Nobody’s life is entirely free of pain and sorrow. Isn’t it a question of
learning to live with them rather than trying to avoid them?
The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as
long as the unobserved mind runs your life.
The pain that you create now is always some form of nonacceptance,
some form of unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of
thought, the resistance is some form of judgment. On the emotional
level, it is some form of negativity. The intensity of the pain depends
on the degree of resistance to the present moment, and this in turn
depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind. The mind
always seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it. In other words,
the more you are identified with your mind, the more you suffer. Or
you may put it like this: the more you are able to honor and accept
the Now, the more you are free of pain, of suffering — and free of the
egoic mind.
Why does the mind habitually deny or resist the Now? Because it
cannot function and remain in control without time, which is past and
future, so it perceives the timeless Now as threatening. Time and
mind are in fact inseparable.
Imagine the Earth devoid of human life, inhabited only by plants and
animals. Would it still have a past and a future? Could we still speak
of time in any meaningful way? The question “What time is it?” or
“What’s the date today?” — if anybody were there to ask it — would
be quite meaningless. The oak tree or the eagle would be bemused
by such a question. “What time?” they would ask. “Well, of course, it’s
now. The time is now. What else is there?”
Yes, we need the mind as well as time to function in this world, but
there comes a point where they take over our lives, and this is where
dysfunction, pain, and sorrow set in.
The mind, to ensure that it remains in control, seeks continuously to
cover up the present moment with past and future, and so, as the
vitality and infinite creative potential of Being, which is inseparable
from the Now, becomes covered up by time, your true nature
becomes obscured by the mind. An increasingly heavy burden of time
has been accumulating in the human mind. All individuals are
suffering under this burden, but they also keep adding to it every
moment whenever they ignore or deny that precious moment or
reduce it to a means of getting to some future moment, which only
exists in the mind, never in actuality. The accumulation of time in the
collective and individual human mind also holds a vast amount of
residual pain from the past.
If you no longer want to create pain for yourself and others, if you no
longer want to add to the residue of past pain that still lives on in you,
then don’t create any more time, or at least no more than is
necessary to deal with the practical aspects of your life. How to stop
creating time? Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever
have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life. Whereas before
you dwelt in time and paid brief visits to the Now, have your dwelling
place in the Now and pay brief visits to past and future when required
to deal with the practical aspects of your life situation. Always say
“yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane,
than to create inner resistance to something that already is? What
could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and
always now? Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to life — and see how life
suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.
The present moment is sometimes unacceptable, unpleasant, or
awful.
It is as it is. Observe how the mind labels it and how this labeling
process, this continuous sitting in judgment, creates pain and
unhappiness. By watching the mechanics of the mind, you step out of
its resistance patterns, and you can then allow the present moment to
be. This will give you a taste of the state of inner freedom from
external conditions, the state of true inner peace. Then see what
happens, and take action if necessary or possible.
Accept — then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it
as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it
your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform
your whole life.