Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academ-advaita.com
The Netherlands
18 December 2019
Fifth Season (7)
“Mind”
You could not be happy sometime today and hope you will be happy tomorrow. You do not understand that every moment is tomorrow because there is only the moment ‘here and now’ every moment.
So understand that, if you are not happy today, which is every moment, you will not be happy tomorrow, which is also every moment, that is here and now as today. If you accept the moment as it is in every moment you will always be happy today and tomorrow.
In spiritual circles, you are told to renounce all desires completely and when you renounce them, one day you will be happy. That is also tomorrow, not today, not here and now.
You are told to give up every desire. This means you have to give up everything because you desire to have so many things. God has given you desire and the moment in which desire is. So is it possible to give up what God has given you?
Understand that God has given you every season and the weather in every season, so you cannot give up any season or the weather in any season. Similarly, understand that you cannot give up any desire in the mind because desire is the weather and the season in the mind.
The mind has not understood how it can give up the moment which is always here and now. How can you expect tomorrow, which is always the ‘here and now’ moment?
God has given you everything: your job, your clothes, your shoes, your supper, your family, your children, your friends, etc., even though you do not make any moment in life, which is always ‘here and now’ as today and tomorrow.
You do not realise, if you really renounce desire, that God will always be giving you what you have renounced and is needed to live daily life. Understand that you cannot desire the weather in any season.
The weather in any season in life will be what it is ‘here and now’. Understand that the weather cannot be other than it is in any moment, which is here and now in life.
Similarly, understand that the thoughts in the mind, which is the weather in the mind, will be what it is in any moment here and now and will not be other than what the thoughts are here and now.
The enlightened accept everyone’s mind and its contents as it is in any moment.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V.S. Shankar 2019
Editor’s Note:
The centre of the flower that lives is present here and now throughout its life. The centre of life is the moment that is here and now. From the centre of the flower emanates the divine beauty and fragrance of the sensory world, albeit illusory. From the centre of life springs the entire sensory world, albeit illusory. Man and the entire sensory world are present in the moment that is – the centre of life. There is nothing in the sensory world that is by the hand or thought of man, be he wise or unwise, for no man is the doer as the wise proclaim. There is nothing save the illusion in the centre of the world - only the moment that is. By the intelligence of life arises the gift of enlightened men and women, whose every word is gifted to man to light his path towards enlightenment, if it is meant to. Understand that this is so.
Julian Capper.UK
German Translator‘s Note:
That it is always here and now and never yesterday or tomorrow seems to be a banal fact. And yet humans do not live their everyday life with this understanding. We know that of course there is never tomorrow, because tomorrow is always here and now when it happens, but in the here and now we still believe that tomorrow actually exists. To recognize this as an illusion, as Dr. Shankar's article shows, is enlightenment. From this understanding follows that the human being is not the doer, speaker and thinker, which leads to the fact that the ego, which until then thought of itself as the doer, speaker and thinker, evolves as a mere observer, the witnesser, living in full acceptance of what happens in the mind as an illusion.
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany.