“It is really you who are passing, going down the drain every moment. And you go on thinking it is time that is passing, as if you are going to stay and time is going to pass! Time is where it is, it is not passing”
— OSHO
It would be remiss of me not to write anything about the passing of Whitney Houston, whose life story held the world’s attention last week.
It’s hard to believe when wealthy people say money alone doesn’t make you happy but from what we have been told about Whitney’s life, there might be some truth in that.
Her life details are not important but rather the broader lessons we can draw from it.
What kind of consciousness is it going to take for us to have fulfilment in our lives?
As I was gathering points along these lines I realised they were all coming from a group of influential men, hence today’s title.
Live coverage of her funeral on television was watched by millions of viewers and there were many special moments but gospel singer Pastor Marvin Winans’ sermon has to be one of them.
A product of the famous musical Winans family he was discussingwhat the most important things in life are, and he said “this breath, this breath.”
And it’s true, all the possessions we hold so dear are nothing compared to the gift of life itself.
But we tend to focus on the big things, achieving this, acquiring that and becoming something else, that we seldom take a minute to stop, take a deep breath and express gratitude for that.
That’s not to say we shouldn’t have aspirations but who we are as we are doing those things has a great impact on the outcome of those actions.
There is this fixation on finding an outer purpose and ensuring that every day we take steps to fulfilling it.
Now I appreciate what Eckhart Tolle meant in his book A New Earth when he wrote that “your purpose is whatever you are doing right now.”
Whether you are cooking, helping a child with homework or exercising, make that particular activity your life purpose and it gives new meaning to being in the moment.
And of course when you are then sending out that “important” proposal or finalising a contract then that action too is your life purpose because that’s what you are doing at that time.
This change in focus does a couple of important things.
It stops this thinking that daily life is just a means to some all important end when we will finally have everything we want and only then can we be happy.
It also stops the mad rush to do things before someone else does or to beat the competition so to speak.
Wallace D Wattles calls this moving into the creative mind and away from the competitive mind: “When you get out of the competitive mind you will understand that you never need to act hastily.
“No one else is going to beat you to the thing you want to do: there is enough for all.”
Even if external circumstances show the contrary, maybe someone else has clinched that deal you wanted, not all is lost.
“If one space is taken, another and a better one will be opened for you, a little farther on,” he says.
At first it’s not a comfortable feeling because our egos thrive on competition, on winning and the other losing.
Someone once said that most overnight successes were several years in the making.
And many creative people like writers, artists and singers, the successful ones that is, are able to move into the creative space, away from competition.
They go quiet and seem to have disappeared only to re-emerge with a new book, song or painting and then we appreciate what they have been up to.
So let’s stay in the moment and remember Wallace D Wattles’ words “You cannot act where you are not; you cannot act where you have been and you cannot act where you are going to be; you can act only where you are.”
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