17th October 2011.

Philosophers like J Krishnamurthy ask us to live in the Present. What is actually meant by living in the Present?

Are we not living in the Present? The answer is, most often not. We are often haunted by either our past or future. This is the truth. Our mind has a deep association with our past and future unpleasant past and uncertain future. Our dealings with the world people, places and incidents tell us that the sphere of our emotional past is an inseparable one and an anxious future is the very rejoinder of them. We can cite many examples.

Thus, we miss the Present moment. We get either drifted into our past or future. Can we retrieve the living moment? This is the question. When we are contended, we seem to be living in the Present but when haunted by emotions and excitement, by perilous situations, we lose sight of the present moment and fall into the lagoon of our past or drift into the vastness of future. So, one key factor to be living in the Present is contentment. But remember, contentment is only a state of mind that is subject to changing situations. Can we overcome the impact of changing situations and remain in a steady, pleasant mood?

This is our very challenging area. Is is possible to feel life as a continuous flow of the same

experience always? Can we accept both misery and happiness in the same sense and degree? Then only, the flow of the same experience, the steadiness in life can be maintained.

For ordinary people like us, misery is a miserable situation and happiness is a positive one. Thus, we all long only for positive situations and not for negative situations but we all know that life is an admixture of both positive and negative situations. It is important to remember that by negating miserable situations we practically gain nothing. We only add resistance to such situations and such protestation and resistance will further drain our mental resources to face the situations with boldness and courage and with clarity of perception. What do we after all gain by trying to run away from unpleasant situations? How far can we try to escape from such situations?

So, an acceptance of life should be there to view the flow of life as a continuous and steady experience. Misery also has to be accepted so that we will get a solution to overcome the obstacle. Both misery and happiness are always relative. Such relativity is decided by the degree of our mind in a given situation. One may feel to be miserable but another may not feel to be so

miserable. For Ramana Maharshi and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, cancer was not at all a miserable sitution. What I mean to say is that our attitude towards a miserable situation plays an important degree in deciding whether the situation is miserable or not. If we have an acceptance of life, we can have a healthy mental attitude towards the so called miserable situation. Great masters of philosophy would always stress on the point that no situation practically gives us any problem and the whole problem lies in our reaction to a given situation. We need a reflection on this point. We can take this way or that way also but are we doing this?

Thus, it follows that we need enough equanimity to be living in the Present. In the language of Vedanta, this level headedness is termed as Sthita Pragya. The pre-condition is that one should accept life as it is. Summer will come and so winter and monsoon. Pain will come and pleasure too. Nothing is permanent here in this world of mortal experience. So, why worry about our Past and Future? Past is past and future is very uncertain. We cannot take a journey into our past and correct ourselves, others or the situations. We cannot fly into the future to get away from the path of misery and death. Actually, the very thought of an unsecured life, the thought of death

seem to be the main culprit in forcing us away from our living moments. Why do we tend to count only our loss and not our profit? Why are we deeply thinking only about our failures and not our successes in life? Why do we forget god in our victorious moments and always blame Him in moments of failure? Such double attitude wont work. Can we look unto our past only as a witness without attaching any emotions? Can we look unto our future without assigning any negative sign to it?

We have so many discrimination, mental divisions and this is our pitfall. Can we look at the stream of life not as a difference but as unity in diversity? Our thoughts hover around differences and contradictions rather than feeling for variety and diversity at the core. Such an attitude would bring in more misery than happiness, a less contended life.

The net result is that we will not only be missing the Present moment but will be living in our unpleasant past and projecting ourselves into a bleak future for no gain. Mind will get contaminated. Our thoughts will follow only a nagging life. This will not only drive us to a tight corner but will also affect people around us.

Do we really wish for such a homicide of humanity? Dont we have any responsibility for the upcoming generations? Dont they also need good views in life for their healthy survival?

Beyond a possessive attitude, let us maintain the attitude of custodianship. All our possessions - be it wealth, our house, our institutions, this Nature or environment are meant for our future generations as well. Let us try to maintain them from the point of custodianship. Our forefathers have gifted this Nature and environment and all such possessions for our healthy survival but are we doing the same for the survival of future generations? So, to be living in the Present has its own meaning. Let us not waste our mental energies on trivial matters and by getting engrossed in Past and Future.

Be loyal unto thyself. Be a witness to the stream of life. Be a custodian of all thy possessions for the benefit of future generations. Be living in the Present with equanimity, without blaming the world for own setbacks. Remember, we cannot either teach or correct the world. All that we can do is self teaching, self learning and self correction. At the most, we can guide people

around us by our good words and good deeds and not more than that. To be living in the Present is very much part of a Steady State Theory.

18th October 2011. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx