How to be in the NOW with the past? — Part I
When memories that trigger us emotionally, come visting, how do we stay in the present moment?
This has eluded me for a while, and I am no master of this, but having experimented with this for a while, I think I understand what this means. The greatest fear for people on this path of wanting to be in the now; is the past and the future. This is the nature of the mind, to either be in the past or in the future. You are in the NOW, only when the mind is blank. But to get to the blankness, both memories (past) and desires (future) should not exist in the chitta (mind-body consciousness). Unless that is empty, it is tough, to be consistently in the now.
So what is NOW for people who are still full of memories and desires?
Fri, July 7th, around 8pm, a past memory came up. This memory was highly traumatic and was something I had forgotten until I watched something on TV (a spiritual talk show) and some words from there triggered this memory. (I am not going to delve into the details of this memory, because the details are not important to being in the now.)
At that instance there were two TIMES existing in me — the past and the present — THAT WAS MY NOW.
Memory is what brings the past into the present and makes it real, like it is happening now. I couldn’t see the people from my memory in the current space, but they were there, alive in my memory. Was I wearing my school uniform, I couldn’t remember, probably was? But I heard the words that person had said, over and over again in the now. I riled up in the now.
When I was a nascent practitioner of meditation (other forms) and Vipassana, I would go with the memory, get riled up and then take it out on people and things around me. Essentially, I would start identifying with the memory and become a victim. Then suddenly, people around me who have nothing to do with the memory, would become perpetrators. I would start seeing their words and actions, mostly innocuous, as a perpetrator’s actions. And I would try to destroy them and myself, in the process.
- Name the feeling
But this time, I asked myself, “What exactly am I feeling?” I was angry and I wanted to take revenge. I wanted to destroy those people who were supposed to be my caretakers. Next question, “Why did I want to destroy them?” Because they should have known better or should have NEVER taken up that role. On further being with that statement that they should have known better — it revealed that I EXPECTED them to be better in their roles. It was my expectation that was causing all this anger and hatred.
2. Gurus and their teachings will always SHOW UP
It’s funny how some teachings come up suddenly. At this very instance, I remembered a line from a book of Osho’s that I had read. It had said something like, “Whatever you are feeling, be with it. If you are angry, be with it”. I don’t remember the name of the book, or anything else from it, just these lines stay with me! Then, some other talk from another teacher, perhaps Swami Chinmayananda came up, “Don’t act on your thoughts and feelings”. A third one suddenly came up, “Be without judgement, Annicha”, in S.N. Goenka’s voice. And I am burning with anger inside. So I stayed there, being with it. The questions, “How could they? Why did they?” etc. just disappeared, because it wasn’t about them at all. It was about me and what I was feeling. That’s it.
I need to mention here, that these words have shown up several times before, when I acted on my anger. What this reveals to me is that, Gurus never give up on you, and they are okay with you failing. They will repeat and repeat patiently, each time, with love!
3. Learning from failures
This time, after god knows how many times of failing, I was able to be with it.
I was with it. The anger moved to hate; wanting to destroy everything around me. I looked at the sky and felt angry! Then I asked myself, “So I am with this anger now, and it has become hate, why is it still not going?” I realized then that I wasn’t doing one KEY thing — “Observing without judgement!” I wanted it to leave. I was very uncomfortable feeling ‘NEGATIVE’ emotions; anger and hate. As soon as I realized, I stopped wanting it to go. “Stay as long as you like,” I said. It stayed the entire Saturday and a part of Sunday morning and then it went away.
I went about my daily stuff with these feelings in the background. There were times when I was about to act on it, but because I was aware that I was angry, I just prayed, when I came close to unleashing it. Praying really helped me to not act on it. This was perhaps one of the first times that I remembered to pray!
4. Noticing judgment
This time when I stayed with it, I realized a VERY IMPORTANT aspect of mine. I judge so quickly, without ever realizing that it is judgment. I have a pocket-book of right and wrong, good and bad. Obviously I want to be good, not bad, right? And there is enough material on negative and positive emotions.
The truth is the chitta goes through rasas (emotional experiences). The NAVRASAS (as The Natya Shastra and the Abhinaya Darpana call them). The emotional experiences are a part of the chitta that expects. So experiencing any of these eight emotions — lust, anger, disgust, pride, sorrow, humour, fear, surprise is NOT BAD. It is an experience. Now the ninth rasa, tranquility — that is the one a blank mind consistently experiences. Judging myself, when I feel any of the eight emotions means that I am uncomfortable feeling them. And they are there, so what is the point in judging? (I do wish to highlight that Sringara is being called as lust by me, because it is not love. Love is what one feels in the shanta rasa, a state of tranquility, where it is all-accepting and compassionate.)
5. Releasing expectations
Sometimes the NOW is intertwined in the past, and that is the now. The way to release, is to realize that THE PAST HAS COME VISITING, and that there are some deep underlying expectations to release. (I am not calling them wounds because wounds are a result of the expectations. The root cause of the wounds or hurt, is EXPECTATIONS.) I am not sure how many more times the past will come visting, but at least now I know that whenever it visits, I won’t be scared of what I feel. It is my BFF that brings to light my expectations, and forces me to release them.
How do I know that I won’t feel anger against those people or someone else again?
I don’t know that. I will only know when anger comes up again that I have not let go of my habit of expecting from people. But I am not scared of my past visiting me anymore, because I have now understood the method of dealing with it. Even if I fail again and act on my feelings, I know the track to go to back to.
So yeah, “Hell is NOT other people”, like Sartre said, it is very much in the SELF.
I just know that it is really important for these memories to come up, because:
- I need to know that these memories color my perception of the present. I carry elements of distrust, self-sabotage, extreme caution etc. because of this memory.
- It is important to release memories, which become ‘past knowledge’ and a parameter to judge everyone who comes in contact with you. It is important to distinguish that those people were like that, doesn’t mean everyone is.
- One needs to be free of the past, for a continuous experience of NOW. As long as memories exist, there will be only moments of “NOW” and one will not be empty.
I was listening to Eckhart Tolle the other day, describing Ramana Maharshi. He said, when you look at Ramana Maharshi’s picture there is an intense, blank stare. Ramana Maharshi never communicated with words, because his silence was enough. He heard everyone, and answered everyone’s questions with his silence. His, is a mind free of both the past and the future, and is truly in the NOW.
How to be in the NOW with desire? That’s for another time.
