Give This Moment a Chance

Audio Transcript

Why is it so difficult to give this moment a chance? Why are you not happy in this moment? Because you see there is so much of demand, unconscious, subconscious, cultural, personal. From this moment right now, so I shouldn’t be bored in this moment. I need to be entertained. I need to be happy. I need to be comfortable, physically, emotionally. I need to be financially secured. My body needs to feel okay. I shouldn’t have pain or disease or suffering. I should have good clothes, a roof on my head. My spouse, my partner should love me, respect me, should not argue with me. Same goes with my neighbours. Everything should function in a particular way. The government should function in a particular way. The politicians should think in a particular way, probably like I think.

The Demands of the Mind

And all these demands from the now, obviously they are the demands of the mind, your particular conditioning which colours that demands. So food, health, people, love, appreciation, those are the overarching themes. But then there are a lot of these micro things which happen throughout the day. You walk on the road, people need to walk in a particular way or they are talking too loud or they are talking too softly. There are so many things which the mind keeps evaluating, approving and disapproving every moment. It is phenomenal. If you see through that, you realise the mind is constantly doing that every moment and that is very exhausting.

Perfection and the Present Moment

And can we have a perfect moment from the mind’s point of view? Perfection of health, perfection of finances, perfection of job, perfection of spouse, relation, body, environment, political scenarios, pandemic. There are too many factors, there are too many demands and the present can’t meet all those demands all the time. And then there is this life story, my suffering, my traumas, my pain. I could not achieve this. I could not do my full potential. With so much of baggage and demands, how is it possible for us to give this moment any sort of chance? We are always evaluating the moment from this vast filter, this vast screen, a veil of conditionings.

The Factor of Becoming

And on top of this, so this is one part of it, so we are evaluating with all these things. Then the second factor which comes in is becoming, which is also very integral to the mind. So mind wants to become, I was this yesterday and my goal is to become this in the future. So the present is just becoming, it’s kind of a tool to get you from here to here. So this present moment is actually viewed through this entire lens of becoming and demands. There are two aspects. Now a mind which is completely taken by becoming and that becoming can be anything. You want to become a superstar or stronger or happier or peaceful or Bill Gates, whatever. But that creates a constant pressure on the mind, a constant, it’s like a subconscious anxiety, something ticking at the back of the mind telling you, no, you’re not enough now. You don’t have enough money or enough fame or enough love or whatever that enough is. And probably the future, if I go from here to here, I might be able to get what I am looking for. Tragically that future never arrives.

The Lens of the Past

And then the third aspect of giving this moment a chance of trying to see the moment for what it is, is looking at the moment from the eyes of the past. Now what I mean by it is, say, you look at your partner or your children, the moment you look at them, there is always a huge amount of past image of what they were, what they did, how they behaved, good, bad, which automatically comes to the fore and you actually view them through that lens. You cannot view them from fresh set of eyes. It’s very difficult. You can try it today with whomever you are, probably your child or partner or spouse or friend or neighbour. Can you drop all that past hurts and pains and happiness or whatever that was, that complete image of that person, drop it and look at them from complete fresh set of eyes as if you met them for the first time. There’s no story, there is no background. It is very difficult, especially if you’ve been with someone for a long time, there’s always that evaluation, you did this, you did that, you spoke like this 10 years back.

The Burden of Baggage

So this present moment has all these past conditionings and the future and also demands. So there is a huge load of baggage for the present and then I’m not happy with this baggage, so I’m not happy with the present. And then I need to escape. And then the cycle keeps happening. But what if we drop some of the demands, say if it’s not possible to drop all of them for some people. Is it possible to drop some of the demands of how things should be? And you can note that very easily in your everyday action. Even if you walk, say you walk to inside a new mall or a hotel, immediately your mind will start evaluating and saying, they could have put this colour here. Oh, this painting is way too big, it should be a little smaller. There is always this constant chatter, which is useless. No one’s going to change that painting for you. The mall administration is not going to come and change the location of the stairs or put another bathroom there for you. It’s not going to happen. So it’s just a useless evaluation which keeps happening as you move around. And if you become aware of it, you’ll be astonished.

Awareness in Daily Life

I became aware of it once when I was with my dad and we went to a hotel, a very good hotel. So my dad loves commenting on everything, this colour shouldn’t be this and they should have done this. And then suddenly I realised what’s happening, you know, why all this evaluation and chattering whenever you encounter or you are in a new situation. What’s the point of it? Things are not going to change and then it takes away so much from that experience. You are not giving that moment a chance to be what it is. So all this subtle evaluation, the subtle becoming, the demands, they have become dysfunctional. And as I was talking to Brian earlier, this dysfunctional mind, this constant chaos, restlessness is what we perceive outside. Obviously we are a small group of people, those who are trying to understand themselves, they’re trying to meditate, they’re trying to find measure of peace and stillness. But majority of humanity is still working from the mind. And this society, this chaos is nothing but a reflection of all these things that’s dysfunctional. So for society this dysfunction is okay. Thinking, constantly thinking about the future is okay. They think if they stop thinking, if they stop thinking about the future, about their problems, then they will never be able to solve them. That the future will go out of control, that they will completely lose control of their lives. But is this the way humanity is living and evolving? Is this the right way? Buddha spoke about it two thousand years back. I’m speaking now, someone else will speak, maybe five hundred years hence. But till we do not create some space within us and see the mind for what it is, the cycles of suffering and frustration and pain will continue.

Creating Space and Stillness

And to heal that it’s very easy. We can just start from the basics. We can be in the moment, create some space, watch things without evaluating, without judging, seeing them even throughout the day, even if you take a few moments to do that. Not constantly seeing through the mind’s eye, not constantly judging people and evaluating them, but letting things be, it’s okay. Telling the mind it’s okay not to worry so much and have so much of demands and pressures and baggage on itself. Even before you were born, some intelligence took care of you in your womb. It fed you. It created all your arms and things in the right place. And when you were born, there was milk ready for you. And there is an intelligence and power which creates this entire universe and this life. We are not separate from it. And sometimes it’s okay to trust that, to say, okay, there is this intelligence, it will flower, it will unfold. I do not need to obsess 24-7 about the future, about what should be. It’s okay to have a little faith and a little trust in this unfolding. That will take some pressure off the ego. The ego wants to be in control all the time. The moment the control goes, it goes a little crazy. But if you can surrender to the moment or accept the moment, it’s the same thing. Then there is space created. There is some distance from the mind. And then there is a chance of transformation happening. There is a chance for you to be detached from the mind and not be in the mind all the time.

Exercises for Awareness

So maybe as an exercise for this week, we can start from a very basic step of looking at things from fresh eyes. Let’s look at everything as if we are experiencing it for the first time. It has no history, it has no past, it has no conditioning. How would it look? How would it look to look at this weather for the first time without saying it’s cold or muggy or miserable or good or whatever? Just enjoying it for what it is in the moment. No history, no past. Same goes with your loved ones. Giving them that space to be what they are and not looking from that five-year history or 50 years of history of what they were and what they have done and what they have not done. Just throwing that off. Meeting them afresh for the first time. And you find that such an amazing experience, such a wonderful experience. Same as looking at other things, same as being in places. That drops or that stops the incessant evaluation of the mind, the incessant process of the mind where it draws into the memory and the past to recreate this present.

Trusting Life and Letting Go

And the second thing we can do is say it’s okay. We don’t have to constantly worry all the time. We don’t have to constantly give in to the demands of the mind. It’s okay to let go. It’s okay to trust life. The very force which created us. And when we do that, so these are just preliminary steps. When we do all this, it creates a certain amount of stillness and space in us. And then from there we can go deeper. From there we can contact this consciousness, this beingness, this witness within us. And from there that when we are in that consciousness, it can help us unfold our own true nature. That’s it for today. Thank you for listening.

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