Why Does the Mind Wander? - Part 2
Acharya Prashant: You see you are a human being. It is neither possible nor advisable for you to just give up on the past. The body is nothing but a flow of the past stretching over time. So, you cannot just wish away the past. It won’t happen.
If the past is bothering you, why not live in a way that resolves the past? If the past is bugging you, why not live in a way that resolves the past?
The past is shrieking, calling for attention, demanding completion. Why are you denying its space, the attention, the completion that it deserves? You are festering a wound on your arm, you are carrying it for two weeks and it’s deteriorating by the day. What is it calling for? Treatment.
But, influenced by the neo spiritual cult of living in the moment, you say that I don’t want to look at the past, all this is coming from the past, the wound belongs to the past. I don’t want to look at the wound. Why don’t you want to look at the wound? Do you want to imagine that it has disappeared? Let’s be practical; for you, the one who is talking, the one who is questioning and seeking solutions, does the wound not exist? Let’s talk about reality; does it exist or not? Then why do you want to imagine and act as if it does not? It does. And living in the moment does not mean denying the past.
Living in the moment, living in the present, to be more accurate means living in the one who is ever-present, living in the one who is omnipresent, living in the truth. And how can you live in the truth and simultaneously deny the fact to live in the truth - is to live in an unconditional acknowledgment of the fact and the wound is a fact that you cannot dismiss; the wound does exist. In the backdrop of the wound, what is it then to live in the present? What kind of action does that demand? Please.
You are a person carrying a wound from the past and the wound is still open. Is the wound healed and closed? No. And you are someone, who honestly, sincerely wants to live truthfully. Now, what should such a person do? Treat the wound. That is what living in the present means; to not be oblivious of the fact, to not to hide away from the fact and facts don’t just pop up at the moment. You may perceive the fact right now, but the fact belongs to a long complicated, unknowable stream of a network of cause and effects, does it not?
The wound comes from a network of places. It does not just come from one single reason. You can never accurately pinpoint where the wound comes from. But what is certain is that reasons do exist in the past that led to the appearance of the wound. So, the wound does have something to do with the past. And that past is open and crying; that past is unresolved and calling for closure. That is the righteous action, that is the right thing to do. So, what then is the meaning of living in the present? Either heal the wound of the past or find something that is so very immense that you forget the wound – only these two possibilities. And this is so very commonsensical and practical, is it not?
If I am a fellow carrying a wound, what do I do if I am in the company of something beautiful, something immense, something utterly important? Then I let the wound wait – I say, 'You are not important. Something else deserves my time, energy, attention.' And then you just ignore it, don’t you? We all know that, right? You have a headache but there is something more important than the headache. Don’t you attend that which is more important? Or do you just hold your head and coolly relax back? You don’t always do that. One does have discretion; one knows what to value over the other. Or the second right possibility is to attend to the wound and heal it. What most of the living in the moment-ists, that too is a cult, you know! Living in the now, living in the moment. So, what do the now-ists or the present moment-ists do? The wound is there bleeding, oozing pus, open, ready to turn into something septic, ready to turn into gangrene, but they are trying to entertain themselves with potato chips. They are trying to forget the open wounds of the past by watching the latest Friday flick. They are trying to ignore the wound of the past by engaging themselves in gossip or family or friends or kids. Please see what is it that they are not doing. Firstly, they are not honest towards the wound, they are not healing the wound. Secondly, they are not even honest about the truth. Do they have something so very important with them that they must ignore the wound? No, all they have is potato wafers.
So, what is the condition of such people? Neither are they healing the wounds, nor are they committing themselves to something valuable and immense. In fact, the kind of life that they are leading would only lead to more and more wounds, a proliferation of wounds, a body dotted with wounds.
In the name of living in the present, don’t forget the facts of your life. A time-bomb is ticking behind my back. Should I say, 'No, it belongs to the past because it was set to explode an hour back?' An hour back, it was set to explode after an hour. At 1:00 pm, it was set to explode at 2:00 pm, and right now it is 1:58 pm, and you are saying the time bomb belongs to the past, it belongs to 1:00 pm. It has been ticking for a long – I will not care for it. I live in the present moment, I live in the now, and right now I have my potato chips to take care of. Don’t indulge in such rhetorical foolishness; sounds good as a lecture; sounds good as a best seller. But it would land you in deep trouble and suffering.
Remember one golden rule – ‘The past cannot be wished away. If you had had your lunch, you must pay the bill.’ I said that in Bangalore as well. You cannot say - the lunch belonged to 1:00 pm and right now it is 3:00 pm, why must I pay the bill? Sorry, this is not a spiritual argument, it is not even an honest argument. You are just using spirituality as quackery. You are trying to deceive the hotel as well as yourself. If you have unsettled bills from the past, you will have to pay them. You cannot say - the past belongs to the past; I live only in the present, sorry!
If the past belongs to the past, then why do you accept interests on your fixed deposits? When did you deposit that money? In the past, and when is the interest accruing to you? Today! Why do you accept that interest? There are people who talk of the great capacities of the now. You write a book praising and worshiping the now. And for 10 years you have been accepting royalties. Have you written the book just now? Then why are you accepting the royalty for something that you did in the past? When was your book published? 10 years back. And when are you accepting the royalty? Today.
Spirituality does not mean an absence of common sense. Spirituality is super sensitive. Spirituality is beyond common sense.
But unfortunately, that which is beyond common sense is taken as something below common sense. There is a difference between transcending common sense and not even having common sense. Most spiritualists, in the name of spirituality, do not transcend common sense, they fall even below common sense. Below common sense is nonsense.
If you have leftovers from the past, clean them. In Zen they say if you’ve had your food, clean the plate. You cannot say, ‘I’ve had my food and the food was had in the past. So, why should I clean the plate?’ No, if you’ve had your food, clean the plate; you cannot just walk away. Neither can you walk away, nor can you walk out; very difficult. Settle your bills and then you are free. Or find something so big, so total that you are ready to die for it. And if you are ready to die for it, then your wounds don’t matter, right? You can die with your wounds. And if you die, then your wounds to die. And we talked of death too. Please get to the depth of the matter. If you want to live and live free, then settle your bills and heal your wounds; or find something so very infinite, unlimited, beautiful and lovely, that you are prepared to instantaneously die for it. And then you can ignore your wound, because if you die, then the wounds too die. So, there are these two methods.
For the ones who do not have the courage to die right now, the method is to heal the wound and settle the bills. And those who are prepared to die right now, only they can ignore the wounds. Then you can say; I am going to behead myself – Oh! not in a literal, but in a spiritual way; I am going to behead myself. And if I am going to behead myself, why do I need to take care of my wounds and debts and headaches and the stains on my shirt – all of these will die along with me. I am totally giving up on my past. I am to the life that there was, and dying to the life that I have so far lived. I would be born anew. I would be born as the Son of God. I would reappear again as the truthful one. I have totally and absolutely seen that the wounds are a dream. I have totally and absolutely seen that the bills are a dream. And if the bills are a dream, why settle them? If the wounds are a dream, why heal them? But don’t try to act smart, don’t be dishonest; you cannot say that the bills are a dream, but the food is not a dream. You cannot say that the wound is a dream, but the body is not a dream. It would be such an absurd thing. The wounds on the body, you are claiming as dream stuff, but the same body you are very serious about. That body you are taking to be real, that you cannot do, please.
So, either come to a point where you start seeing everything as unreal, obviously including yourself, your ego, your body, your entire life. When you start seeing everything as unreal, and first of all, yourself as unreal. Then you are in a position to ignore the bills. Then you have totally and truly died. Now, no obligation is valid upon you. Now, no-obligation chains you. Now you are going, going, disappearing, dying – the spiritual death. And this can happen only in the face of, we said, something extremely beautiful, captivating; something Krishna like; something so powerful – it demands the whole of you. And then you can forget the wounds, the bills, the food, the body, the ego, the life, all your stories then can be forgotten. But if you have still not found something so captivating, enamoring, then the way for you is to just attend to the wound and heal it. Do you get these two possibilities? Are they very clear? Look honestly at your condition and decide which of these possibilities would work for you. But do not go for the third possibility. The third possibility is to have the wounds and remain busy with potato chips. The third possibility is dishonest and dangerous.
Unfortunately, a lot of spirituality today is about that third way. I strongly advise you to reject the third way.
Questioner: I have a question. As you said, I have still not found the captivating, so my method should be the first one. But, in this first method, there is no clarity. When I am trying to treat the wound, I am getting messed up in the cause and effects – what caused the wound in a tension not to get wounded again and all this. So, when you proposed, when I heard what the second method is – it's more…
Acharya Prashant: ...alluring method.
Questioner: But I have not found it. So...
Acharya Prashant: I would advise you to firstly try healing the wounds. You see, the second method is the more alluring method, a more absolute method – to find the truth and just dissolve in it.
Questioner: One medicine to all.
Acharya Prashant: One medicine to everything, one-shot death – full stop! You have just switched on the light and the dreams have disappeared in a split second. All the nightmares, all the demons in the nightmares are gone, vanished. So, it’s the one great recipe. But I would still not ask you to go for it. Please understand the reason: because that recipe cannot be obtained by you. That recipe comes to you as a blessing; that recipe gets showered upon you on its own, as a benediction. You cannot claim it or target it. It is not within your reach. It comes to you as grace. So, how will you try it? How will you choose that option? That option is beyond your choice. It comes to you on its own when you are ready, which option is within the purview of your choice – heal the wound. And if you are sincere in healing the wound, a time comes when the wound is healed and you are gone.
You see, ordinarily when the wound is healed, then you live longer. In the world of the saints, when the wounds are healed, then you immediately, come on…. die! Because this mass is nothing but a big wound. If it is healed fully, you will stop breathing. You will stop breathing in the way you currently breathe. So, ordinary men of flesh and blood want to heal their wounds, so they may live longer. And the wise man wants to heal the inner wound. What is the inner wound? What is the psychic wound? The ego.
The ego is the one big wound, that we live with, that we live as. The wise man wants to heal that wound so that he disappears – Ah! The wound is healed and now where is the sick one? When the wound is healed, where is the wounded one, the sick one – O! dead, gone.
So, that is what you can do on your own, try that. And if you say as you have just said, that you have been unable to heal the wound, then go to a doctor, visit the non-physician. For physical wounds, one visits a physician. For non-physical wounds, one visits a non-physician.
What is the way to die? Heal your wounds.
जिस मरने से जग डरे, मेरो मन आनन्द।
कब मरिहौ, कब भेटिहो, पूरण परमानन्द।।
Jis marne se jag dare, mere man mein anand
Kab maru kab paon, puran parmanand
Translation: The whole world fears death, but death will be full of bliss for me
I am waiting for death which will merge me, into absolute bliss
