| |
does not exist at all. It is always today -- always and always today.
It is always this moment. So squeeze it. Don't leave any juice in it. Once you learn to squeeze all the juice out of it, you will never think of the past. What is there left to think of? Then the past leaves no traces on you. It is only the unlived past which becomes your psychological burden.
Let me repeat: the unlived past... those moments which you could have lived, but you have not lived... those love affairs which could have flowered, but you missed... those songs which you could have sung, but you remained stuck to some stupid thing and missed the song.... It is the unlived past which becomes your psychological burden, and it goes on becoming heavier every day.
That's why the old man becomes so irritable. It is not his fault. He does not know why he is so irritable -- why every thing and each thing irritates him, why he is constantly angry, why he cannot allow anybody to be happy, why he cannot see children dancing, singing, jumping, rejoicing, why he wants everybody to be quiet -- what has happened to him.
It is a simple psychological phenomenon: his whole unlived life. When he sees a child start dancing his inner child hurts. His inner child was somehow prevented from dancing -- perhaps by his parents, his elders, perhaps by himself because it was respected, honored. He was brought before the neighbors and introduced: "Look at this child, how quiet, calm, silent; no disturbance, no mischief." His ego was fulfilled. Anyway, he missed. Now he cannot bear it, he cannot tolerate this child. In fact it is his unlived childhood that starts hurting. It has left a wound. And how many wounds are you carrying? Thousands of wounds are in line, because how much have you left unlived?
So the people who come here, they come here almost dead, carrying their own dead bodies here. When they see you alive, they are shocked. They would have been immensely happy if they had seen ascetics sitting under juniper trees, naked, starving, praying to God, who does not exist. They would have been immensely happy, because then you were far more dead than they were; in comparison
|
|
|