Art of living in the moment is happiness

It was a nice gathering of devotees in the temple of a village where a Self-realized Saint was visiting. A devotee approached the Saint and requested, “Dear Sir, I have a request for you. Please eradicate the sorrow from our lives.”

“Son, I become a monk only for the purpose of helping others and eradicating the sorrow from the lives of people. But it seems people are not much interested. Tell me, from whose life do you want to eradicate sorrow?”

“Hmm… Sir, please eradicate the sorrow from the lives of all the people here.”

The Saint started smiling. After a moment of silence, he said, “Alright son, if you insist then let’s talk about eradicating sorrow from the lives of all these people. To begin with, let’s categorize all the sorrows into 3 categories: sorrows of the past, sorrows of the future and the sorrows of the present time. Do you agree with me?”

All the devotees sitting in the temple nodded their head in affirmation and curiously started listening to the Saint. The Saint continued, “All the sorrows of the past have already passed and those are only in your memories now. Whatever has happen, happened for the good. No one can change the past. Those sorrows of the past only bother you because of the ignorance of your true Self – your Sat-Chit-Anand (Eternal Conscious Blissful) Self. You can simply eradicate the sorrows of the past just by not remembering those. Do you agree?”

“Yes Sir, I agree,” the devotee said while nodding his head.  

“Now let’s talk about the sorrows of the future. The sorrows of the future also exist only in your mind because those sorrows haven’t taken the shape of reality yet. So, be brave and stop giving importance to the thoughts of future. In this manner you can easily eradicate the sorrows of the future. Do you all agree?”   

The devotee nodded once again in affirmation and said, “Alright Sir, I agree with you. Please eradicate the sorrows of the present at least.”

“So, we have eradicated all the sorrows of the past and of the future. Now, let’s talk about the sorrows of the present. The time right now is 8:25 AM. So all the sorrows of before 8:24 AM are the sorrows of the past and all the sorrows after 8:26 AM are the sorrows of the future. At this very moment, all of you are sitting in the pleasant and divine atmosphere of this temple and these moments are very peaceful and free of any sorrow. Moreover, this moment is also flowing into the past very quickly. So, do you agree that all the sorrows are eradicated for all the people here?”

Everyone in the temple began to smile and the devotee with the original request was almost speechless now.

The Saint continued with a pleasant smile on his face, “The art of living in the present brings forth inner peace and true happiness in a pure heart. By the virtue of being in the company of Saints, listening to their talks or by reading holy scriptures, one can learn the art of living in the moment. A true seeker puts in all the efforts to spend the present moments in the divine remembrance of God, in paying gratitude to the God for all the blessings, in performing selfless service or in meditating upon the true Self. A true seeker avoids spending time in the unnecessary thoughts of the past or the future. Such a seeker begins to realize that true happiness is living in the present.”