or get married and honeymoon on Molokai or get a job with an airline and visit faraway lands. When they do land a job, they look forward to a promotion. And on the job, promotion or not, they can’t wait for vacation.
Whenever we daydream, worry, or nurse a grudge, we are training the mind to escape from the present moment. We get trapped in the past or the future.
I know people who wish away all the workdays of the week just to slip away for the weekend to their vacation home in the woods. Those five workdays they are not really alive, because they are not living in the present.
Similarly, many people put in their time absentmindedly for fifty weeks a year while dreaming of the two weeks they can spend in Acapulco. When you let your mind do this, by the time you reach Acapulco you will be thinking, “The Galapagos! Those big tortoises! That’s what I really want to see.” Then you are not alive in Acapulco either, and if you do get to the Galapagos and meet one of those tortoises face to face, you will probably already be thinking about the penguins in Patagonia.
This is what I mean when I say we are trapped in time. At such times we are neither here nor there, neither in Acapulco nor in the Galapagos. The mind has been conditioned to be somewhere, anywhere, else – which means, really, nowhere and never.
Beneath the surface level of consciousness, perhaps one third of our attention is imprisoned in the past – in vain regrets, futile lamentations, nostalgic memories. “If only I could become twenty-five again, with the glow of youth on my cheeks and the sparkle in my eyes, what would I not do?” This sort of thing.
And another third is trapped in the future. “Just wait till I get my degree. After that let me become president. Then let me get the Nobel Prize, and then finally let me become the dictator of the whole world. Then I am going to be happy.” It sounds ridiculous, but if we could listen in on our thoughts this is the kind of thing we would hear.
The conclusion is unavoidable: if one third of our time, with all its energy and creative resources, is trapped in the past, and another third is trapped in the future, we are one-third people. That’s all of us that is here and now.
I started to understand this when I began to meditate. Meditation is a kind of glass-bottom boat for observing the mind, and when I saw what was happening under the surface, I decided I didn’t want to be a one-third person. I wasn’t even content to be a two-thirds person. I wanted to be whole, to be full.
In the Indian scriptures there is a glorious verse: “Take fullness from fullness; fullness still remains.” That is what I wanted. When you are full, you can give to everyone and still be full. You can love each person and still have love to give to everyone else. You can give fullness away like a millionaire scattering largesse. You can open a flea market for love, setting up a little stand and saying, “Take as much as you can. Help yourself!” and at the end of the day you will still be full.
The mantram helps us come back to the present moment and focus fully on what we’re doing. It makes us more effective.
The mantram can enable us to attain this state of fullness. With practice, we can train the mind to withdraw attention from the past and future whenever it strays there, until we rest completely in the present. Every time the mind wanders – as it surely will – you simply bring it back with the mantram and focus again on what you are doing.
Most wandering thoughts can be traced to past or future. “I don’t like the way he behaved to me this morning. I wonder what she meant by that remark last summer. How am I going to face my boss when I haven’t got that report done?” This is how the mind runs off, away from the present moment.
For example, you sit down for work and soon a little part of your mind taps you on the shoulder and whispers, “Hey, we’re going to a movie tonight! You almost forgot.” Instead of letting your mind wander to the coming evening, bring it back to what you are doing. If you let it wander during the morning’s work, it will wander in the evening too. When the time comes to see the film, you will be only partially there.
Or perhaps you are trapped in a boring meeting. The clock on the wall says ten-thirty in the morning, but for you it is already eight in the evening and you’re saying hello to your date. Your mind is not on the meeting; you scarcely hear the words. While your colleagues talk, you sit there waiting for the sun to set.
And probably your date is doing the same. Imagine: two people who want to be fully alive spending most of the day being anywhere but here and now.
Feeling Stressed Out?
Three Tools to Try
How can we make better use of our time – without feeling yet more pressure? In this chapter and the next, you’ll find three key tools. They each work well on their own, but they’re even better used in combination.
The Mantram It’s invisible, it’s portable, and it offers instant help. Repeat it silently anywhere, at any time. Use it as a “rapid focus tool” to bring the mind back to the present. You’ll then have all your resources at your disposal to tackle any challenge you’re facing – whether it’s an everyday problem, such as a tired child or stalled traffic, or a major crisis.
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