An excerpt from “The Still Point: The Simplicity of Spiritual Enlightenment” by Kevin Krenitsky

Reprinted with permission from Waterside Productions Inc. 2022

THE UNNATURAL STATE OF BOREDOM AND IMPATIENCE

If we begin to truly examine our day-to-day experience, we will see that most of us are in a constant state of either impatience or boredom. We are always looking to the next moment, or the next experience, to come and deliver us into some sense of peace and fulfillment, but it rarely does. It rarely does because when it comes, we go right on anticipating the next moment without enjoying the peace of the only moment we are ever given, which is now. In the rare times we are not continually waiting for the promise of the next moment, we wander into the past with thought and either regret what has already occurred or fantasize about what we could have done differently. Take some time to really look at your life in this way and see how very rare the moments of true peace and relaxation are. The near constant state of unease most humans experience is usually the best-case scenario because when you add any amount of anxiety to the mix, which a huge number of people suffer from, the anticipation of the future contains a constant level of worry. With anxiety, we still continually reject the present moment in favor of a future moment, but now we also expect something bad to happen in that very future moment we pine for. This is living in bondage that has become so “normal” to most people they don’t even question it or recognize its insanity.

At some points during our lives, we get something that we have been greatly desiring, such as a new job, a big house, or a romantic partner, and for a short time we are content. Instead of realizing this brief happiness is due to the cessation of the constant wanting that came from acquiring the object of our desire, we wrongly project the cause of the happiness onto the object itself. As soon as the happiness or contentment wears off, we start subtly, or not so subtly, searching for the next object to acquire to become happy again. All the while we overlook the true cause of our misery, which is the constant desire to reject the now or “what is” in favor of a better future moment. Thus, the nature of ignorant living, or “living in delusion,” is living as a prisoner to thoughts. The price you pay for identifying your very self with your thoughts and feelings is unhappiness at best and misery at worst. With the rejection of your true nature as the Still Point of awareness, you willingly give up the only recognition that is happiness and peace itself.

Kevin Krenitsky is a medical doctor and author of “The Still Point.” Despite leading a life deemed outwardly “successful,” he lived with a deep background of anxiety, fear, and stress that waxed and waned since early childhood. At the age of forty, in the midst of decades of suppressing tremendous inner and outer conflict, he reasoned there must be another way. This ‘willingness’ led to a decade of studying non-duality by way of “A Course in Miracles.” In 2015, at the height of a successful business career as Chief Commercial Officer at Foundation Medicine (FMI), Kevin turned away into relative isolation, and found the direct path to recognizing ones true nature. He wrote “The Still Point” to help others find their eternal nature, which is happiness itself.