Words From The Master - 22 April 2008

Happiness is living in the now

For many of us having more choice is a good thing. We believe we have more freedom and more freedom of choice. One of the choices that most people who come to me are struggling with is to choose between material life and spiritual life.

To such people, material life which represents all that they have in life, physical, emotional, economic and intellectual, appears to bring them unhappiness.

On the contrary, spiritual life is the greener grass that beckons, that they do not have, and which seems to represent all that is missing in their life.

I tell them they need not choose. They can, and should be all right leading both lives together.

Doing one’s duty, one’s dharma well is the key to spiritual progress. That duty, that responsibility, can be your material life as well.

You need to be aware about everything you do; you need to be 100 per cent involved in whatever you do, in order that you carry out your dharma properly.

Being in the present is the key to awareness; awareness is the door that opens to bliss. To be in the present one needs to reach a ‘no mind’ state – without thoughts. Once we reach this point the seeming contradiction of being in the spiritual space while straddling the material space disappears.

Being in the ‘here and now’ helps to transcend barriers of time and space – one can become omnipresent. This is also the state of enlightenment as the ego or mind breaks down at this point. In Buddhism it is called the mindful state.

Many of us even while we are eating are actually not eating. We do everything else but concentrate on the task at hand – eating. We talk, watch TV, or read books but little attention to the food we consume. The food energy in turn pays very little attention to us. It turns into garbage and stays on our waist and hips instead of being the energy it should be.

Stay in the present with whatever you are doing; when you take the next step; when you brush your teeth; when you smile at someone, try and concentrate on what you are doing at that particular moment in time.

You are what the scriptures say a ‘trikala jnani’; one who knows the past, present and future, one for whom the universe holds no secrets.

You will be a Master of the Universe.