24. What Do You Do When You Do?

Do you know that when we sleep, we are actually not sleeping? We will not know how to sleep well until we learn to live in the 'now'.

Psychologists say that a person living in the Western countries never sleeps for more than 14 minutes at a stretch; more often it is less. After 14 minutes, he comes back to the dream state or wakeful consciousness or just floats in the dream level. Again he goes back to sleep for a maximum of 14 minutes. Then he comes back to the dream level. Again he goes back to sleep. They call this the rapid eye movement or REM sleep pattern.

We never sleep totally even when we sleep. There are levels of the mind in which we never have dreams. We never need to have any dreams. We can directly enter into deep sleep, if we know how to live in the 'now', the present moment.

If we know how to live in the 'now', we will know the art of eating, the art of sleeping, and the art of doing everything the right way. That is the art of living.

Can we try to remember one incident from our day in complete detail? No! We are more dead than alive. We almost live like a man in half sleep. We do things without fully knowing what we do. Do we recall brushing our teeth ever? Do we remember the sensation of the cold water in our mouth when we brush? Do we remember the taste of the toothpaste in our mouth or the pressure of our toothbrush upon our gums or how we felt after brushing? Or how the water felt when we poured it on our body in the shower? Have we ever wondered how the whole thing happens? Do we ever wonder what happens after we have eaten our food?

Look at our life; look at our faces. We look bored most of the time. Somehow we are pulling along. The juice or the joy or the pep of life is not there in us. It is just a drag. Why? Because all we do, all that we know to do is how to postpone enjoyment of the moment. Our mind never sits with our being. Our mind never lives the moment. Our mind never lives in the same moment that we are in. We are always in the space of tomorrow or in the space of yesterday. It is never in the space of today, 'now', the present.

Live in the present. This is the secret of the art of living.