354
Aptavani-4
error. What I am telling You, is that You should experience the
present that is before You. The past is gone. Even intellectuals
would not stir up the past. And to think about the future is to
worry.
Therefore, remain in the present. While the satsang is
going on now, listen to it with concentration (ekagra) of chit.
When you are balancing your books, do it with such
concentration (ekagra) of chit. And when you are swearing at
someone, do it with the same concentration (ekagra) of chit.
He who perpetually remains in the present, is a Gnani. People
cannot enjoy the present, because they worry about the future
and the past. They even make errors in their accounting. The
Gnani Purush will never ruin the present.
Questioner: Do we have to forget about the past and the
future?
Dadashri: No, you do not have to forget, you just have
to remain in the present. Forgetting is a burden. You cannot
forget even if you want to, and besides, the more you try to
forget something, the more you will remember it. One man was
telling me, “When I sit down to do a samayik (meditative
introspection) I think to myself, ‘Today I am not going to be
reminded about the shop’. And on that very day, the first thing
I see in my samayik is the shop!” Why does that happen? It is
because, when he said he did not want to be reminded of it,
essentially he showed contempt towards it! You should not be
contemptuous of anything.
There is only one thing, and that is to remain in the
present. You have nothing whatsoever to do with the past or the
future. Remaining in the present is immortal state (amarpad).
‘We’ remain exactly as ‘we’ are in the present. If you wake ‘us’
up at night ‘we’ will be the same, and if you wake ‘us’ up in the
day, ‘we’ will be the same. Whenever you see ‘us’ ‘we’ will be
just the same as ‘we’ are now.