Life is new. Life is always new. Thought is always old. Oldness is a thought. But life is not a thought. This world is not a thought. When we see this world from the prism of thoughts, we live in thoughts. Hindus call that state ‘Maya’. Maya means that which appears but is not there. Hindus call this world Maya-Maya means the world imagined in thoughts.
The world is a reality but in thoughts, it becomes ‘Maya’. Life is newness, always. Every moment old dies and new is born. Oldness births newness every moment. But man is blinded by thoughts. He is hypnotised by the past. Memories are stored in the storage of the mind but man has clung to them.
Life comes in newness every moment but we are full of thoughts. We don’t have space for newness. That deadens the newness of life. Every moment when you take a new breath, old dies out. There is a space for new breath to replace old ones. But the mind does not empty space for life.
Newness is the code of life. Existence springs newness all over every moment. New life births every moment. New winds blow every moment. New water is gushing in rivers. New river goes up into the sky and rains.
Newness impregnates mother earth’s womb to conceive new life. New sky meets new earth every moment. Trees spring new leaves. New flowers are budded. Birds sing new songs of life every moment. New seeds are spread all over the earth. The new sun lulls you. A new breeze tantalises you with new fragrance.
A new winter romances with old summer. New clouds have sex to give birth to new showers and thunders. New love is seeded in man and woman to breed new life. A new day wakes up the old night. A new sun lights up the darkness of the old night. New rays of sun pour every day and you let them land on the surface of your house. A new night douses fire of the sun brings serenity. A new moon reflects from the stillness of the lake. A new star is born and the old one dies out.
Life is teeming in joy every moment. All around you floods fun and joy. Earth is dancing in joy and ecstasy of newness.
But man is immensely miserable. Man wants to hold on to the moment of life. Moment of life slips away from his hands. He cannot grasp the moment of life. The key to holding the moment is to become one with the moment. But man wants to treasure the moment for later use. Instead of being joyous in the joyfulness of the moment, man wants to treasure it in memory. He wants to store the moment for the future. Life is not a photograph.
In the hope of living life, we keep on postponing life. We keep on thinking about the thought of life that we want to live that makes us postpone life. Life is knocking on your door every moment. Life is in front of you. Life has overwhelmed you. But your ego is a thought that overpowers your life. It happened to Alexander the Great who wanted to live life after conquering the world and he did conquer the world but could not live life imagined by him. It happens to everyone as thoughts are mere thoughts.
Meeting life is like meeting the newness of life. How to be prepared for the newness of life? For that, you have to be new to be prepared to meet the newness of life. Being new means your past baggage does not kill newness. Don’t gauge life from the parameters of past knowledge, culture, ethnicity. Gauge life by what you are. When you meet life by what you are, life begins to pour on you. You will attain a sense of your being. That’s when you meet life. Life is a flower that has bloomed. Meeting life is like being in that flower-ness of being. You meet life when you be in your own flower-ness.
Old is dead and newness is alive. You keep judging life from the parameter of your past memories. Meeting newness means you come empty. But ego disguises you. In fact, ego is your own thought. You think ego is the truth. Ego is what you have been conditioned into. The mystical newness of life overwhelms you. But your ego slays the newness of life. Your ego interprets newness in its own version. Therefore life never meets you. You imagine meeting life but you never meet life.
Life demands the new to deserve life. You have to be new to meet life. You have to meet life every moment. But you keep waiting for meeting life. You have thoughts that you will meet life when you will have lots of wealth or power or fame. You run after your own thoughts. You are never able to meet life.
Life happens. Life happens in the moment. When the moment is gone there is another moment in the present. The present moment is so deep and penetrating that there is nothing beyond it. In fact, there is neither past nor future. Past and future are logical comprehensions of the mind. Mind is the sum total of your past reflected into your future. And time is mere mathematics of calculating chronological or psychological time.
Life is neither in the past nor in the future. There is nothing beyond this moment. There is nothing before it or after it. This moment is in fact eternal. Eternity is being in the newness of this moment. In fact to call this moment a moment is in fact to bring it under the comprehension of time and space. Therefore even the moment is not there but the present is the only moment in hand.
Meeting life happens when you meet your being. Meeting your being is to begin from where you are not that you have to prepare to do something for tomorrow. You are absolutely at the same place where existence wants you to be. Your journey has to begin from right there where you are. You don’t have to prepare for anything.
Life is a flower. We are flowered into life. The flowering of life lends you wings. Let the secret newness of life be known to the world. The same way as flowers does. The joyfulness of flowers conceal the secret of life and they let honey bees expose their secrets. The same way as birds sings the secret song of life every day.
The author is a spiritual teacher and he can be contacted at arunavalokitta@gmail.com
