Words From The Master - 25 March 2008

Stop Postponing, Start Living

Once, there was a man who had just bought a new car after learning a bit of driving. He sat in his new car and got it started but soon, lost control of the car and crashed into a tree. A friend, who came to his rescue, asked him in surprise, ‘Don’t you know how to drive?’

The man replied exasperatedly, ‘What do you mean by asking whether I know how to drive? Of course I know how to drive; I know how to start and move it; only I don’t know how to stop it!’

We are in a very similar state where our mind drives us instead of us being in control of it. The mind is just the collection of all your thoughts. So, if you don’t have clarity in your thoughts, you are in a confused state of mind.

Just try this experiment: sit down for five minutes, write down all the thoughts as they come to your mind, honestly, without editing. Then, read what you have written and you will realize that we are running a mental asylum inside our heads! One moment, you would be thinking about your workplace, in the next, for no reason, about the house and then, about your kids. There is no logic in the way our mind moves from one thought to another.

Bring your mind to the present moment, to live life from moment to moment. Then, life will become joy, bliss, ecstasy as you will live your life more intensely. If you are eating, eat it with totality. Whatever you do, do it totally, with full consciousness and awareness.

Start enjoying intensely what you have in life. This will give you an immensely deep satisfaction and reveal a whole new dimension of life. There is no need to renounce anything that you have. Just renounce what you don’t have! That which is not there, but which troubles you as if it is there, is what is maya.

As Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, do your duty but don’t crave the result. This does not mean that you work without expecting your salary. Let the job itself become the enjoyment. When you enjoy the path, even if you fail to get the desired result, you will feel deeply satisfied. If you do not enjoy the path, even if you succeed, you will still feel dissatisfied. You can never enjoy only the goal unless you choose to enjoy the path first.

Tomorrow is also going to come to you as today. You can either enjoy in this moment or never! It is your choice.