This is the information age. By the time one opens his eyes in the morning he gets a world of knowledge by various means like WhatsApp messages, Facebook, Twitter and even e-mails. We are also so disciplined that whether we think of God Almighty or not, we check our mobile devices to read these messages providing us with profound and unlimited knowledge. It’s a different matter that by the time we have our breakfast we have forgotten about these gems. Neither the sender nor the recipient has any intention of remembering and following the ‘message’ that is there in these messages.

But one message that I keep receiving frequently is that ‘we must live in the present alone’. Thinking of the past or the future is a cause of stress and unhappiness. This theme has stayed with me for decades now – ‘living in the present’. I wonder how many people actually practise this and stay in the state of bliss.

I have read about many rishis and yogis who have lived their lives without bothering about past or future and in deep meditation. But the same rishis and yogis have also written about astrological and astronomical predictions. I wonder then if this message was followed by them also in its literal sense. But since I’ve always believed that I’m not intellectually equipped to make any comment on the subjects of spirituality or religion I’ll stay with my thoughts on the statement – ‘live in the present’.

Let us think of a new born baby. After his birth for a period of few months he lives in a state of perfect bliss, which is ‘the present’. If he is in pain he will cry, he is hungry he will cry if he is happy he will smile and so on and so forth. But as the baby starts growing and starts getting ability to think, this ability of living in present keeps getting dwindling. If the child now knows that he has to go for vaccination and he sees the nurse or the doctor he becomes tense thinking about what lies in store for him in the immediate future. Or he sees something that he likes to eat, may be a favourite fruit or sweet, even the looks of it bring a smile to his face. Now the child becomes slightly older and gets admission in a play school. Often by the evening of Sunday he will start having thoughts of having to go to the school next morning and will get put off. While he may enjoy the day well in the protective environment of home, before the time comes to part with his mom he gets slightly tense. Similarly, news of a favourite uncle or grand-parent coming to be with them for some time makes the child happy. He starts waiting for their arrival. In either case, there is an anxiety in the mind of child which is related to a future happening. Sometime, this anxiety is positive and sometime it is negative. A baby, who was completely living in the present without any worry and anxiety, has grown up now and has started developing these feelings.

So as the child grows up he starts thinking. Thinking gives him an ability to analyse the past events and he starts making an attempt to foresee what lies in store for him tomorrow. It could be pleasure and fun and could be pain and difficulty. What the moot point is that human being, in fact not only human being but animals too, are blessed with an ability to remember the past and also an ability to think about the future. This is a natural instinct that nature has given us which keeps getting sharper as we grow older, till it starts dwindling in old age to an extent.

‘Live in the Present’ has two components. One is ‘yesterday’ and the other is ‘tomorrow’. We shall consider both one by one.

It is often said that ‘history shows man never learns from history’. This is indeed true for many aspects of life. As individuals, as societies and as nations we continue to prove this adage correct. One area which is getting neglected in this technology driven materialistic world is the dispassionate study of history to analyse human behaviour, societal behaviour and national behaviour. Doing this will enable us to understand the ‘cause and effect’ of many things in our lives. Just to give an example, in the world of diplomacy we have experts who have been studying the conduct of inscrutable Chinese over the years. What can’t be seen or read by the current actions of Chinese is relatively easier to understand if we have read their history well. All this is concerned with going into the past of the mankind. There are many answers hidden for the present day questions in our past. These questions may relate to medical sciences, natural disasters, human behaviour, societal and national behaviour etc. It is not for nothing that ‘Kabir ke Dohe’ are equally applicable today as they were hundreds of years ago. Human behaviour and instincts have remained same throughout the existence of the man kind. If only we go back in the past, try to mentally live there we will be able to find solutions to present day problems much better. We can’t keep inventing the wheel again and again.

Similarly, in the life of human being, the sum total of his past learnings is what we call ‘experience’. Experience is a great teacher and it makes us wiser. Unless we remember our past and analyse it how are we going to benefit by it. For our intellectual and spiritual growth there is no way we can and should lower importance of past events and our ability to learn from them. Just to give a small example, haven’t we seen the grand-mothers giving very worldly and practical advice to young mothers who would panic with the slightest problem to their baby? A seasoned old lady would know what is a part of normal growth pangs and what is out of ordinary and needs an urgent attention.

Then there are pure human feelings. Every human being in his life goes through good and bad times. There are some very beautiful moments in the life of a person that always bring cheer and smile on his face. Let us say for a woman in old age the memory of her children when they were babies, birth of the first child, first love, or for anyone the memory of beautiful moments spent with parents in childhood, siblings, pranks etc. These are treasures for each individual which are so essential for him to think and cherish and feel happy about. Limited point that I’m making here is that past is important and one shouldn’t be defensive about thinking, remembering or learning from the past.

Now we come to future. We’ve all heard about ‘dreams’. And here I’m not speaking about the dreams that we have while we are sleeping. I’m concerned about the dreams that people carry in their mind. It is these dreams that make the world progress. For every step that we have taken as humanity, country, society or individual there has been a dream behind it. Whether it is making of atomic bomb, polio vaccine, airplane, Chanakya’s effort to unite multitudes of small states into a large empire, every such act is a result of a dream of a man. These examples, big and small, are endless. Ask anyone who’s got a dream about his thoughts. Most likely the answer shall be that he lives his dreams. This means that the person is not living in the present. Any discomfort of the present will not be felt by him because he is living his dream. To give a real life example, ask a student preparing for civil services exam about his thoughts. He may say that he studies 14-16 hours a day, often forgets to sleep on time and eat on time, is not bothered about the fun that his friends are having etc. The person would be absolutely composed and living his dream. This would be true for anyone who has a dream and is working hard to make it a reality, whether it is a budding musician, singer, scientist, journalist, businessman etc. If the humanity has to grow people need to have dreams, the real dreams are the ones that people see with their eyes open and to make them come true we need to immerse ourselves in them without being too concerned about the present.

Secondly, speaking about future is also about thinking ahead and about planning. As a human being it is our duty to plan for future. To do that we need to think about future. Only the animals live in present alone, that also in a jungle. As I wrote in my previous article, they eat when they are hungry, sleep when they are sleepy, mate when they feel like etc. Complete living in the present. But even then we have species like ants who’d store food for a time when it may not be possible for them to collect food. So planning is an essential part of human life. We do it every moment, whether we realize it or not. Once again what I’m hinting at ‘living in the present’ doesn’t mean ‘not thinking of the future’. No effort shall be successful, no dream shall ever come true if we don’t have a proper road map and planning to accomplish the same.

My Little Thought Of Life on this is that thinking of past and future is a basic instinct that a human being has. And it is not only not bad but is also essential. This instinct of thinking is like a flowing river. You can’t stop a river. But what you can do is to give it a direction that serves our purpose best. So is the case with the thoughts of past and future. To take the statement ‘live in the present’ in its literal sense is fraught with danger. But if so many wise men say this, there must be some truth behind it. Issue is that our present unhappiness in many ways is connected to past or future. Past I say because of either nostalgia or thinking too much about our past suffering and perceived wrongs done to us, we make our present miserable even though there may not be anything significantly wrong today. Future I say because of anxiety and fear of things going wrong sometime in future we are unable to relish the perfect present we may have. Thinking too much on these issues, brooding about them will only give grief. Whatever has happened, good or bad, is over and whatever has to happen, good or bad, will happen. Don’t allow it to come in the way of today’s happiness.

To my friends and readers, I wish great learning from the past and history, great dreams and planning for future but without being bitter about past and anxious about future to enjoy the present.