Live Now.. How?

Simple tips to live now…

It sounds great to hear ‘live now’, ‘surrender to the present’, but how? 

The concept seems to be so simple and clear, but the way to adopt it seems to be difficult.

The mind is an intelligent computer. The mind keeps the records, rewinds and replays thousands of times. Mind never lets go the bad things, the hurts and wounds of the past that easily. Forgetting is the most difficult thing for the mind. Amnesia is a blessing in disguise, Alzheimer’s is a Bliss. The more one grows up, the more he accumulates past wounds and pains. The accumulation of ‘pains’ in your mind is building its own virtual metabolism called ‘painbody’ as Echkart Tolle coined it.

Now, let’s see how to live in ‘present’.

It doesn’t mean forget the past or ignore the future. Human mind cannot do that. It is designed to record, analyse the past and imagine, plan for the future. The action alone takes place in the ‘present’.

Greatest things start with simplest steps. Even the conqueror of Everest started with the first single step. One day, I was strolling along a hillside and my attention froze on a goat trying to climb a vertical hillock. At first instance it looked to me the goat would never make it. Then I watched it. He was looking up for a good few minutes, surveying all possible ‘steps’ to go up. Then he selects one stone and goes near. He puts one step on it and pushes a bit, to see its stability. Then he puts his two front legs and pushes it again. After making sure he will be stable on that stone, he jumps and stands on that little stone with all his four legs. Now, standing there, he surveys next few steps. He repeats the same routine. At one point, he gets stuck. He couldn’t find any more strong stone or root to move up. Now, he tracks back to the previous step, exactly the same way he went up. From there, he tries another route and this time he moves higher.

While standing on any one of those stones, he never looked up or down. He was just looking at the next one or the next few ones. He didn’t hesitate to back track when he was stuck.

Few lessons learnt.

Simple steps to Live now:

Learn from the past.

This is a very famous advice everyone gives.
But how?
This only can be done if you take the lessons from events that happen at ‘present’ - at that moment when it actually happens.
Let us say, someone said something that hurt you. It caused you pain. You recorded the event just as a video clipping in your mind – the person, the words, the pain everything is recorded. Your mind recalls the clipping frequently, replays and causing the same pain every time it plays in your mind. Your mind doesn’t suggest any remedy, any solution to take away the pain. Instead it multiplies and accumulates pain.
Try this...!
Next time someone says something that hurts you, React. Right there. Right at that moment. Tell them loud and clear that they hurt you.
Or Ignore them and move away, so they couldn’t say anything more to you. And make sure you don’t have to be in such situation again.
You have learnt 2 lessons – To React or to Move away from that person.
Either way, you found a solution. Right at that moment. Now, this solution will be recorded in your mind, and when similar situation happens next time, you are ready.
More importantly, as the event was not recorded as a ‘pain-inducer’, there was no pain associated with the event and hence, no replay and accumulation of pain.
This is how you learn from the past.
In fact you are not learning from the past, but you are learning from the present and using those lessons at a later period which is future.

Live in present.

Of course, everyone is living in present, so what’s different about it?

Living in present is focusing your mind in what you are doing, solely and completely. It could be as simple as sipping your cup of coffee to resolving a complicated problem at work. But, leave everything else out and focus on that one deed you are doing at that moment. That’s simple as that.

When you sip the coffee, let the warmth, the taste of the caffeine fill your month and the taste buds, focus your mind to that taste and aroma. Do not drink as if its just a ritual or like a medicine.

When you eat, set everything aside, look, feel ad eat the food you have in front of you. Be it just a Burger or pieces of chicken or a full square meal. Enjoy the food as if you were hungry for few days. Enjoy it as if you are not going to eat for next 23 hours. Leave the cell phone in the pocket (or in the hand-bag). Do not pick it when it rings. Everything on the world can wait. Just Eat.

I do practice this. Many of my friends used to ask me, 'how could you enjoy the food, after such a senseless bashing from that stupid boss of yours?'
My reply ‘so what, the food is good and I am hungry. I will take on him after my food. Of course its not food’s fault, is it?”

When you drive, turn on music, watch the road and all the traffic that go in front of you, enjoy everything that you see and drive. At tafiic light, look at the sky or the large signboard in front of you, absorb the view fully and enjoy. Again, do not let your mind wander in what happened at the office, or what’s going to happen at home when you reach. Just enjoy your driving. Here again, never answer the cell phone or talk to somebody while you drive. (Like the new ad for a car goes ‘I need that break between the work and home rigmaroles’)

When you watch TV, involve yourself in what you are watching and enjoy it thoroughly. Do not talk to your spouse or kids when you watch TV. And the vice versa too must help a lot. Anybody and anything need attention and that they need in full. And it helps you to give attention in full, to get full results as well as full satisfaction for you.

When you laugh, laugh LOUD. When you cry, cry LOUD.

These are two mechanisms that let your mind’s stress out. I normally don’t cry, but I cried for three full days when my dad died. Cried in the bathroom, at the breakfast table, while driving to work, while at work, at dinner table, and at bed too. But, after three days, my mind was absolutely clear and light and ready to accept the reality.

And you have not seen me laughing at the Mr. Bean’s clowning and Tom-Jerry’s adventures. Even some of the neighborhood kids were amused the way I used to laugh.

Now, I can hear people ask this ‘How can I do all that you said, when I am hurt, I am emotionally down and depressed or sad?’
‘My mind doesn’t focus or concentrate. I can do it all only when my mind is calm. I cannot do when mind is disturbed.’

‘Why your mind is disturbed?’

There must be some reason for that disturbance. There is something unfinished. There is something unreacted for. There is something to be analysed. And you are carrying it on your shoulder, it is giving you pain. You have tied it to your back and don’t want to let it down. It is bogging you down all along, but it was you who tied it to your back.

But, if you train yourself a little bit, you can postpone this analysis for the right moment. You can always let the luggage down, somewhere next to you, on your desk, near the sofa or under the bed. You don’t have to take it up when you are eating or driving or watching the TV. Just when you think it is time, take up this issue, analyse with calm mind, find a solution. The solution can be a reaction or a plan for acting in future or a resolution of ignorance. In any case, you take one decision and stow it away somewhere in your mind. Then the mind is clear and the disturbance is gone. The pain is erased.

Plan for future.

Living in present doesn’t mean don’t worry or don’t plan for the future.
It means exactly the opposite.
Living in present also means imagining the future and planning your actions and reactions for the future. Dedicate your time and focus to this ‘planning’ based on present, the lessons of the past and your imagination of what the future should be. Chart out your plans to achieve those, give it a time schedule (this is the most important and most neglected part of planning normally people fail to do). Now, you have a plan and schedule to act for the future. Store it in your mind and clean the slate. Come back to present and live now.
If you don’t have plans for future, worries creep in and failure from past haunt your mind, you won’t be able to focus in the present. When you plan for the future, you are still living in ‘present’, which is very important.

As you can see, in all three situations, you are living in present.
 - In pain causing events, you learn lessons in ‘present’ and utilize in later period, which is essentially lessons from the past.
 - When reacting and resolving the pain-causing events using the lessons from the past, you are living in present too.
- When planning and scheduling for the future, you are living in present too, as the actual planning happens in present.

When you start doing small little things like munching muffins or sipping coffee, driving your car or watching TV, with full focus and fullness, you get trained to tackle bigger situations as well with focus and in completeness. The mind tends to dwindle more when you have more things to tackle, especially under emotionally strained situations. This training will give you the ability to analyze, sequence and pick one at a time, during such situations of turmoil.

Sounds simple and a bit too theoretical at the same time. It is tough to follow this simple technique, but, once trained, it makes the world much simpler…

Tags: present, past, future, now

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