Buddhist Doctrine

Drop Anxiety

Drop anxiety, drop worry. Anxiety is the only barrier. When we are in deep anxiety we are never here now. Anxiety means of the future or of the past. Anxiety is never in the present . . . anxiety cannot be of the present. It is impossible to create anxiety right now. In this very moment it is impossible

Either you look back – somebody insulted you, something went wrong, and you did something you never wanted to do, and now you are crying and weeping over spilt milk …. It is foolish because nothing can be done about it. The past is past, and you cannot undo it. So don’t waste a single moment for it – enough!

The future is not yet, and nothing can be done about it because it exists not. Something is possible only when something is. Planning, trying to become this and that – achieving, ambition, desire … they are projections in the future. They create anxiety: Will it be possible to succeed or not? Will you be able to succeed? There are a thousand and one hazards. One trembles, fear arises … anxiety is felt.

All anxiety is either of the past or of the future – and both are not. So a man who lives in anxiety lives in non-existence. His life is a shadow life. It is a ghost life. He does not really live. His being is not authentic, because there is only one thing that is authentic and that is this moment. So start living in the moment more and more.

Old tendencies, old habits, will force you to go into the future and into the past. The moment you remember, relax – relax in the now. Laugh at the ridiculousness of the old habits. I’m not saying to fight with them. If you fight you will create anxiety. I am saying to simply laugh. Whenever you catch hold of yourself red-handed – again in the future and again in the past – there is nothing to be done. Slip out of it – just as a snake slips out of the old skin. No need to fight. Fight never solves anything. It can create more complexities.

So I am not saying to fight – I am saying to simply understand. Tomorrow will take its course on its own. When it comes you will be there to face it. And it never comes as tomorrow; it always comes as today. So learn to be here-now.

Live like trees, rocks, animals. Live like god!

Only man alone on the earth lives in anxiety. Below man is nature. It lives in the moment – unaware, unconscious, but it lives in the moment. It is not conscious enough to think about the past or to think about the future.

Then there are Buddhas, Christs, Krishnas – gods who have become so conscious that because of their consciousness they cannot move to the past and to the future. They are anchored in the present … their consciousness is centred in the present.

And man is just between these two. He is neither as unconscious as the animals and the trees, nor is he as conscious as a buddha. So he goes on, split: one part moving towards the past one part moving towards the future – pulled, torn apart. Hence there is anguish, anxiety, pain and suffering.

One just has to understand and become more and more aware.