Learn to live consciously every moment
by Atman Nityananda
Yoga is easy when the mind is pure—sattvic—and difficult or impossible when the mind is rajasic-tamasic, impure.
By yoga, I do not mean the well-known asanas of hatha yoga, which have become very fashionable in recent years around the world. The asanas (body postures) are a means to prepare the body, energy, and mind for meditation when performed properly and for that purpose. Otherwise, they are exercises that help us maintain good health, well-being, and relax from stress. These are by no means insignificant for people today, who live an unnatural lifestyle in concrete cities, but they are not yoga.
Yoga is living in our heart (at the center of our existence), consciously united with our Being (our spiritual nature), and experiencing, undistracted, the peace, fullness, and bliss that we are as Being.
The only place and the only time to be in yoga is here and now. Only in the present moment, wherever we are, can we experience the peace and fullness that we Are.
Do you experience fullness, peace, and bliss here and now? If not, what is stopping you from experiencing it? The obstacle is not outside of you but is your own self, meaning the rajasic-tamasic ego with which you are identified and which you mistakenly perceive as yourself.
Just as we can only experience peace now, similarly, we can only discover what is preventing us from experiencing fullness and peace at this moment, and only now can we do something to rid ourselves of it.
The ego, of course, by its nature, thinks (because it lives in imagination and not in reality) that if things were different—if we had more money, an “ideal” partner, a good home, a good job, or won the championship, etc.—we would be complete and happy. This has no basis or reality. When a desire is fulfilled, our ego is happy and satisfied for a brief moment, but then it falls back into the same routine of misery (boredom, dissatisfaction, anxiety, worries, etc., if not worse).
So, disregard the false ideas of the ego that you would be happy somewhere else, at some other time, and see why you do not experience fullness, satisfaction, and happiness (bliss) here and now, in the present moment, where you are.
In what way does your ego (which includes all its mental and emotional expressions) prevent you from experiencing fullness, peace, and bliss?
Ask yourself, self-observe, recognize, understand, and eliminate whatever stands as an obstacle to living here and now, in every moment, in your heart.
Learn to live consciously every moment and not to be carried away by the mechanical reactions (mental and emotional) and the habits of the body and mind. It is easy to give in to the habits and automatic reactions of the ego and identify with them, but it brings nothing but misery and eventually unhappiness.
To Be or not to Be (To be conscious and aware of your true nature or not)—this is the crucial question every moment. To Be liberates, while identifying with the ego, the body, and the mind enslaves, puts us to sleep, and brings misery.
Our freedom and the bliss of Existence can be experienced by living consciously from moment to moment.
My Book in English
The ‘secret’ to a plentiful life, a life of harmony, happiness and contentment is to have a sattvic mind free from desires and ego and to live in every moment in conscious contact with our true Self (Consciousness).
🌺 Peace, Love, Harmony
atmannityanada 