CREATE NO MORE PAIN IN THE PRESENT

 

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.