Past Tense
"… And all the energy you put in the past you take away from tomorrow. That’s where lies your sorrow. That’s why you don’t have energy to make everything possible"
"…Every day you are newborn. Every seventy-two hours your cells change. You are a new person. What yesterday? "… What do you want to do with your yesterday? If you have anything to do with yesterday, you will never be prepared for tomorrow. And you will always be poor, handicapped, miserable, exploited, useless idiots."
Q: Then why does the mind produce it when we meditate?
A: Meditation is to clean yesterday. All the garbage left of yesterday, you clean by meditation. There is no other way to clean it.
Q: So we shouldn’t dwell on it?
A: Once you clean it, why dwell on it? Then the garbage man takes it. That’s called GOD. Mental garbage is taken by the garbage man. That’s called God. That’s why we meditate. We don’t meditate to ask for something. We meditate to be pure. Our purity and piety is done by simran. Simran is: meditate, and cut the negativity with the positive sound – the Word of God. If you can clean your subconscious and do not let those thoughts pour into your unconscious, you can never have a problem in life. You’ll be super-successful. You’ll be able to be one-pointed, and that’s what it takes for success. You have to be very one pointed. You can be in duality over this and duality over that. Here, there, everywhere. It’s too scattered. It’s like you are driving a car with a shattered front glass. It’s very difficult to drive. It’s just like a blind thing. …A broken glass cannot hold water. A split personality cannot have the juice of life. You are so unfortunate…"
Excerpts from lectures by Siri Singh Sahib Bhai Sahib Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogiji
10 Responses to “Past Tense”
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Great thoughts .
I’m sorry if this is an ignorant question but what about our past is so bad? I always thought happiness is a choice. And the past being what it is, is exactly everything that influence who we are today. And I don’t see anything wrong with that! We are created in the image and likeness, I say we should celebrate that! I’m not down playing meditation and all the points that it’s given here, it is a beautiful process. But to forget our past, wouldn’t that be like forgetting who we are?
Wasn’t conciousness given to us by God? So how can we condemn it? If mankind is unable to use the tool properly, there’s no point in condemning the tool. Again, I dont mean to offend anyone, just some points that came up in me. Any remarks/comments/criticisms are welcomed with open arms! Take care!
loved the picture so beautiful….my God I miss Yogi Ji….thank u for sharing….
Aaron, I don’t think the message is saying that the past does not matter. It’s a matter of not letting the past take control of you. Learn from the past…but don’t live/dwell in the past. Don’t worry about what happened yesterday….think about what you want to happen now…and tomorrow.
Aaron,
One way I look at this is the idea of Karma (all of these things being imperfect analogies of reality). We can look at Karma as the accumulation of bad habits and thoughts (self image, belief etc.) that build up in our subconscious – with out our knowledge or consent. If we do not clean this out, then those patterns of behavior and reactions drive our present patterns of behavior and reactions.
For instance, if your first wife told you that you were a no good bum and a lousy lover, that landed in your subconscious. The longer that went on the more of that built up in your subconscious. Today, if someone address you in a similar tone ( or some other trigger occurs), even if it has nothing to do with that, you are very likely to respond as if it was your first wife all over again. Your reaction will be unconscious and your response will be driven by you past, not your present. It’s not that the past is bad or that we should forget, but by allowing those patterns to remain in the subconscious we “live” in the past because we are still reacting to it.
By meditating, we allow those patterns to change. The how really isn’t that important; you can call it God (as Yogiji does), you can call it “thoughts creat things”, you can call it positive visualization, you can call it “my quiet time.” What really matters is that you do it. You take a shower because you don’t want to walk around today with the dirt, dead skin, dead hair, oils, food, urine, etc. from yesterday. You wash it off, so you go into today clean and new. Meditation is the same for the mind.
That on-board CPU for the skin-suit we live in in this world is a marvelous tool. But, it needs regular maintenance and cleaning.
That’s my take on it. As always I could be wrong ( and someday will probably realize that I am), but today that is how I see it.
Sat Nam,
Ajai Singh
Just one more pilgrim trying to stay on the path.
It’s a very nice pitcure, I like it so much. Thank you,Gumustuk.
Cornelia Singh
Thanks everyone for the clarification, it’s much appreciated!
Ajai Singh, that second paragraph you wrote…with the analogy of the first wife. I think I understand what it is you’re saying so allow me to re-iterate in my terms, and please inform me if this is what you were saying or not.
When it comes to our past experiences and pains and such. These things that stay in our subconcious tend to come up when similar circumstances arise. A thing with this that I learned from a teacher, not a school teacher, is that when these things arise we need to forgive. Not the people who harmed us in any way, but to forgive ourselves. For example, to rely to your wife analogy. If someone’s wife were to say all those things to that person, that has absolutely nothing to do with the person, but it’s all within the wife. So allowing the wife’s words to hurt ourselves is something we allowed to happen to ourselves. So when we realize this we need to forgive ourselves for allowing ourselves to let take an effect on us. I hope I haven’t lost anyone yet. But my point is, I please let me know if my understanding is off, is that meditation or our ‘quiet time’ as you stated is just a means for us to self heal. Because essentially God resides within each of us. And to allow external things to wound us, would be as though wounding God. So we need to heal our ‘God’ by forgiving ourselves. Again if this is relatively close to or far from what you were saying please let me know. Take care!
Aaron,
That isn’t exactly what I was saying, but I don’t necessarily think you’re “wrong” either.
I think healing is a good way to put it, though the cleaning out of the subconscious may also take before many of these patterns have even “taken root” too.
This is just my take, but it is the awareness of these patterns that allows healing to take place. Whether that is in the form of forgiveness or some other proactive stance (e.g. starting a yoga practice to resolve that issue or pattern). But, sometimes just being aware of some of these issues and giving them some space will cause them to loose their hold on us and healing occurs then too.
Also, I don’t discount that meditation will also clean out many things we are not even conscious of. It is a powerful technology that works on many levels gross and subtle.
That’s my take on all of this today. Catch me next year and I may see it from completely perspective. At least it isn’t boring :-)
Peace,
Ajai
Thank you brother Ajai. I think I understand what you’re saying now. Take care!
We are so blessed to have our Teacher. We are also so blessed to have a place where people can have real conversations about real things.
Cherdi Kala – Spirit Rising!!!