Right Now Is The Goal
Right Now Is The Goal:
Buddha has told again and again to his monks, “I don’t say not to be angry. I say “while you are angry, be alert.” This is really one of the fundamentals for mutation. “I don’t say not to be angry. I say: while angry, be alert.” Try it. When anger comes, be alert. Look at it. Observe it. Be conscious of it. Don’t be in a slumber. And the more alert you are, the less angry. In a moment when you are really alert and anger is not – the same energy becomes alertness.
Energy is neutral. The same energy becomes anger. The same energy becomes hate. The same energy becomes love. The same energy becomes compassion. The energy is one; these are all expressions. And there are basic situations in which energy can become a particular mood. If you are unalert, energy can become anger, energy can become sex, energy can become violence. If you are alert, it can become – the alertness, awareness, consciousness, doesn’t allow it to move in those grooves. It moves on a different plane – the same energy.
Basic Question
A non-attached mind, according to Krishna, is one who accepts everything unconditionally. The interesting thing is that if you accept something totally it does not leave a mark, a scar on your mind; your mind remains unscathed and undisturbed. But when you cling strongly to a thing it leaves a mark on your mind. And when you are strongly averse to something you detest and deny it, then also it leaves a mark on your mind.
But when you neither cling to a thing nor run away from it, when you become receptive to everything – good or bad, beautiful or ugly, pleasant or painful – when you become like a mirror reflecting everything that comes before it, then your mind remains unscathed and unmarked. And such a mind is a non-attached mind; it is established in non-attachment.
According to Krishna, non-attachment is embedded in the very nature of a human being, in his very being. Non-attachment is our basic nature, our original face. So the real question is how one deviates from his nature. We don’t have to practice non attachment, we don’t have to do something to come to it. We have only to know how we have gone astray from our nature. This is our basic question.