The Joy Of Being
To alert you that you have allowed yourself to be taken over by
psychological time, you can use a simple criterion. Ask yourself:
Is there joy, ease, and lightness in what I am doing? If there
isn't, then time is covering up the present moment, and life is
perceived as a burden or a struggle.
If there is no joy, ease, or lightness in what you are doing, it
does not necessarily mean that you need to change what you are
doing. It may be sufficient to change the how. "How" is always more
important than "what." See if you can give much more attention to
the doing than to the result that you want to achieve through it.
Give your fullest attention to whatever the moment presents. This
implies that you also completely accept what is, because you cannot
give your full attention to something and at the same time resist
it.
As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and
struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When
you act out of present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes
imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love - even the most
simple action.
[Pause and meditate]
So do not be concerned with the fruit of your action - just give
attention to the action itself. The fruit will come of its own
accord. This is a powerful spiritual practice. In the Bhagavad Gita, one of the oldest and
most beautiful spiritual teachings in existence, non-attachment to
the fruit of your action is called Karma Yoga. It is described as
the path of "consecrated action."
When the compulsive striving away from the Now ceases, the joy of
Being flows into everything you do. The moment your attention turns
to the Now, you feel a presence, a stillness, a peace. You no
longer depend on the future for fulfillment and satisfaction - you
don't look to it for salvation. Therefore, you are not attached to
the results. Neither failure nor success has the power to change
your inner state of Being. You have found the life underneath your
life situation.
In the absence of psychological time, your sense of self is derived
from Being, not from your personal past. Therefore, the
psychological need to become anything other than who you are
already is no longer there. In the world, on the level of your life
situation, you may indeed become wealthy, knowledgeable,
successful, free of this or that, but in the deeper dimension of
Being you are complete and whole now.
In that state of wholeness, would
we still be able or willing to pursue external goals?
Of course, but you will not have illusory expectations that
anything or anybody in the future will save you or make you happy.
As far as your life situation is concerned, there may be things to
be attained or acquired. That's the world of form, of gain and
loss. Yet on a deeper level you are already complete, and when you
realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do.
Being free of psychological time, you no longer pursue your goals
with grim determination, driven by fear, anger, discontent, or the
need to become someone. Nor will you remain inactive through fear
of failure, which to the egois loss of self. When your deeper sense
of self is derived from Being, when you are free of "becoming" as a
psychological need, neither your happiness nor your sense of self
depends on the outcome, and so there is freedom from fear. You
don't seek permanency where it cannot be found: in the world of
form, of gain and loss, birth and death. You don't demand that
situations, conditions, places, or people should make you happy,
and then suffer when they don't live up to your expectations.
Everything is honored, but nothing matters. Forms are born and die,
yet you are aware of the eternal underneath the forms. You know
that "nothing real can be threatened."
When this is your state of Being, how can you not succeed? You have
succeeded already.
