The present , the only reality we can live in.. - A conversation with a friend

We were walking back from the library. He is a psychiatrist living in an apartment (a posh Condominium...) very close to my community. Both of us keep bumping into each other in the same aisle, looking for books on medieval Christian theology. That’s how we got acquainted. He has a pretty decent practice including a couple of celebrities as his clientele. A simple man, very well read with a deep interest in Eastern mystical traditions. Many a beautiful Saturday have been spent, if I am in Atlanta, having lunch together and talking about the evolution of Man’s vision of Godhead, its transition from Polytheism to Monotheism, and the heretic traditions of Western philosophy.

He said “Bala, one of the things that intrigue me about mystical writings is the emphasis on: “Don’t live in the past or the future, live in the present”. Whether it be Boethius, Aquinas, Eckhart, Boehme, Shankara, Buddha or Rumi - all of them seem to stressing this point. But you know, as a psychiatrist, I find this slightly hard to digest. After all, Man is nothing but his past - genetically, inherited traits, upbringing, schooling; and without a future, there is no meaning in Human existence. Civilization, as we know it will crumble to pieces if we take this ground from under its feet... What do you think...?”

“Well, that’s interesting Mike. But I think, it is our interpretation of this statement that has gone a bit awry. Can we ever live in the past or the future? Is it ever possible at all? You see, one can remember the past in the “present”, think about the future in the “present”, but to call it “living” in the past or future seems a distortion of what these mystics were trying to point out. Without “I” being present, there is no past or future. The misunderstanding arises, I guess, from the fact that we attach this “I” to our thoughts presenting themselves as our past or future, forgetting that without an immovable present, there can be no canvas on which such thoughts can be painted. To perceive movement, there must be something relatively immovable, isn't it? Before I can be my past or my future, “I” must existentially be. This is the law, and linear language doesn't help much either in intuiting this truth. On a lighter note, when a boy caresses a girl’s thigh, or vice versa, it is the movement of one’s hand against a seemingly immovable thigh that gives the feeling a sense of reality and love. My ‘I’ness is the eternal, immovable present, and it is against this undeniable sense of being that thought vacillates between the past and future. The Mandukya Upanishad talks of the waking, dreaming and deep sleep states as mere beads woven around the thread of “beingness” or “presentness”, which is constant. The only means to be anchored in that state to “be silent”. Jacob Boehme, Whom you referred too earlier, writes “"When you remain silent from the thinking and willing of self, the Eternal hearing and seeing and speaking will be revealed in you, and God will see and Hear through you...” Spinoza’s vision of nature also points to this ground of being. You see, it’s the same experience from diametrically opposite traditions. Also, the reason why no method or practice can get us to that state, is because, we are already in that state of “being”, we have to let go of identifications and not hold on to fragmented memories and frenzied anticipations that lulls and masks the inner organic self that hums constantly in the background. “Tat tvam Asi, Svetaketu” - “That thou art” is the final pronouncement of Vedanta. It is ridiculously simple, once we shift our existential orientation …”

God bless….