How to live in the present?

Acharya Prashant
2 min readMay 22, 2020

You need to have something very important at your hand that will keep you engrossed. At the same time, the Scriptures do not put any special emphasis on not thinking about the future, or not looking at the past.

You have to be centered on the Truth.

You have to be centered on something large, Immense.

And then if that requires you to go into the past or future, it is alright.

Carefully understand this.

It is not about whether you are going to past or future, it is about where you are going to past and future from. If you are well entrenched in your natural seat, if that’s where you are strongly based, and then from there, from your base you decide to visit past or future, there is no problem.

It’s okay.

The brain has the physical, prakritik (natural) power to look at memories, go into them, analyse them, co-relate a few things, and also imagine the future. And the brain can keep doing all those things. It’s alright.

You have to be firmly seated in the Truth, and then whatever the brain does would be alright and auspicious.

You do not have to put this condition upon yourself that past and future have to be staunchly avoided, Saints have not said that.

It is a very recent, a very American idea. It is not a Spiritual idea — ‘Live in the present moment’ — and all that.

‘Past’ and ‘Future’ are the movements of prakritik (natural) brain. The brain can do nothing but wander in time, that’s how this physical machine is designed. It’s designed to move in time, so it will necessarily consider past and future. That’s what ‘time’ is.

As far as you are concerned, you are not prakriti (nature). So you don’t have to tag along with the brain when it goes to past or future, you remain seated in the Truth. When you are seated in the Truth, then past and future are both alright.

Watch the full video here.

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Acharya Prashant