Do you think seriously?
Sometimes we don’t realise how serious we are when we are completely lost in our thoughts. It completely takes over our life as if we don’t exist at that time anymore. We sincerely give them command of our whole being (mind, body and emotions). Yes, and we don’t even notice it. Whatever the nature of the thoughts — that’s how we feel in our body and emotions — no matter how real they are or not.
Thoughts from past
They mostly bring back emotions such as pain, sorrow, regrets, pleasures etc. And we start living in them in the present, we are unable to leave them in past. Why we are unable? due to the way we relate with them. We think that our ‘past is real’, instead of ‘our past was real, but not anymore’. It was real at that time, now we are just thinking about how we perceived it at that time, we can never have direct perception of past, its just a memory of how we felt at that time. And memory is malleable (modern science proves of it), and why is it malleable? because we could change the way we perceive it now, if we change the way we feel about the memory (in present) than we can definitely use it to better our present. But when we are serious about those thoughts, as if our past is happening now, then we can’t change the perception of it. We can perceive them the right way in order to be able to change the perception for good, we need to be aware of the present. We can look at our perception of the past event in relation to our present, then simply we acknowledge it that way (given we want to be free from them if they are painful, take motivation to do something in present if they are good, but we never empower them by justify/criticising/associating with them), and then brain does the rest of the magic. If we are looking at the memory without the anchor of present, then it is an oblivion — its bottomless — we are falling into it — we don’t have any control whatsoever.
But what about good memories?
They were good in the past, they are no good in present. They can make us feel great about our past, but it may be a bait. The more we associate with them, It strengthens our past identity. Stronger the past identity, more we are absent from present. The weaker the bond with present, stronger our thoughts and their effect on us. Indulging in our past maybe a good fantasy to have until, it leads to most of the problems of life. If we have better relationship with our present, it not just keeps bad feelings from harming us (Its nearly impossible to get rid of bad emotions from past altogether, unless that’s your life mission) but also, lets us focus in the present, which is the real moment to actually do something, experience life, to be. And if are not fully present in now, we are hardly alive, we are ‘machine’ without the operator. Instead of changing emotions of past, we should focus on improving our relationship with it in the present. And that is hard to do as long as we don’t change our core belief that present moment is the only reality, we exist in present moment, whatever we are — we are in present, how ever good, great, respected, loved, successful, failure, bad, self loathing, bragger, liar we are — we are in now only. And soon as we find ourselves in now, we are none of the above. We are we, just we. We think we are our past, our experience of life is from past (I meant the experience of being alive, not the one we use on our resume).
And what about the thoughts from future?
Our mind conjures up whatever memory, patterns of feeling, main areas of our emotional focus and the rest — to come up with the image of future for us. And it looks terrifying or heavenly. Why is it terrifying/heavenly? because — “read my previous sentence”. If we have a strong belief (stored in our being) that we are our past or what we achieve in future, then that’s what our thoughts are — limited. If we are terrified with something happening in our future and it was something that we could have done something about it, then there are more chances that it will happen. Because we were terrified, we couldn’t do much to prevent it from happening (half of ourself was worrying about it and the rest was trying to do something about it, there was no enough energy). Not just it will happen, but it will also strengthen the belief that ‘whatever we imagine it’s true’. It’s not, if we don’t become serious — thinking about it. It is — if we are serious thinking it. Our thoughts and imagination are made up of limited information (we think its smart thing to do to think, but it’s not). The very foundation or thoughts and imaginations (creativity is little different from imagination, so stay with me for now) comes from our past, and its limited. Yes our imagination of future is also based on our past. We can’t imagine future without data, and data is from past. If the data was from present, then we won’t be imagining (we would be busy collecting data). I know many people won’t agree with me on this, because they think their past makes them feel how great they were and how great they will continue to be in the future (because they think they are their past). I was one of them most of the time, I was so proud of my past self, that I would do anything to prove that point to me or anyone else, even if that involved compromising my present or even future (and we all do that mostly subconsciously — pay attention to yourselves folks!!).
How can we be present, if we are constantly dragged into the past?
By staying open to the present, accepting it. We are adrenaline junkies and if there is no adrenaline rush in present, we don’t want it. We constantly want that rush and we will do anything to get it. We go to the past, we go to the future, we make chicken soup out of chicken s**t, but we just don’t focus on present moment. Present moment is subtle, its delicate, its micro form of beauty, love, care, gratitude, subtle relationship — that’s the fabric of the whole universe. That is hard to perceive when we are not giving it enough acceptance, grace, care, unconditional surrender, attention without agenda. We are not used to subtle moments, mini feelings, micro experiences. Because we are conditioned to have an agenda on what we want and what we don’t from every moment — like big things, massive transformation, huge turnarounds in life, extraordinary events, colossal achievements, change of the world (except us), winning of a war, destruction of regimes, revolution to last for eternity, sparkly things (each sparkle of a supernova size) every moment. Ok, that was a bit sarcastic but hope you get the point.
Every moment is made up of small subtle things that we sometimes don’t notice. If we stop anticipating events before they happen, then we can fully observe the ‘happening’ and then only we can see the immensity of subtle small things. When we are present without agenda, we see the true beauty of small things, subtle feelings, baby steps, micro actions. The beauty of action — that rises from the relationship of our being and our surrounding. We become witness to how life breathes us with life itself. And how profoundly it impacts us. We learn great deal about the process of what we are doing, where it is leading us internally and how much more it matters to us now (since we start noticing subtle impacts it is already having on us). We are motivated more than ever to carry on doing whatever we are doing, because until now we only knew small things make big ones(in our head) but this time we see it in action, we are part of the process, it’s happening. The reality of present moment gives us micro enlightenments, and that is everything we are after in this life. No matter what we are doing — playing with kids, working, travelling, sports, communicating with others, being lazy, lying down in the sofa, binging on Netflix, drinking, looking for a next drug fix, literally everything. The micro enlightenment actually drives us to keep doing something, instead of focusing on what we are doing, we keep doing it to find something, whatever we are looking for is in actual doing itself — “the journey itself is the destination”.
We can’t achieve supernova like big things every moment, but we can definitely have adrenaline rush of similar immensity from small, subtle things of present. It takes some time (but no passive effort, only active effortlessness), it involves being patient, allowing ourselves to mature in the present moment, surrendering completely to the now, strong alignment within and stronger relationship with our surrounding. The best place to start with is making the present the biggest ever event of the whole life, brag about it, embrace it, be sincere about it, let people laugh for us being delusional, whatever it takes to constantly glorify the present moment. As soon as its passed, we look at the new moment and make it even bigger than the previous one was. This ruthless approach will start gluing us to present moment. Once we are grounded in present moment, it just happens, we notice everything, we don’t have to do any of the above anymore.
The more time passes it becomes our ‘first nature’ to not give too much attention to our thoughts, then we are effortlessly present, we don’t struggle with ourselves, there is nowhere else to go. We understand present moment better than ever before, we don’t build new unresolved feeling, because we deal with them there and then. Our brain keeps track of everything, it also implies the knowledge from past whenever it seems fit, and this all happens in background — we don’t have to store or impart anything. Like learning how to drive a car, once learnt — we just sit back and pay attention to the road — the braking, accelerating, turning, emergency stopping it all happens itself. We don’t have to constantly open the bonnet to see if everything is ok,— we do basic safety check twice a day (awareness exercise) and that’s it, we go about driving. Life takes us places that we never been, we are just a witness of life, we are not doer, life is doer. We don’t have to abandon our life, in fact we live more than we ever lived. We don’t have to give up things like job, relationship, money, estate or anything that matters to us. In fact we get more time/energy/motivation to do all those things but this time effortlessly, it just happens whilst we are busy having the best time of the life in grace of present.