As described by Eckhart Tolle in his book 'The power of now', there are two concepts of time. One is the psychological time and the other is the physical time.
Psychological time could be related to past or future. If you spend time thinking about 'How it used to be', you are living in the psychological past. If you are continuously thinking about your life's regrets, you are living in the psychological past. On the other hand, if you spend time worrying, you are living in the psychological future.
The common link between psychological past and psychological future is about the illusion of control. When you think about your past, it is about how you were able to control what used to happen around you. This illusion of control in the past is normally associated with frustration about what is happening to you now. You are not able to control what is happening to you now, so you look at that glorious past when you were able to control everything.
When you worry about your future, you are thinking that you will not be able to control what will happen to you in future.
The fact is you were never in control. It is just an illusion.
So, the question is, is there anything that you can control?
Yes. There is. You can control what is happening to you NOW. You can control your thoughts NOW. You control your emotions NOW. You can control your behaviour NOW.
NOW is very powerful. You can mould it anyway you want. You ARE in control There is no illusion.
One of the things that you can do NOW is to count your blessings. You can try to identify who you are grateful for. You can think of things and people whom your are grateful to.
I did it today and the results were mind blowing.
Today, I was sitting down to meditate and I decided to thank all the people and things that I was grateful about. I thanked,
The universe for giving me a roof over my head
The universe for giving me enough money in the bank so that I do not have to worry
The universe for opening up opportunities for me when I needed them
The universe for the loving family
The universe for making me a citizen of India
My country India for allowing me the freedom of expression to express my views
My mother for the wonderful support
My in laws for their wonderful support
My wife for her love and affection
My son for his love and affection
My friends for accepting me as I am, my views and all
My Facebook friends for engaging with me and respecting my view points
My LinkedIn network for reading my posts and articles and reacting to them.
My colleagues in various organizations that I had worked for for all their support and encouragement.
My managers for all the support and constructive criticism that helped me improve as a person
My customers for giving me opportunity to work on their projects
My teachers for all the wisdom they imparted over many years
The writers of the many books that I read for opening up my vision and improving my language skills
The readers of my blog for the valuable time that they spent on reading my posts
My followers on Twitter for liking my tweets
The charities like Akshayapatra and Samarthanam for accepting my donations
The beggars on the street for accepting my megre contribution with appreciation
Kishore Kumar for making my evening walks memorable
The cleaning ladies in our apartment who make the place liveable
The lady maids that come to work in my apartment for keeping it spic and span
Countless others...
I spent much more time on this. For example, when I thought of the friends that helped me, I thought of many of them and I thanked each one of them individually. Similarly my customers and managers and employers.
Initially I thought of meditating for 10 minutes. However, I was surprised to see that it went on for about 30 minutes most of it went in thanking my support system and counting my blessings.
This whole exercise has taught me two things. One, I am what I am because of the support that I received from the Universal wisdom, many individuals, many friends and many Organizations where I worked as an employee or where I delivered Projects. I hardly deserve any credit. My support system does for whatever I am today.
Two, I now appreciate the saying, 'It takes a village to raise a child'..
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