Live in the Present

Live in Present

 

One, who thinks that happiness is in the outside world; who is under the foolish impression that he can be happy by eating delicious food, by viewing beautiful sights or by enjoying sensory pleasures; wanders endlessly in different worlds – heavens or netherworlds – but he only gets exhausted being entangled in false worldly pleasures and fantasies. He finds himself incapable of treading the path to God-realization. ‘This path is not for me’, he says. Nothing can be farther from truth. You are born as a human being. It is your birth right to attain divine peace. You are born to tread the path to God. You are given intellect and faith only to attain Self-bliss. Why can you not tread this path? It is not impossible. In fact this is the only task you can do successfully. In all other tasks, you cannot achieve all time success. It is well nigh impossible always to be successful in all walks of life but you can surely attain all time success in Self-God.

If you render devotional service to the Lord and seek worldly things in return, you are sadly mistaken. If you get reposed in Self, your intellect becomes sharp and these small problems will get solved automatically. If you start living in the present, these small troubles will automatically disappear.

‘My wife should obey me… my husband should obey me… my son should be obedient… my body should be free from diseases… I should get sense-enjoyments… I should attain this much wealth or such and such position… then I will be happy…’ Such thoughts rob you of your present wealth of happiness and impoverish you. Each and every man, in his present state, can attain deliverance instantly if he simply attains Knowledge of his Inherently Blissful Self and reposes therein. Renouncing the desire for external pleasures, if one reposes in the Self-Bliss, his delusion will get destroyed and he will gain the memory (Knowledge) of the real Self.   ‘नष्टो मोहः स्मृतिर्लब्धवा’”  Whatever clothes are available at home, wear them; eat simple food cooked at home; when feeling sleepy, sleep wherever you find the place to. Don’t dream for palaces or make it a necessity to arrange for exquisite bedding. If you must, then make it a necessity to shun thoughts of the past and the future and repose in the Eternal Present, where worries have no place.

The gap between two consecutive thoughts of the past or the future is the state of Supreme Self, the Pure Consciousness. One who is always Conscious of this state is God; one trying to be so is a sadhaka and one completely ignorant of it is a worldly man mired in fleeting pleasures of the world. The pleasures may be of our world or of celestial worlds, all of them are worldly pleasures.

When you sit for meditation or devotional practices and worldly thoughts, desires and plans creep in, mentally burn them like offering oblations to the sacrificial fire. This will help you repose in the Eternal Present. Of course, you will not be able to stay there for the wandering habit of the mind is deep-rooted. If you chant “›’, the manifest Word of Supreme Brahman, in protracted intonation, you will get rid of thoughts of the past and the future and come into the present. If you observe your thoughts minutely and reflect on what is happening, the gap between two consecutive thoughts – the previous thought coming to an end and the new thought rising – will increase. This increasing of the gap is reposing in God. If the gap increases to three minutes – just three minutes – you will attain the supreme state of Nirvikalpa Samadhi, you will attain Self-realization. The more you repose in that State, the more will you attain spiritual power.

Know Thy Self And Be Free

Through ages gone by, the torch of truth, of supernal beauty and immortality, of the enduring values of life, of the secrets of spiritual illumination, has been passed on through a succession of great and glorious souls, the teachers of humanity, the custodians of all that is worth living for.In the vast, sprawling school of life, studded with myriads of beckoning entities and experiences, Nature Herself, the stupendous Teacher par excellence, holds out the means to the solution of all vexing problems, mysteries and anomalies.“He that hath eyes, let him see.” The message is there always, the listeners, too, are there. But those who deliberately shut their eyes and ears, would slumber on in their self-wrought gloom of nescience; for no awakening can be truly effective unless there is a reciprocal willingness to wake up.

Sincerity and earnestness, faith and willingness to learn, are therefore the first essential requisite that every seeker must possess. Then he must have the gift of rational discrimination to sift out the genuine from the false, the desirable from the undesirable, the conducive from the incompatible, and thereafter, a firm determination to hold on to what he has chosen with unreserved faith and consistency, and pursue his ideal with relentless perseverance.

The relationship between the Guru and the disciple can hardly be enduring when pivoted on a relative understanding, on a mundane sense of reciprocation. How best could one serve one’s preceptor? In the very best way that pleases him most, through implicit obedience spurred by a clear-cut and unbiased understanding. The most fruitful service that one can render to the preceptor is to be a pellucid example of his precept.

Seekers of Truth! On the holy occasion of the Guru Purnima, dedicate yourselves afresh to the service of the teachers of humanity, to the ideals lived by them, to the teachings bestowed by them. Hearken their message of peace and goodwill, of unselfish love towards all beings, of willing service to the suffering and the forlorn, of purification and refinement of your nature, of cultivation of all that are positive and desirable, and effacement of all that are crude, coarse, mean and impure.

Forget not the goal. Forget not that truth is real untruth a dereliction; success is real, failure an impetus; virtue is real, vice its enunciation; love is real, hate a misguided impulse; happiness is real, sorrow a self-delusion life is real, death a changing phase of life itself, always directed towards the better.

Meditate, and usher in the dawn of peace and inner illumination. Introspect, and cleanse the dross of mundane desires. Reflect, and sift the real from the unreal. Amidst this earthly panorama of colour and pageant, of candour and deceit, of ardour and disdain, of panegyrics and calumny, through the waxing and waning of life,—find grace and poise and beauty and happiness in the solitude of your heart, in the sanctum of your essential spiritual nature. Be a witness! Know thyself, and be free!

May the blessings of the Brahmavidya Gurus, of the past and the present, be ever upon you all!