ITHOUT BEING HUMBLE AND ACCEPTING we won’t progress. So let’s put it a different way. Supposing a serious situation has arisen. One thing I could tell myself: This is not the first time seriousness has happened, and God forbid, it may happen again unless I go the right way. So I am accepting the present seriousness as afflicting me, no doubt, but as a lesson. If I do that, I have seen that I can relax and more than half the pain is gone in spite of the situation remaining. See that ego doesn’t get emboldened to stand on its own wrong pinnacle again. Learning the lesson always starts with humility.
      There are many ways of explaining the same thing. As waves come and go, do not resist. If a serious situation comes, don’t resist it. And in spite of that, do not lose heart or your attention on the ultimate purpose of life, whatever you term it. Make that serious. Then you will automatically not be serious about other things. Yes, there are some genuine holocausts where you cannot even think and those are the ones where true humility is needed. But if you flow in tune with that particular thing you will see what the solution is and it will be less painful.

       Let’s say a person gets angry with you and you get angry and shout back. Instead, if you respond to the anger with a little smile, you will see that it won’t hurt you. There is a way to live in tune with things, balanced and in harmony. It requires patience, forgiveness, and so on. Everyone has some infirmities, if not bodily then mentally. How to live with those things? Are you going to resist everything, react to everything and create more disharmony and imbalance? Flowing in tune is not acceptance; it is simply avoiding resistance and reactions. If we have to react and resist in every situation, who is free then? Everybody will bother us.
       The only tool you need is within you: the mind. It is easy. That is the meaning of “here and now”—within you. What is always there is not transitory. It will remain with you. It is with you all the time. Here pertains to space. Now pertains to time. When space and time have stilled in your own mind, this releases your energy and brings relaxation and joy. It is with you all the time. Here and now means that you live naturally, in the moment. Depending upon outer things for your enjoyment was simply your misunderstanding. It may seem difficult to divert the mind from this to that, but I am saying it should not be a struggle. Go on attending to things but see that you don’t get stuck in them. Try this. Your life will be joyful.

© 2007 Truth Consciousness. Edited from the Satsang Living Joyfully (A-43), given on November 19, 1989.  This and the entire collection of Audio Satsangs of  Swami Amar Jyoti are available on CD and Audiocassette. Please see the Audio Satsang Catalog at truthconsciousness.org