The Eckhart-Abraham paradox: Live for the moment or live for a dream?
. . .
Though there are infinitely nuanced ways to approach life, two ends of the spectrum are these:
- Live for the moment
- Live for a dream
If you are a fan of contemporary spiritual teachings you could even call it the Eckhart-Abraham paradox.
Eckhart Tolle is famous for The Power of Now, about ridding your thoughts of future and past and living fully in the present moment.
The channeled teachings of Abraham Hicks popularized the Law of Attraction concept, where you summon future events into your experience according to your thoughts and feelings. If you are not living something now that you desire to live, it is all about thinking and feeling the future experience you desire as if you are living it now . . . until your desire materializes into your life.
You could as easily call it the Eastern-Western paradox.
There are people who live both. My brother is an example. Highly driven to attain his goals, he is also perhaps the most in the moment person I know, fully alive in everything he does, moment by moment.
I struggle with this.
For many people one theme of living is predominant. For decades I was pure live for the moment. In the last few years I’ve found myself living for a vision. Yet I seek a unity for the two poles in the way others have, the way you suspect Gandhi or Edison did.
I seek to to live a life vision in the moment.
Is that cheating? Is it as simple as that, splicing the two themes together?
It may sound absurd, but having just written that, I feel closer to resolving the paradox for myself.