One evening the Master and his students were sitting in silence, when a devotee came weeping through the door. Everyone knew the devotee’s story and the problems that he had in his life. As the devotee once again continued to recite his same old story, the Master in order to add humour to the situation, cracked a joke. The Master, students and the devotee had a good laugh and everyone including the devotee forgot what had brought him to the wise man’s door. Once everyone had settled again, the Master repeated the same joke. This time few students laughed with the same vigour, few just had a short laugh. Once again just as the room was filled with silence, the Master recited the same joke again. This time, just a few students laughed. Mostly were quiet. Some students were even wondering, what’s the matter with the Master. He has now repeated the same joke thrice already. Again, after a big pause, the Master said the same joke again. This time no one laughed. Students were exchanging glances with questions in their eyes. Finally, the devotee said, ” Master, you have repeated this joke quite a few times already. Can’t you see that no one is laughing now.”
The Master, with love in his eyes, looked at the devotee and said, “My dear, when you can’t laugh at the same joke again and again, why do you keep crying over the same thing again and again.”
Does this sound familiar?
We love our problems, our difficulties, our hard times. We keep going over them again and again, in our heads, telling the same stories to ourselves and repeating them before others for them to either empathize or sympathize with us. Got cheated, was mistreated, lost a job, gambled all the money away, was not respected or valued, was abused etc etc – the monotone continues. The same record plays again and again. Its perpetually on a repeat mode.
We do the same thing with our nice memories too. Older people often keep repeating the stories from their past for it gives them a sense of connection. This is how we tend to live in the past. Its hard to let go of our personal history. Its a war story that we like to keep alive.
As an unconscious behaviour, very often all we do is live in the past whereas life always happens at the present moment. Whilst life keeps moving forward, we just seem to be stuck. Whilst we know that a moment once gone never comes back and what remains as memory is only the wake, we like to somehow keep it alive, for the death of it would mean a big loss to our egoic self, a loss of something that we have given meaning to.
We forget that the past enters into the doorway of our present only through memory. Yet, despite the knowing that whilst minutes only get debited from our life account, and moments gone never come back again, we let the past flow into our present moment and limit the way the present moment could have unfolded itself. The challenge of it lies in walking that distance between awareness and action. That means when the temptation to run into the past is natural and strong, we practice doing the opposite thing and choose a different action – i.e., to acknowledge that we have moved away from the present, what is with us right now, to what was into the past and then bring our focus back on to being grateful for all our blessings that we have in the present – which are innumerable like life, health, food, family and friends, internet, teachers, books, etc.
Don’t define your present because of the past. The present comes with innumerable possibilities and outcomes. Enjoy the co-creating process. Let go of the past and let life flow. Bless the past and be grateful for what is and whatever will be.