THE ETERNAL NOW
I only live in the moment. There is no past, and there is no future. People must realize this: there is only the present. Because most people live in the past, they project the past into the future, and they forget the present.
What is more important to you? The past is gone, and the future might never come, but to live in the present. Where are you now? Ask yourself this question? You are in the present, and the present is the most critical moment to be considered. I am now in the presence of our family, and I am living here with my family and my Guru in our presence. This is the present.
If you realize this fact, you will live in the presence. What is that presence that you live in? The presence of Divinity guides your present moment and makes you live in the present, which is an excellent present given to you by Divinity. Divinity is not in the past or the future, but the present is now, and Divinity is here now. And when that realization dawns on you, you will find yourself to be a much, much better person. That is for sure.
THE PAST IS PAST, AND THE FUTURE IS UNKNOWN
When you live in the past, you are involved in your worries: “Oh, I have done this, and I have done that, and I have done that.” You mull over it, and you lose the moment of the presence, and then after that, you project it into the future. “I am going to a party next week,” you tell yourself. The party is only next week on Saturday but from now on you are thinking about what kind of dress you should wear and you will wear this, and you will wear that, and you will go shopping to look so beautiful. But everyone is doing that, and you will be surprised there will be five women there, for example, who will have the same kind of dress. So where are you? Instead, be undressed and bare yourself totally to Divinity.
When you bear yourself, your mind, heart, and soul, to Divinity, you are living life; otherwise, it is just stupidity. You are stupefied because you do not recognize the presence of life. This is the moment you are living in. Look around you. Look around the room. What have you noticed in the room? What is your awareness of that Divine essence? The essence is here and now within your hearts. So that is where you belong. Nowhere else, nowhere else.
The past is past; the future is unknown. But this is here; you live in this present moment and enjoy this present moment, for that very enjoyment of the present moment is to recognize the Divine essence within you, so why beat around the bush and go from here to there, to there, turning around and round in the past and the future when you can just go to the garden and capture the present.
OBSERVE THE THORNS OF LIFE, BUT LET YOUR ATTENTION BE ON THE BEAUTY OF THE ROSE
A beautiful rose is growing in the garden, but you beat around the bush of life and ignore the beauty of that beautiful rose. Why can you not be one with that rose? Be one with the rose, and there will be thorns; accept it because that is life. But where is your concentration? Where is your mind on the thorns or on the beauty of that lovely rose? That is the idea of life. That is the actual living of life.
Observe the thorns; why not? But the thorns will not prick me if my life is lived well. Because my attention will not be on the thorns, my attention will be on the beauty of the rose. Look at life in this way and observe the beauty of the rose and not the pricking of the thorns. There again, we come to the subject of mental attitude. Where is your attention? Think about that on the thorns or the rose.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang CAN 1987 – 04
