Be Here Now is all about being present and not fearing what you don’t know.
Come, let’s experiment. For the next five-second try to feel unhappy without saying or thinking about anything in your mind. What happens? Can you feel anything? So to become unhappy, you must say something in your head. For example, “O gosh! I’m feeling so bad” or maybe “What the heck is going on in my life!”, without saying something similar, it is not possible to feel unhappy.
Now you have kept your mind silent forcefully for just 5 sec. Imagine if you can do the same anytime for any duration, then will there be any scope for unhappiness in your life? But how is that possible?
That is only possible when you don’t identify yourself with your ego. We understand ego as selfishness or feeling proud of oneself. But in his book, “10% Happier” Dan Harris says, the ego is “the voice in our head” He has indicated ego as whatever we keep on saying in our head all day long.
From waking up till going to bed, this broken tape recorder keeps on playing in our head. I am calling it a broken tape recorder because if you notice it repeats the same thing, again and again, every day.
Maybe you are sitting for a while, suddenly the ego says, “Oh! Why am I getting bored sitting silently? Let’s scroll through Facebook”, and you immediately pick up your phone. Or maybe in the evening after coming back home from the office, you are not tired physically. But, your ego says, “Oh! I am feeling tired today. I should skip the gym today. The new web series is also going to be released today’s evening. I have to watch it”, and you choose to become a couch potato.
If I tell you, “Check your Facebook account.” Immediately you will start judging. First of all, you will ask why am I telling you to do so, what is my intention, should you listen to me or not? But if the same thing your ego says, you will follow it immediately without any judgment.
So the problem is you have identified yourself with your ego. You think that your ego is you. So whatever your ego commands you to do, you follow it immediately. Because you think you are doing it as per your wish. That is the trap or illusion of your ego.
Just think for a while, if you were your ego, then in deep sleep when the voice had no existence, at that time, how could you be present? How could you know that you were in a state of deep sleep a few hours ago? You should also be dead with that voice. But at the beginning of this video, the voice was dead for 5 sec. But you were present.
So at first, you have to get yourself out from this illusion of your ego. Otherwise, if you blindly follow your foolish, insane ego, then no one can save you from becoming sad and unhappy.
Suppose you are waiting at a bus stop. Suddenly the ego says, “Ah! I had a very tough day today. Let me smoke a cigarette now”. If you are unaware that is not mindful enough and believe that your ego is you, then you will never judge whether you should listen to it and smoke. But if you are aware, then you can notice the craving in you to smoke. You will be able to judge whether it will be good for your body or not. And finally, if you surrender to your craving and start smoking, then at least you will know that right now, you have allowed yourself to harm your body.
But if you are not aware enough, then even after you finish smoking, you will not know that you just caused harm to your body. That is the main difference between being aware and unaware. Because if you are aware that you are harming your body, then you can not continue doing it for a long time. After a while, the power of your awareness will overpower your cravings. And then you will become free from the illusion of your ego.
Now, the fact is that when you are in the illusion of your ego, then while smoking, you never feel that you are causing harm to your body. That is because your ego never allows your awareness to stay in the present moment. Endlessly talking about the past or the future, it keeps your attention locked into either past or future.
For example, while smoking, you immerse yourself so deep into thinking about what went wrong today with you at work, that you become completely unaware of smoking right now. Being unaware of the present, you continue to smoke. So the more you can keep your awareness still in the present moment, the more your ego will become weak. And you will become free from the illusion of your ego.
So always try to remember this mantra “Be Here Now”. You can click on the above images to buy any of the products you like. These products can help you to remember this mantra.
