12. Heaven Is Now, Don'T Lose It!

As we go through our daily life and rituals, we constantly expect something better to come our way.

We decide, or dream, that when that better thing comes along, we will kick all the old things and move on.

Some people take this foolishness to greater heights. For example, they are tempted to consume alcoholic drinks, but they deny the temptation saying that they have a logic or reason for that. They say that if they do not take alcohol on earth, they are entitled for their share of soma ras, the divine nectar of Gods in heaven. This, they imagine, will happen after their death, when they are in heaven.

I tell them, 'Do not be foolish! Who has come back to tell us if the drink in heaven is better than the one on earth? Who knows that? Who knows if we will get a drink in heaven at all? And who can say if it is of the same quality or quantity?'

I am not telling you to drink. I am trying to make you understand that even as we lead our life on Earth facing its everyday challenges, we are thinking of what we will get in heaven. We think that what we are doing is a form of meditation or penance in order to catch a place in heaven.

This is the state of our life. We lead our lives expecting something better to come from somewhere, sometime, and through someone. The simplest and most profound problem this habit brings is that it stops us from living in the present. It completely obliterates our living here, on earth.

When we do this, we are setting up ourselves for a life of disappointment and stress. We think that we are going to get something better elsewhere. We are certain that an event of great significance will happen in a place far removed from where we are.

Drop it. Do not encourage these thoughts. Do not give up something with the anticipation of getting something better, something more.

If we believe that we are giving up something for a better thing, or exchange it for more than what we had, we are building anticipation. Often we think we are sacrificing something for a better thing, and that inexplicably eludes us. In the end, we lose all that we had. We lose everything.

Heaven is nothing but living in the present. Heaven is something to be experienced while you are living, not after you are dead. Heaven is living a liberated life. It is not any geographic location that is waiting for you once you die.

Let us cultivate the practice of living in the present. When we are totally in the moment, it opens up endless possibilities. Living in the present alone keeps us in Bliss - THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM