What in fact is the past? The past is not a reality; it’s just a concept. The future corresponds to projections, anticipations that do not have any reality either. The past has already occurred; the future does not yet exist. These notions affect us as realities, although they have no substance. The present is the truth that we are experiencing here and now, but it is an elusive reality that does not last. We find ourselves in a paradoxical situation in which the present constitutes a border, a limit between a past and a future without any concrete reality. The present is that elusive moment between what no longer exists and what has not yet happened.

These notions that we take as “reality” are pure intellectual fabrications that do not involve an independent reality, existent in itself. According to the Buddha, perceived phenomena exist only from the standpoint of their designation—that is, the names and concepts we attach to them. The functioning of phenomena does not reveal a palpable entity that is uniquely theirs. You could compare phenomena to a mirage: the closer you get to it, the farther away it gets, until it disappears. Similarly faced with the mind that analyzes them, phenomena vanish.

— Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

(Photo by Éole Wind)

“I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

— Jesus

“One cannot be spiritual as long as one has shame, hatred, or fear. … Great men have the nature of a child. They are always a child before God; so they are free from pride. All their strength is of God and not their own. It belongs to Him and comes from Him.”

— Ramakrishna

Be a child, free yourself from pride, free yourself from guilt. Free yourself from concepts and opinions you have about yourself. All past, even upto the last second, is gone, good or bad, it’s never going to come back. All those things people said or thought about you, opinions people had about you, good or bad, all is gone. The present moment is the only real time, the universe renews itself every moment. When you free your mind from the past, you give birth to yourself each moment, you join the flow of life, you are alive!

Be a child, be happy

Photo by ValetheKid

Meditation is offering your genuine presence to yourself in every moment. It’s the capacity to recognize clearly that every moment is a gift of life, a gift from the Earth and sky.

— Thich Nhat Hanh

Picture by Seldom Scene Photography

No matter what you’re doing, you can choose to do it with your full presence, with mindfulness and concentration; and your action becomes a spiritual practice.

— Thich Nhat Hanh

Photo by h.koppdelaney

“I have noticed that when one enters into an activity that necessitates great physical endurance, what tires one most is anticipating beforehand all the difficulties to which one will be exposed. It is much wiser to see at every moment only the difficulty of the present instant; in this way the effort becomes much easier for it is always proportionate to the amount of strength, the resistance at one’s disposal.”

— The Mother (Mirra Alfassa)

Photo courtesy: Susanica

“Past and future exist only in our memory. The present moment, though, is outside of time, it’s Eternity. In India, they use the word ‘karma,’ for lack of any better term. But it’s a concept that’s rarely given a proper explanation. It isn’t what you did in the past that will affect the present. It’s what you do in the present that will redeem the past and thereby change the future.”

(From Aleph by Paulo Coelho)

There are two ways to live your life.

1. Live like a zombie and allow the karma (momentum generated by your past actions) run (or ruin) your life, or…

2. Live consciously, take total control of your life in the present and shape your future just like a sculptor shapes a sculpture.

The key is the present moment. The present moment is where all action happens. Conscious action in the present moment is what unlinks the future from the influence of the past, redeems the past and changes your future.

Yoga Vasishta categorically states…

There is no power greater than right action in the present. …

What is called fate or divine will is nothing other than the action or self-effort of the past. The present is infinitely more potent than the past. They are indeed fools who are satisfied with the fruits of their past effort (which they regard as divine will) and do not engage themselves in self-effort now.

So, how would you live your life? Would you be satisfied with the fruits of your past effort, let the momentum from your past take control of your life and your future? Or will you decide to live consciously, use the present moment to redeem the past and shape your future?

Decide, now.

“The rich man plans for tomorrow, the poor man for today.”

— Chinese Proverb

We discuss a lot about the importance of being in the present moment, so how do we reconcile being in the present moment with planning for tomorrow? The answer, simply put, is that it’s all about being fully aware in the present moment planning for tomorrow!

Now to the details…

We must remember that planning for tomorrow is not the same thing as getting anxious about tomorrow. Getting anxious about tomorrow and speculating uncertainties, we won’t be able to take any clear course of action in the present moment. Anxiety and worry is unnecessary waste of time and energy.

Considering the possibilities of tomorrow, intending how we want tomorrow to be, focusing on doing the things we have to do now that will take us there, and be totally aware and enjoy the things that we do now — this is what we mean by being in the present moment.

When you plan for tomorrow’s travel today and take the necessary actions like reserving tickets, booking accommodation, etc., you will have a ‘rich’ travel tomorrow in the sense that you will have a hassle free travel. But planning in the last moment introduces more possibilities of hassle, and hence the travel might turn out to be ‘poor’.

Planning for tomorrow (or the future) is similar to working in a team. A number of people bound together by a purpose and working together in harmony will achieve more than what all those people will achieve when they all work separately each with their own purpose. If working in a group can be considered horizontal integration, then working with a plan is vertical integration. Consider yourself to composed of many different personalities, a different person each day. When all those personalities in you work together harmoniously with a specific vision and purpose, you will have a ‘rich’ life in terms of achievement and meaningful experiences. But when each of those personalities in you have their own agenda, act on impulse and work against each other, your life will be messed up.

Planning for tomorrow, integrating different aspects of your personality and working with a clearly defined purpose is certainly not contradictory to being in the present moment. In fact, having a specific plan and clear purpose helps you avoid unnecessary speculations and helps you stay focused in the present moment. Your mind is clear of anxieties and you enjoy whatever you are doing now, that is all that matters.

“Prejudice of any kind implies that you are identified with the thinking mind. It means you don’t see the other human being anymore, but only your own concept of that human being. To reduce the aliveness of another human being to a concept is already a form of violence.”

— Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks, p. 20.

The unreal never is; The real never is not. The truth about both has been seen by the knowers of the Truth (or the seers of the Essence).

— Bhagavad Gita 2.17

The unreal never is. The unreal was, the unreal would be, but the unreal never is.

The past and the future does not exist outside of our minds. What you think as past is nothing but stored up memories. What you think as past is nothing more than your own account of what happened. It can never be an accurate account of what actually happened. Even if you think it’s accurate, it exists only in your mind right now. It is not real. The past never is. You have the present, the reality in front of you right now, so why worry about the past? There is no reason to worry about the past, and there is no reason to bask in the glory thinking about some good that has happened to you in the past. It is no more.

Similarly, what you think as future is only your own imagination of what would happen, it has not happened yet. The future never is. The future is unreal. There is no reason to fear about something that might happen the future, because there is every chance your fears won’t come true, and you are only spoiling your present with your unnecessary and unpleasant imaginations. Likewise, there is no reason to be excited about something good that might happen in the future because there is every chance what you anticipate won’t happen, and by getting excited you take your focus away from the present and you are only heading towards disappointment.

Reality is now. This is the truth. Be real. Be in the now.

Ego is that state of awareness which thinks of you as separate from the other. Ego thinks in terms of guiltiness and shames and glories of the past, and it thinks in terms of fears and hopes about the future. It never thinks about what ‘is’, but always thinks about ‘what was’ and ‘what could be’. Ego thinks in terms of many as opposed to the One, the one pure intelligence.

What is pure intelligence?

It’s commonly called ‘common sense’, or the ‘presence of mind’. At any moment, when you do the most appropriate thing in the most appropriate way without any influence of the stored up memories of your past and without any regards to fears of failure or hopes of future rewards, you let the pure intelligence act through you. This pure intelligence may be called the Soul or super-ego or God or universal consciousness. The term ‘pure intelligence’ is used here in preference for others because ‘intelligence’ is one term you can easily identify with compared to the other terms.

So, how is the ego different from pure intelligence?

Ego is self identity. It’s labeling yourself, painting the ‘pure you’ with distinct qualities. And this ego labels others too. The ego cannot but think in terms of these qualities and it always defines yourself as somebody distinct from others. But these qualities and definitions are not fixed or constant. The paint wears off in time and as it wears off, the ego freshly paints the worn off patches of with new qualities and new definitions, and gives an illusion of continuity. This illusion of continuity of qualities strengthen self identity. Now, completely strip off these qualities and definitions, and you will find that the ‘pure you’ and the ‘pure other’ are one and the same, there has always been only one existence, call it the One, or the Soul, or God. The consciousness of this God is pure intelligence itself.

The foremost quality of ego is self preservation. It always tries to impose it’s definition of yourself onto others around you and into your own future. That’s where the problem comes and conflict comes. You define yourself as somebody now, and you want to preserve this definition of yourself into the future until you get a better definition. You are afraid that if you lose this definition of yourself, you will fall. You will become lesser. This fear is the hallmark of the ego. So, when you actually get to the future, your ‘new’ ego tries to define itself anew and comes into conflict with your older definition of yourself that tries to preserve itself. Similarly, when you try to impose your definition to others, the ‘other’ ego resists it and there comes a conflict. So you see, there is a conflict both in terms time and space. Remove this illusion of time and space and there is no more conflict. But pure intelligence doesn’t need any preservation, because it knows itself to be the only existence.

So, how do I identify whether I’m acting egoistic or with God consciousness?

This ‘attempt’ to identify is itself ego. Don’t ‘try’ to identify, but just be. Pure intelligence doesn’t ‘try’ or ‘attempt’, it just IS.

Pure intelligence works in harmony. In reality, there is is only one, the pure existence, consciousness, bliss absolute. It’s not ‘my’ existence or ‘my’ consciousness or ‘your’ consciousness, but it’s THE consciousness, THE existence and bliss. It’s not that I am intelligent or I was intelligent or you are intelligent, but it’s THE pure intelligence. This intelligence acts harmoniously. That is, the intelligence acts through you now in a certain way and it may act through you in a different way in some point of time in the future, but there is no conflict between both the ways. There is harmony. So, when pure intelligence acts through you now and does something, it’s helpful for you in the future, and you’ll never regret. Similarly, the intelligence may work differently through you and somebody else (a different point in space), but there is no conflict between both of you. There is only harmony. All of us complement and complete each other and don’t conflict each other when there is only intelligence and not egos acting.

But the ego is always intent on conflict. The ego says “I’m right and he is wrong”, or, ” I was wrong”, or “I made a mistake”, or “I’m afraid that I will fail”, or “I should be like this in the future”. Note that pure intelligence at times uses idea of future as a guidance for present action, as in reserving a ticket now for your future travel. But, pure intelligence is all about the present. Ego, on the other hand, lives in the past or in the future. When you imagine unreal things, like a future dialogue between you and somebody else, know that it’s the ego. You may imagine your future now, but you can never live your future, sure it may become real when it happens eventually, but it’s unreal as of now, it’s just imagination. When you feel guilty about your past mistake, or relive your past glory, know that it’s the ego.

Pure intelligence is about reality. Ego is about imagination. Note that pure intelligence visualises, but never imagines. Visualisation is creativity, imagination is speculation. Through visualisation, you create your own world for yourself. Through imagination, you lose yourselves in the mires of time.

Ego always needs and craves for something. But pure intelligence is rich by itself and doesn’t need anything from outside, because, it knows that there is no outside.

Pure intelligence fulfills. Ego imitates. When you are in the state of ego, you try to imitate your own past success or you imitate somebody else. Pure intelligence is ever original, ever creative.

Ego always looks up to others for help. It looks for an authority, It wants a rulebook so that it can imitate. Pure intelligence is intelligence itself, so it doesn’t need somebody external to lay down rules for itself. But beware, pure intelligence doesn’t even lay down it’s own rules for itself. When you say you are sufficient by yourself and you will never accept others opinions, it’s still your ego. Pure intelligence, though it doesn’t need external rules, does appreciate the wisdom behind rules laid down by wise men, which is nothing but an expression of the same pure intelligence, though at different time through a different person. Pure intelligence is always intent on finding harmony.

But acting without rules doesn’t mean chaos. Pure intelligence not needing rules don’t mean it acts haphazardly, but it helps you do take the most appropriate action now in the most appropriate way.

This pure intelligence is God, it’s You, it’s Now. It’s the only reality. All else is stored up memory and imagination. All else is unreal.

(On June 20, 2008, I asked these questions to myself and got these answers popped up in the awareness. I posted this earlier in my old blog. Nevertheless, it’s worth reading again.)