Past, Present and Future

Past regrets and future worries are the main ingredients in a soup called suffering. Masters recommend seeing through the dream like quality of these in many words such as time is in the mind, only the now is real all else imaginary thoughts and that history is just a story.

The difficulty in truly accepting and understanding these arguments lies in the fact that the present or now seems so real. And that past events were at one time felt just as real as the present does now. So how can we possibly say that the presence is real but not the past? Or that the future will not be similar to the real now.

The answer lies not looking at just the past or future as dream states but deconstructing the present as being unreal. This is impossible as long as we use our senses which report a very real direct experience of the now.

But there are two components of this now. There is the sensory experience including the sensation of thought. And overlaid on them is a fog like story that keeps swimming in our brains. We are dreaming even now. Separating these two into a directly observable experience now and a thought based conceptual commentary often labeled, I, me and self. And seeing that this manufactured self is not real and never to be found.

The absence of self now must mean an absence of self in the past or in the future. This diffuses suffering substantially.

Can it be that simple?

As a four year old, I attended a satsang with my grand uncle who was practicing pratyahara by abandoning all usual domestic life and wandered small villages of mithila giving words of wisdom to whomever would listen. Unfortunately, 7 pm was about the end of the day for me and I pretty much fell asleep in the wonderful ambiance his presence along with candles, incense and flowers had created. All I remember is his first word which was samsara and a memory of deep peace. I asked older folks later what he meant and they told me the world. It has taken me sixty years to really understand the vastness of the word and what world he was talking about.

I have spent pretty much rest of my life to try and find simplicity in teachings which mostly confuse me even now.

So when Mooji says look, I find mostly noise confounding most of my senses. So I close my eyes and the loudest noise from photons disappear. What remains when I sit for a while is a vast ocean of quiet and peace with frequent disturbance of thoughts and vapor like images. These noisy things become loud when I let my attention get attracted to them. It takes some practice but it's possible to drag my attention back to the vast silence. And I love it.

Can it be that simple? When zen masters tell you to sit or when adviata says inquire within. Can I be just that, the simple wide field of silence. Why not? Every other pointer seems so complicated.

Closing your eyes is a metaphor for really stilling your senses. It works with touch, smell and taste as well. Shiva in his vigyan bhairava tells of a meditation practice where you close all your senses and see. See not look because looking gets your mind active again which by its very nature is hard at work looking for an object, all the time.