Take Your Time by Easwaran Eknath

Author:Easwaran, Eknath
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nilgiri Press
Published: 2012-10-16T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 5

Living in Freedom

To live in balance we need a mind that listens to us, not one that drags us about as it pleases.

To enjoy anything, we cannot be attached to it. William Blake understood this beautifully:

He who binds to himself a Joy,

Doth the winged life destroy;

But he who kisses the Joy as it flies

Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.

What we usually try to do is to capture any joy that comes our way before it can escape. We have our butterfly net and go after the joy like a hunter stalking his prey. We hide and wait, pounce on it, catch it, and take it home to put on our wall. When our friends come to visit, we say, “Hey, Stu, would you like to see my joy?” There it is on the wall – dead.

We try to cling to pleasure, but all we succeed in doing is making ourselves frustrated because, whatever it promises, pleasure simply cannot last. But if I am willing to kiss the joy as it flies, I say, “Yes, this moment is beautiful. I won’t grab it. I’ll let it go.” And I live with a mind at peace and a heart untroubled.

Pleasure comes and it goes. When it goes, we don’t need to cling to memories of past happiness or dwell on when it may come again. When we turn to the past in yearning, we are running away from the present. When we propel ourselves into the future in anticipation, we are running away from the present. This is the secret of what the world’s spiritual traditions call detachment: if we don’t cling to past or future, we live entirely here and now, in “Eternity’s sunrise.”

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