Living Within our Boundary: Living in the Present
When we drop the idea of having 'more and more' and start living in the present moment, we start living inside our boundary. What do I mean by 'start living inside one's boundary'?
We get up in the morning and while we are brushing our teeth, we think about the office. When we reach the office, we begin making plans for the evening: to go to the beach or maybe to a restaurant. In the evening, we go to a restaurant, but once we are there, we are already thinking about going home and resting. Similarly, on a Wednesday at the office, we start thinking about the weekend. But when the weekend actually arrives, we start worrying about what work needs to be done in our office on Monday. On Monday, we are already thinking about the next weekend! By living in this fashion, we tire out very easily!
One thing is for sure: if we are here, our mind is not here. Our mind never stays where our body stays. This is the life style of 'more and more'. We run, run and run, without even knowing what we are running for. It is a rat race. In a rat race, even if we win, we are still a rat!
When we run with all our energy, we forget to enjoy, we forget to live. We forget to have Lakshmi in our life. Again, it is the quality of our life and not the quantity that is important.
The other life style, where we live inside our boundary, where we live in the present moment, creates a new mental setup: what Vedanta calls a cognitive shift; we start to live more intensely, with awareness, what Buddhists call Zen, mindfulness. Our living is then centered in our being; we feel fulfilled. We are always in bliss. Life opens a new dimension.
We feel continuously dissatisfied because we are under the continuous threat of our desires. We need to understand the term: threatened by desires. Observe carefully: the moment a desire arises, there is a deep uneasiness in our being, body and mind. If the desire is fulfilled, we start worrying about whether we will get to experience the same joy again or not. On the other hand, if our desire is not fulfilled, there is a hangover, a deep craving to fulfill the desire. Not only this: often we experience guilt the moment our desires get fulfilled. Until the desire gets fulfilled, there is greed. The moment it gets fulfilled, there is guilt! This is the usual pattern we trace with desires.
When craving enters our being, it splits our being into two halves. One side of our being craves the desired results, while the other side works towards fulfilling the craving in reality. This is what is schizophrenia. One half is thinking about what should happen, while the other half of us is living the real life. This gap between reality and imagination is what I call tension.
There are two kinds of lifestyles: living with 'more and more' and living with 'this and this'. Either we enjoy this or nothing, now or never!
There are only two kinds of mental setups: that of a man who enjoys the path as well as the goal, and that of a man who enjoys neither the path nor the goal. Be very clear: we can never enjoy only the goal unless we choose to enjoy the path first, because the path itself is the goal. This is a very deep concept which if understood can turn our lives around by 180 degrees.
For example, when we are young, we yearn to settle in America, thinking that life there will be good. When we get there, we start working on buying a good house, thinking we will be happy after that. Once we get the house, we think that after marriage, life will be good. After marriage, we start feeling that when we have children, they will give us happiness. After having children, we start worrying about them and imagine that when they grow up and settle down we will finally be able to retire with money, be free from worries, and enjoy life.
However, by the time we retire, the mental setup we have created to continuously run behind 'more and more' becomes a habit. We forget the art of enjoying life. Relaxation is only a word for us, not an experience. Naturally, we have lost sensitivity to life, the quality of enjoying life. It is like selling your eyes to purchase a beautiful painting; selling your sleep to buy a bed; like selling
your life to purchase a house!
Krishna says emphatically in the Bhagavad Gita: karmanye vaadhikaraste maa phaleshu kadachanah (do your duty, but don't expect results.) This verse is often considered the essence of this timeless scriptural work - Bhagavad Gita. Krishna does not mean that we should work without expecting our salary. What He means is, let the job itself become the enjoyment. Let the path itself give us bliss. When we enjoy the path, even if we fail to get the desired result, we will feel deeply satisfied. However, if we do not enjoy the path, even if we succeed, we will feel only dissatisfied.
When we postpone enjoyment, when we postpone living in the present, when we constantly hope to live in our future, the habit of postponement becomes a mental attitude. Be very clear: whatever we may acquire in terms of quantity, it is the quality of our life that gives it meaning. We may have a beautiful bed, but it serves the purpose only if our mind can sleep on it. So work to increase not the height of the bed but the depth of your sleep.
A small story:
There was once a forgetful man who used to continuously keep a reminder of what he needed to do.
Once, he had to remember to do three tasks and as a reminder to himself he tied three knots in his handkerchief.
He finished two of the three jobs but could not remember the third job however hard he tried.
He sat up the whole night racking his brains, trying to remember the third job.
Just as dawn broke, he suddenly remembered the third job that he had tied the knot for: to remember to have a good night's sleep, since it was the weekend!
This is how we waste our whole life. We plan to enjoy but never actually enjoy ourselves. If the quality of the mind is not present, what is the use of getting a weekend to enjoy our vacation? We will be in a different place but if we are carrying the same restless mind, the attitude is still the same.
A man came to Buddha seeking assistance to cure him of unhappiness in his life.
There was nothing exceptional about it; many others faced the same difficulties.
He seemed to have had an endless succession of small disappointments and complaints.
He was a farmer and he enjoyed farming. But sometimes it didn't rain enough or it rained too much and his harvests were not the best. He had a wife and she was a good wife whom he loved. But sometimes, she nagged him too much and sometimes he got tired of her. He had children and they were good children. He enjoyed them a lot. But then life was never stable; it was an unpredictable roller-coaster. And of course life is that way!
Buddha listened patiently to the man's story until he finished. He looked at Buddha expectantly, waiting for some word to fix everything.
Buddha said, 'I can't help you.'
The man was startled. He said, 'I thought you were a great teacher! I thought you could help me!' 'Everybody has got problems!' said Buddha. 'We always have eighty-three problems, each one of us, and there is nothing we can do about it. If we manage to solve one problem, it is immediately replaced by another. We will always have eighty-three problems. We are going to die, for example. For you, that is a problem. And it is one you cannot escape. There is nothing you nor I nor anyone else can do about it. We all have problems like this and we never seem to be able to free ourselves from it.'
The man became dejected and exclaimed, 'Hey! what good is your teaching?'
'Well,'said Buddha, 'It might help you with the eighty-fourth problem.'
The man asked, 'The eighty-fourth problem? What is the eighty-fourth problem?'
'The problem that we don't want any problems!' said Buddha.
If we can free ourselves from our desire to be free of our difficulties, then what difficulty do we really have? As to what happens to us in life, we may have little or no choice. But as to how we deal with it, we have total choice. Why don't we exercise that?
The moment we create sensitivity in our being, even water tastes like amrita (nectar). There is a sutra (technique) in the Katopanishad that says, 'If we give away all our things in the Vajpeya yagna (sacrifice), we will become Indra (king of Gods). The underlying meaning of this sutra is that if we sacrifice the idea of craving, of having 'more and more', we will be in a different space. We will have the sensitivity to live and enjoy what we have.
A beautiful story from the life of Buddha:
There was a king by the name Aparasanjita whose wife was related to Buddha.
From a very young age, the queen had been associated with Buddha and knew Him.
She continuously inspired the king to meet Buddha at least once.
Finally, the king decided to go meet Buddha.
Being a rich and powerful king, he did not want to go like an ordinary person and decided to take the best diamonds with him to give to Buddha.
The queen warned him that Buddha would not accept diamonds and suggested taking flowers instead.
So the king decided to take both flowers and diamonds.
In one hand, he had a chest full of diamonds, while in the other hand, he had a plate full of flowers.
When he arrived, he saw Buddha seated with His ten thousand disciples seated in front of Him. He proceeded towards Buddha.
Just as he was about to offer the diamonds, Buddha said, 'Drop it!'
The king was shocked, but since he was in front of ten thousand disciples, he quietly dropped the diamond chest and proceeded with the flowers towards Buddha.
Just as he started walking, Buddha said again, 'Drop it!'
Surprised, the king dropped the plate of flowers, feeling really stupid in front of the big crowd.
When the king now took a few steps forward, Buddha said again, 'Drop it!'
The perplexed king was not able to understand.
A senior disciple of Buddha who was standing and watching what was happening said, 'Buddha is not asking you to drop the diamonds or the flowers. He is asking you to drop the idea of having 'more and more'. The diamonds are not even worth dropping; drop the idea that these things have value. If you feel that diamonds have value, you will fear the idea of dropping them. That is why Buddha asked you to drop the false idea of what is valuable, what is great. He is not asking you to drop physical things. He is asking you to drop your cravings. He is asking you to drop your mind, your ego.'
So understand: neither running after 'more and more' nor leaving outwardly comforts will help us; only drop the idea of having 'more and more'.
Bring your mind to the present moment, to live life from moment to moment. Then, life will become joy, bliss, ecstasy; you will live life more intensely, with consciousness and awareness. Whatever you do, do it totally and completely. If you are drinking water, drink it with totality. If you are eating, eat it with complete awareness, totally. Whatever you are doing: walking, driving, sleeping, do it with full consciousness and awareness.
A king once went to a Zen master and asked him, 'Master, I have heard that you always live with joy and bliss. What is the technique that you use to do so?'
The master replied, 'When I eat, I eat. When I sleep, I sleep.'
The king was confused and asked the master, 'Do we not do the same thing?'
The master replied, 'Surely not! When you eat, are you really eating? You plan for the future, worry about the past. When you eat, eat. When you sleep, sleep. Then your whole life will become worship. If you live life with the attitude of having 'more and more', life will be like work. If you live with the attitude of 'this and this', your life will be worship.'
Understand one thing clearly: either our whole life can be work or our whole life can be worship. We cannot have part-time work and part-time worship. Whether our life is work or worship depends on our attitude. With the right attitude, work becomes worship. With the wrong attitude, even worship becomes work. When we see priests in temples and other places of worship mechanically going about their jobs, often for commercial reasons with no passion, no compassion and no devotion, we can understand how even worship can turn into drudgery.
With the right attitude, anything can be converted to meditation, to worship. With the wrong attitude, even meditation will be converted to work. Going intensely into anything with absolutely no attachment to the results is the way to convert work to meditation. One more thing that has to happen here is a deep awareness about the core in you that is lying undisturbed inside although you are continuously working outside.
Once a disciple went to his master's cottage and came out after some time, crying. After some time, another disciple entered the master's cottage and came out laughing. The first disciple was surprised and asked the second one, 'I asked Master whether I could smoke while meditating and he beat me. What did you do? What did Master tell you?' The second disciple said, 'I asked Master if I could meditate while smoking! And he said OK!'
There are different attitudes for any action. Here, one attitude resulted in a disciple getting beaten and the other attitude resulted in a disciple getting praised.
Our attitude decides our life. With the right attitude, we are showered with more and more. There is a beautiful sloka (verse) in the Puranas (sacred text) which says, nanda (bliss) attracts fortune. There is one more saying, 'Where there is bliss, Lakshmi (Goddess of wealth) walks in naturally.' This is not just a simple faith or belief. Even modern-day psychologists say that if our mind is blissful, we attract happy people and happy situations around us. If we are sad and depressed, we attract the same type of people and incidents, sad and unhappy, causing us more sadness and unhappiness.
The being is like a dish antenna. If we tune ourselves to joy, we attract bliss; if we tune ourselves to depression, we attract suffering and pain. Our being always attracts like incidents.
Be very clear: we can either enjoy this moment now or never! Tomorrow is going to come to us as today. So if we postpone our enjoyment today in the name of tomorrow, we will postpone it tomorrow in the name of day after tomorrow. It is our choice.
If we understand what life is, we will understand that we don't need anything. We are not just given what we need; we are actually showered. However, if we don't understand this, however much we are showered with, we will take life for granted.
A small story:
There was once a small boy, who was begging for alms in front of the king's palace. The king on seeing him felt pity for him and offered to let him stay in the palace guest room for a couple of days.
The boy was very happy to be in the palace; he had a sumptuous meal and went with great curiousity to his room.
On reaching the room, he was disappointed to see a medium-sized room with a small bed and some other furniture. He was expecting a royal room with servants waiting on him, with the choicest of foods and a big and royal bed.
He lay on the bed, muttering about how a palace could have such a mediocre-looking room, and finally went to sleep.
The next morning, the king enquired how he was doing, to which the boy could not help expressing his dissatisfaction at how he had been treated and how the room was not up to his expectations.
The king was furious at the boy's audacity and ordered his guards to throw him out.
The boy was thrown out of the palace. He started walking, weeping profusely.
On his way, he met a Sufi master who was begging for alms.
The master asked him why he was crying and the boy told the master how he had been invited to the king's palace and was not given fair treatment and was ultimately thrown out.
The master asked the boy to accompany him back to the king's palace.
So the boy covered his face in case the king recognizes him and accompanied the master.
On reaching the palace, the king saw the Sufi master and the boy, and invited them with all respect, to stay in the palace for a couple of days.
The master profusely thanked the king for the offer, had a great meal and was taken to his room.
He was given the same room the boy had been given earlier and they both spent the night in that room.
The next morning, the king inquired of the master how his night had been.
The master expressed deep gratitude for the excellent treatment and thanked him for the royal room and the comforts.
The boy could not believe what the master was saying.
The king was overjoyed and handed the master a thousand gold coins and offered him the guest room to stay in for as long as he wished.
The Sufi master thanked the king once again profusely and went on his way.
The same situation gives rise to entirely different reactions and events! It is the attitude that makes the difference. When we live with the attitude of gratitude to Existence for all that it showers us with, life will shower on us and everything will become beautiful and we will live it to the fullest.