Live in the Moment, Because This Moment, Right Here Right Now, Is All We Have

My body is shaking in a frenzy like motion. My eyes roll back and my spine feels like a snake, waving in a fiery yet smooth movement, back and forth, up and down, climbing and aiming to burst out and fly. In that moment I had no way of knowing that within less than thirty seconds I would reach one of the biggest insights of my life. 

I arrived to the AUM marathon in a time of crossroads in my life. One era was nearing the end but the following hasn’t started yet. One direction was made clear, but not taken yet. My heart felt ready for the next big thing, but it still didn’t know what it was. Past and present were mixed up and the future was still unclear, too foggy to even see it is there. 

And then came this moment of deep crystal clarity. It was while doing a shorter version of the AUM meditation. How short? I don’t know, but we kept doing it again and again and each time it was getting shorter. I could literally feel the sand in the hourglass falling. 

Then came the shaking phase. Recently it has become my favourite. I already know the music by heart so I can match my shaking to it and totally soar and fly with it, often in ecstasy. I know the drill. 

So we start shaking and I shake, hear the music and slowly build up the rhythm, the shaking, preparing to be total once the music gives me the cue. And then it hit me. 

We are doing a shorter and unexpected version – what if the cue doesn’t come? What if the music ends before it reaches my favourite part? what if we switch to the next stage before I reached my climax, what if while waiting for it i miss it? What if while I continue waiting for the next moment, I miss fully living the one I am in? Oh wow.

Many times before I have heard the words “carpe diem”. 

Seize the day, everybody tells you. Live in the moment, because this moment, right here right now, is all we have. But it wasn’t until this specific moment that I finally fully understood what it means, with every cell of my body.  

And this moment of realization was just one, in a week of many more. So many more followed.

People asked me about the marathon: so what did you do? Well, we did the AUM. All the time? Well, yes but also no. Always in the same format? Definitely not. 

So what was it about that familiar meditation that suddenly became such an agent of transformation for me? 

I guess the intensity is key. Doing the AUM in marathon days and marathon space, is like condensing a year into one week. A year’s worth of experiences, learnings and insights, joys and heartaches, laughter and tears, madness and relaxation. It’s like putting yourself through the Hadron Collider and coming out on the other side as the God particle. This is the AUM marathon for me. Pretty nice, isn’t it?

Gaby