Why do You Struggle To Live In The Present Moment?
Why do You Struggle To Live In The Present Moment?
The Greatest Myth of Living In The Present Moment..
The Life's Most Valuable Spiritual Truth Is To Live In The Present Moment
And The Greatest Myth of Living In The Present Moment Is:
Myth: "Living In the Present Moment is Attending to Outer People & Circumstances in a focused way and Relishing All Mind's Pleasure By Being Fully Engrossed in Them."
Why does This Myth Exist?
This myth exists as the mind always bends the spiritual truth for its benefit. Our mind's nature is to feel lack all the time. To fill that lack, the mind wants pleasure and excitement, and it finds them in these three things:
Money
Relationships
Recognition
Our Ego -unobserved mind- will never be satisfied with these three things as it always wants more and more of them.
So when Buddha and other enlightened beings taught us that the present moment is all we have, the mind got terrified as it thrives on psychological time - past and future. The mind's only preoccupation is thinking about the past and future! So the unconscious mind -Ego- bends this spiritual truth of living in the present moment. The mind preoccupies itself in a highly focused way with outside people and circumstances for its benefits, constructing profitable egoic transactions, achieving and accumulating this and that to compete and show to the world.
And Yes, the mind is doing all this in the present moment by focusing only on the outer aspects of life. It starts relishing all the pleasures of money, profitable relationships, and fame by fully engaging in them.
The world calls this act of the mind, diligently focusing only on outer affairs and relishing in worldly pleasures, "Living In The Present Moment."
Life That is Totally Free of Problems
When your outer life situations are full of problems, surrender inward to being and realize a life free of any problems. You don't believe that the state of consciousness, which is totally free of life struggles, is possible. The primary sickness of humanity is that people are so busy reacting to their life situations that they have forgotten the God that is available in the form of their Being.
They are so consumed by the regret of the past and anxiety of the future that they forget their Presence, which is shining as Being internally. Being, the present moment, and God are all the same.
When I give 1-to-1 Spiritual counseling on Zoom or phone, all the participants have the same struggle and challenge. Their minds can't live in the present moment and constantly swing between unconscious and relatively peaceful states of mind. But they all describe this struggle in a very different way as per their life situation. I guide them and give them pointers to heal their suffering by understanding their unique conditions specifically. These 1-to-1 counseling sessions are the most spiritually fulfilling sessions of my life.
The Truth of Living In The Present Moment & What is God!
Living in the present moment is first realizing divinity within and then engaging with the world from that divinity. Authentic living in the present moment is the awareness and feeling-realization of the inner Being. When you become aware of Being, The Being becomes aware of itself. When Being becomes conscious of itself - that's Presence, and only then you will be able to establish yourself in the present moment without swinging in the past and the future. - Aby Vohra
Inner Being is the divine life itself, which has been called "God" by the world. Once you are aware of being within, you will accept and allow all situations and people outside. You will not create a destructive karmic cycle by involving yourself in dysfunctional life situations. As soon as you forget the feeling-realization of being within, then what is left is the mental concept of the present moment, which only deals with life's external affairs in a focused way.
Living in The Present Moment is NOT Engrossing Your Mind In A Focused Way With Outer Affairs of Life.
When your mind is always focused on the outside, even without getting lost in the past or future, its dysfunction of constantly feeling "lack and unworthy" always remains.
Our primary purpose of life on this earth is to awaken, which means losing thousands of years of collective mind conditioning and karmic tendencies of past births. These tendencies are impurities of our minds in the form of unconscious desires, dysfunctional thinking patterns, cultural conditioning, and toxic habits.
The Greatest Question You Ask Yourself: Do your mind's endless desires, dysfunctional thought patterns, and thousands of years of conditioning get dissolved when your mind is constantly attending to outer people & circumstances in a focused way in the name of living in the present moment?
No.
Your mind becomes more and more dysfunctional.
How You Can Attain Spiritual Awakening?
The mind consists of all five senses and the brain's ability to think and feel emotions. So, the mind is the five senses, thoughts, and feelings. When you rest your mind in Being, you surrender inward all your senses and your ability to think and feel. Hence, your mind is purified from past birth tendencies and thousands of years of collective and cultural conditioning.
Once your mind loses this conditioning and tendencies, it loves to rest and abide in Being, and you attain spiritual awakening.
You have been reading spiritual books, practicing meditation, and understanding spiritual truths for a few years. Then Why Can't You Live In The Present Moment When Challenges arrive in your life?
Engrossing Your Mind In A Focused Way With Outer Affairs of Life is not living in the present moment. To successfully establish yourself in the present moment, you need to surrender inward to Being. Unfortunately, the mind's continuous desire to hijack your attention outward keeps you from realizing Being that is ever-present and eternal. - Aby Vohra
After my non-enduring awakening in August 2008, I wasted years in search of books, gurus and different kinds of meditations so they could give me a glimpse of my inner reality. But all my attempts failed gloriously. Maybe I was destined by my allocated karma of this birth that I need to suffer and realize this truth of resting and abiding in being the hard way. My suffering is your awakening now. Nobody was there to guide me, but I am there to guide you. And to guide you on this lonely path of early stages of spiritual awakening is my outer purpose now.
True Meditation: Living In The Present Moment While Engaged With The World.
Let me tell you a beautiful story..
Once, The young boy came to Ramana Maharshi, the greatest sage of India and asked him, "Can you explain to me what meditation is? Whenever I ask my parents, they tell me that I need not bother about it now; they say, "I will come to know it when I grow up."
Ramana said, "I will tell you, but you sit quietly by my side."
Then, smiling, he asked his devotee to serve the boy dosa (an Indian dish) from the kitchen. So, on a plain leaf, a dosa was served to the boy. Shri Ramana looked at the boy and said, "Now I will say "Hmm". Then only you should start eating. Then again, I will say "hmm" After that, no piece of dosa should be left on your plate, and you should stop eating." The boy agreed.
But please keep in mind that you need to eat dosa in a conscious way, savoring every mouthful of a morsel of dosa. And at the same time, keep your attention on me so you can hear my second "hmm".
When Ramana gave the signal "hmm" the boy started eating. Now his attention was primarily on Shri Ramana first and then on eating dosa. But he was eating dosa very consciously, enjoying every mouthful. The boy was eating dosa, tearing big chunks of dosa, but, all the time keeping his attention on Shri Ramana. The dosa was reducing in size gradually. There was a small piece left. The boy was looking curiously at Shri Ramana for the second signal. The moment he gave the signal, the boy immediately put the dosa in his mouth.
Now Shri Ramana asked him" where was your attention till now? On me or on dosa?". The boy replied, "On both." Shri Ramana said," Yes. You were actively involved in finishing dosa, with your attention on me. You were not distracted at all. Like this, when you do your daily activities putting your mind or attention on God in the background, it is known as meditation."
Let your everyday activities like walking, eating, doing business, talking etc., go on but your mind should be concentrated on God (Your Inner Being) all the time. That is Meditation.
The two signals "hmm" are birth & death. One can meditate on life within these two events, as demonstrated by Shri Ramana Maharishi. But to understand this, surrender, abide and rest in your inner Being. That is our only God and Guru.
How Can You Live in The Present Moment Permanently?
Practice#1: Resting in Being Practice as Meditation
Sit in a comfortable position or you can lie flat on your back. Close your eyes. Choose different parts of your body to focus your attention. Start with your head, hands, and feet in top-to-bottom order and then bottom-to-top. Scan the whole body that way. Be with each part for five to ten seconds. Feel the life energy inside those parts as intensely as you can.
Run your attention through the body like a wave a few times, from feet to head and back again. It will take a couple of minutes.
After that, feel the inner body as a single field of energy in its totality. Abide in that feeling. Be intensely present in the moment with every cell of your body. You might feel a void, emptiness or nothingness. And that is beautiful. In that state, there is no future or past; hence, there is no human. The intense presence is Being itself. Don’t get distracted by wandering thoughts, even if they occasionally take you out of your body. Once you notice that happening, simply return your attention to inner body.
You can do this meditation for a total of fifteen minutes. Above meditation is NOT a substitute for the moment-to-moment practice of resting in being while engaged in the world.
Practice #2: Resting in Being Practice while Engaged in The World:
Be intensely aware whenever you are engaged in the world. Keep a minimum of fifty percent of your attention inside your chest within yourself and give the rest to the outside world. The mind can easily rest in the chest as other inner body parts will be difficult for the mind to access in the waking state. This is called "resting in being" while acting in the world.
As long as you stay rooted in your chest while interacting with the world, you will be like a tree deeply rooted in the earth or a ship anchored in the seabed so the storm will not destroy it. You can increase anchoring attention inward with practice while engaging with the world. First, start with fifty percent, and increase it to eighty to hundred percent, till you can fully surrender within. This is the most significant spiritual practice. Once you sincerely practice this, no spiritual practice, scripture, or Guru is required, as while resting in Being, you are ONE with God all the time.
Practice#3: Conscious Breaths.
If you cannot be able to rest your mind inside your chest. You can take two conscious breaths whenever you realize you are not present. Conscious breath itself is a powerful meditation. It will immediately bring your mind into the present moment, and then slowly, you can feel your chest in the form of your inner body and anchor your attention over there while doing your daily activities.
Remember This: Your mind will create noise that, without full attention to the outside world, you will not be able to perform on an optimal level. But the opposite is true. By keeping your mind on God (in Being), God will be the doer of all your worldly activities and not your mind. Then, the universe will act through you to manifest its purpose. God is No-Thing and does nothing, yet He leaves nothing undone. The ordinary man is always doing things, yet many more are left to be done.