“Don’t dwell on what was, or rush ahead to what is not yet. Nothing can truly be lived outside the present moment. The past is over, gone; it cannot be changed or inhabited. The future, by its very nature, remains inaccessible; it is not yet.
To live anchored in memory or projected into anticipation is to inhabit a realm without ontological reality. Neither memories nor conjectures constitute an effective present. Those who cling to what has already happened or worry about what might come abandon the only place where something can truly be experienced: the now. The mind that wanders between what has ceased and what has not yet begun is emptied of reality. It loses the opportunity to be alive at the only point where life occurs.
Dissatisfaction arises when we allow our consciousness to be absent from the present. What we lack is not outside, but in the loss of attention to what is already here.
Being present is not a technique, it is an act of lucidity. Only those who remain attentive to what is happening in the moment can say that they are living. Everything else—memories, expectations, worries—is a form of evasion. Don’t get distracted: life won’t wait for you.
This moment is not a means to an end: it is the only real end you can reach. Wherever you are, everything is already there.”
Prabhuji
