our earthly abhorrence towards the now, accompanied with my pestering interminable question concerning my purpose, Spirit replied to me as follows: What if you treated every instance as if it were your purpose, the sole reason why you were put on this planet?

Simple yet brilliant!

Trying this idea out for myself (treating every instance as if it was my purpose and the sole reason I was put on this planet) somehow changed my entire vibrational frequency every time I practiced it. Something profound happens during the process:

  1. Time feels like it ceases to exist.
  2. My worries go away.
  3. It makes me feel closer to The Divine.
  4. I feel more motivated to do whatever it is I am doing with more attention, effort, and heart. Therefore, I tend to accel at the task at hand.
  5. A loving humbleness fills my aura because I understand that even if it is washing dishes or folding laundry, I am doing God’s work.
  6. Because it feels like I am doing God’s work, it also feels like I have finally figured it all out, even in the simple act of sitting in traffic or tying my shoes. The purpose of all of this is to be here right now, totally, and fully immersed in the present.

Perhaps the most important realization I’ve become aware of through this concept is that, if you keep rushing through life, one day you will look up and it will be over.

Everything is always moving. Our entire reality is made up of atoms which can behave as matter or light waves. No matter which way they show up to our perception, they are always even at a submicroscopic level, excited (dancing around, vibrating, moving). This signifies that you are always going to be in motion as well because you are made up of atoms. Due to this fact, you really don’t have to concern yourself with rushing through life because, wherever it is that you want to go, you will find yourself there one day.

You go to church, you pray, you read the bible, you search lo here! lo there! Yet if God where a drug, you seemingly fall short of experiencing the highness of His effects.

You want to know something super cool? There are cells that lie dormant within the caterpillar that hold the DNA structure of a butterfly. This implies that unbeknownst to a caterpillar he/she is a butterfly the whole time. So, imagine being a caterpillar and being upset and not being able to taste sweet nectar or being worried about never being able to fly because it’s taking you too long to become a butterfly. Imagine a whole world, an entire existence, and a complete life you would miss due to your ignorance and displeasure in the now.

Say not then lo here, or lo there, but understand that the Kingdom of Heaven is here, in the seeming irrelevant and ostensibly mundane present moment. This is why all the spiritual masters of the past and present harp on meditation and its importance. This is why you are Daniel in the story frustrated with Mr. Miyagi. You have come to your higher power and asked for deliverance, yet She will only tell you to sit down and breathe. If you cannot find peace, love, happiness, abundance, joy, and miracles in the now, you will never find them.

Next time when you’re late for work and you feel like rushing, or you’re at work and just want to go home, focus on your breath and pretend as if the purpose you were put on earth for was to be exactly where you are in that present moment and see what happens.