Personal Health and Happiness with Giddy Kitty

When you are smack dab in the middle of a problem, there doesn’t seem to be any way out. You feel overcome with tension, anxiety and worry. The speeding non-stop thoughts racing through your head feel sickening. Never relinquishing control for an instant, that insidious mind ferociously threatens any chance of sanity you long for. Its crushing mental blows are disheartening, making you feel isolated and alone. Nothing but fear courses through your veins as you frantically seek freedom the chaos.

Stop a minute before you accept total defeat and ask yourself this question. Have you ever noticed that every time this happens you never pause long enough to realize that your mind is any place but NOW, in the present moment? Like a horse at the starting gate, you quickly bolt to the “what if” department firmly convinced you can predict the future. There’s a lot of disjointed, useless worrying going on instead of being current with the instant. Isn’t there? Rather than taking a second to calm down when you feel thrown, you immediately seek relief by lamenting over past predicaments or jumping ahead to ferret out what’s might happen. Your vivid imagination is quickly used as a crutch to avoid staying right now.

Uncomfortably hectic feelings of the unknown make it unbearable for you to want to stay focused on NOW (where unlimited options occur if you let them). You’d much rather feed the need to figure things out. You project unlimited scenarios then live in mortal fear of your own creations. Totally unaware and oblivious to the fact that it’s the emotion surrounding what’s happening showing for you to look at. You’re being challenged to move away from what you know from past patterning. Challenged to move out of the habitual and into the spontaneous.

The whole process of change feels horrible because it’s automatic to flip to what you’re used to. You’ve been taught that this little scheming mind provides healthy, methodical plans designed to protect you from repeated mistakes. “Learn from experience,” you’re told. “Plan ahead.” “Don’t leave the future to chance.” None of which support real happiness. All of which are in direct opposition to living in the NOW. NOW means NOW. It’s the smartest move you can make if you want truly want the most helpful action.

The mind is not your friend. It’s composed of intellect, which is not necessarily intelligence. That’s the problem. An analytical, emotion-filled referral service which you call a mind (based solely on past/future calculations), guarantees you’ll never have any peace. Made up of ignorance piled on top of ignorance, it tricks you into believing it’s knowledgeable. Playing this game is delightful to it. The more it has you going, the more fearful you become. Like a tennis ball in a heated match it perpetually whips you back and forth, keeping the focus far away from the here and NOW.

There’s no doubt a mind is good for remembering where you live, getting to the grocery store, tasks to be performed at work, names and places. Other than that it’s nothing but a twenty-four hour irritation that never shuts up. Next time you contemplate trusting that mind take this saying into consideration first, “The human mind has an infinite capacity to conceive on a finite basis.” That’s why you keep getting into trouble when you attempt to think your way through things. It’s a dead-end street. A crowded head leaves no room for answers.

In retrospect, don’t all really helpful solutions come out of nowhere? No matter what the size, aren’t real answers spontaneous, profound and unexpected? You followed your gut or were led to take action for one reason or another. Mentally reliving your past and then projecting your known fears into the future leaves absolutely no space for a fresh, unscarred, unblemished present does it? You must let go of your death grip on the known. It’s miraculous when you do. The definition of a miracle is a change of mind.

Staying right now, clinging to the absolute moment is true protection. It’s where all miracles come from. It’s your only protection. There is no past or future, i.e. no thinking in NOW. There is no fear either. You can’t project when you stay NOW. Therefore, problems evaporate. It appears to melt down that which isn’t. Like darkness when light comes in a room, it disappears.

Why? You’re not one second into the future or one second into the past. Prior conditioning isn’t tagging along to interfere with potentiality. Thinking and NOW cannot coexist, therefore, there is never a crisis in NOW. If your past and your future are wiped out, what is there to be afraid of?

Whether you realize it or not, NOW is indestructible and invisible. That’s why it’s a safe place to rest. It’s vastness is infinite, unlimited. When trouble and whatnot flits across your horizon, do you immediately go to NOW and stay there? Or, do you start with all of your troubles and keep running them through your head over and over again?

Do you think to ask yourself if NOW is troubled, or in trouble? If NOW is annoyed? Then continue on by asking yourself if there is more than the one alone, more than this NOW moment? When you start with NOW and stay there, your little bitty tape-playing mind won’t find a listener. It won’t find a place to penetrate and infiltrate. Don’t think it’s silly because it isn’t. The practice of being NOW is the most effective action you can take.

Thinking creates problems. It’s the only hell there is. You take delivery of the goods. You buy the farm and then desperately try to dig your way out of it. You do it to yourself. You’re screaming bloody murder when all along it’s you against yourself. What other mind is doing it to you? Thus the saying, “When you are happy you aren’t thinking and when you are thinking you aren’t happy… so don’t think!”

There’s no doubt that problems seem to be real and overpowering when you’re down in there with them. That’s why you have to get some distance and refrain from any judgment for a while. Worry pushes away answers. You must raise yourself higher than the level of the problem to solve it and that is exactly what staying NOW does. While it doesn’t make rational sense, when you let go and rest in NOW what needs to be done will be done. The trick is remembering to do it.

It may be hard to believe, but everything actually works much better when you stop all your anxious thinking. Try it. The world worked just fine before you came along and it will continue to do so after you leave. Desires, expectations and needs tend to trip you up because they become more important than living life itself. Instead of being nice additions, these external things become demands for happiness.

A quote from the book Visthistha’s Yoga says, “The very best intelligent means by which the mind can be subdued is complete freedom from desire, hope or expectation, in regard to all objects at all times.” Which means lighten your burden through non-attachment. Let go and live. Live from NOW to NOW, not knowing what’s next. It’s very easy and very difficult at the same time. Yet, anyone who is truly earnest in his/her effort will achieve this.

Aren’t you always surprised if you don’t expect anything? You are happier too. “My burden is light,” comes from the Gospel According to Thomas. When you don’t have hope, desire or expectation can you possibly feel weighted down? Your mind ends up leading you instead of you leading it, like a dog walking its master rather than the other way around. You start fidgeting and projecting, and then your mind just goes nuts. You worry yourself to death, needlessly and miss the beauty of NOW. You’re too busy analyzing everything to death because you want to be right. You miss every thing that’s precious and valuable.

When was the last time you actually appreciated the blueness of the sky, the colors of a rainbow or the gentleness of a butterfly? How long has it been since you really looked at the trees, noticed the beauty of colorful flowers or smelled freshly cut grass? You can’t grab NOW. By the time you try to grab this NOW, there is another NOW. Certainly, you can enjoy the fragrance of each special moment by being a present part of its splendor.

Don’t be like Mrs. Lott (from the Bible) who turned to look back and became a pillar of salt. Looking back into the past is deadness. Looking forward into the future is lifeless. If you want peace, drop thinking and hand over your mind to NOW. Just put one foot in front of the other and stay absolutely, positively right NOW. NOW and God are synonymous terms. How risky could it be? It may seem impractical, but nothing could be further from the truth.

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