Impatience Of The Future Makes You Miss Present... Queenie-tessential

We jumped into the cab to catch the movie Total Recall.  We were headed for a crowded area called Bugis Junction in Singapore.  "Hurry up, please," my friends told the cab driver, "or we will miss our movie."  The cab driver glanced back at us dismisively and then shook his head.  "I can't go any faster than this.  Can't you see the clazy (crazy) tlaffic (traffic)?"  he said pronouncing his r's as l's and vice versa.  "I could go zooming through if I had a Fellali," he continued.  "In a Fellali I could get you there soon, could even get you to heaven."  He added laughing loudly and nodding at the same time.  "All luch people in a hully to go up, that's why they buy a Fellali" he let out that laugh again.  "Okay, okay," said my friend who was with me getting impatient with his monologue and said that we may not make to the movie, "You drive as you like but we need to go soon and maybe if you focus on the road, we will get there."

***

He looked back at us again visibly amused.  "Only a hericopter can take you through the tlaffic," he nodded "That is the way of the lich.  They are not satisfied, you see.  Even the Fellali becomes slow for them, and then they buy a helicopter.  Soon hericopter becomes slow.  Then they must have a plane.  Money buys everything.  Money buys love," he laughed.

***

It was obvious the man was in pain and had suffered "No money, no honey.  Love cannot buy money, but money can buy love," he forced his laugh this time.  "No money, No love."

***

By now, we had decided not to go for the movie and instructed the driver to take a U-turn and drop us back to where he had picked us up.  I relaxed back on my seat, now no more in a rush and started talking to him.  "What about your love?"  I asked him.  "My wife was my love," he paused for a bit as if suddenly lost.  "I worked hard all day and gave her everything I had.  I bought her a house.  She wanted more.  I gave her more.  But she wanted more and more.  She forgot about me.  She wanted to be lich, and could not understand why she was not lich.  She wanted to leach the sky.  No money no honey," he said, and for the first time his tone became sad.  "But now" he almost shouted "Ican buy a lot of butterfries with money.  I can buy love."  It took me a few moments to understand the term 'butterfries'.  For a moment I argued, "That is not love."  He laughed "What is it lady, what is love?"

***

No doubt, our taxi driver was a bit "touched" in the head, although our conversation was a bit crazy, there was food for thought in what he said.  Suddenly, as if brought back to the present moment about time and traffic, he said, "Nothing is the same any more about people.  See how impatient your friends are.  Train them to be calm.  Do yoga," he laughed "I drive people everyday.  They are stressed about time and traffic.  These things are not in their or my control."  I nodded agreeing.  "Look how much time you and your friends wasted telling me to hurry.  So busy looking ahead that you lost the present."  I could go on talking to him.  We reached our destination.

***

We paid him and I knew I would never see him again.  It was a most interesting journey.  Even though we never reached where we were originally headed.

***

"I am happy now.  I changed my way of life and allowed people who were not happy with me to leave and go to what made them happier.  And now," he laughed again, "there are many butterfries to give me love," looking pleased with his ability to have found peace and clarity - so what if it was through coloured lenses?..............

Discard Mental Baggage _ Mani Shankar

You want to harness the power of your mind to alter your reality, yes?  That's really an invitation to chaos.  Lots of people are in the market, offering quick and easy solutions.  You flow into them with anticipation and excitement.  You follow their prescribed formulae, their chants and utterances, wear their beads, read their books, watch their DVDs, dress as per their code, hang on to their every word, hoping, pleading, fantasizing.  It's a pointless journey, just leading you deeper into delusion.  Years later you find yourself at the same spot where you started - clueless, a bit confused, with a sneaky suspicion that nothing really happened outside your imagination.  Your reality was never altered, you are still the same guy, and the world around you is just as it was.

***

This is the undiluted truth.  There is no quick-fix solutions to altering your reality, no magic mantras you can utter.  Know the frog doesn't turn into a prince with a kiss.  Know the world doesn't change with the wave of a wand.  Know clothes can't make you richer, wiser or luckier than you would otherwise be.  The sooner you start accepting this bittersweet truth, the better off you will be.

***

I said bittersweet because there are two opposing layers inside this revelation.  The first is disappointing when you finally understand that there are no quick-fix solutions.  The second is elevating - when you finally understand that nobody outside you has the power to change your world, and so it's time to get acquainted with that stranger within - your mind.

***

The quality of mind is that it operates at several levels simultaneously.  All you have been able to access so far is the most superficial surface.  This is the world of thoughts, words, hopes, wishes, daydreams and dreams.  Remember, everything you read, hear and see translates itself into mental constructs, as thoughts.  What is a thought?  It's a mental projection of some input you have grasped.  Thoughts are the extension of your senses, they are the first line of defence you have when dealing with the world.

***

Having thoughts are very important.  But there is such a thing called excess of thought.  This happens when, like jungles, they take over our minds, growing wildly, completely beyond our control.  Now the mind starts losing its ability to conjure a thought, consider it and then make it fade it away.  Thoughts start roaming through the mind like bandits, creating havoc at will.  The mind surrenders, eventually becomes a slave of its own thoughts.  Add to this the chaos of the Age of marketing Madness we live in - where everyday you are exposed to a thousand needless desires, baseless fears and mental conditioning.  It's enough to make a sane guy crazy.  But you have already made yourself crazy, and the result is that your fears and hopes create thoughts that recur in endless loops, making you salivate, palpitate, ruminate, agitate and decimate your potential to even address your reality.  Your ability to alter that reality through the mind is now a far dream.   

 ***

The time has come to take you beyond thought, into deeper, purer levels inside yourself.  The time has come to leave this chaos behind and rise into higher levels of being within.  You can't do it by attaching yourself to more books and chants and shibboleths.  You can only do it by gently leaving it all behind - by dropping the mental baggage, until the sheer lightness of being makes you float away.....