11. Celebrate Your Life

When we recollect our past memories, we think they were golden years. For others, it is the rosy dreams of the future that makes them happy.

Be Clear! We are both wrong! If we think of the past with joy, we think life was a celebration. On the other hand if we expect the future to bring joy, we expect that life will be a celebration. In both these cases, we cannot celebrate the given moment.

We cannot go back into the past to celebrate nor can we go into future. In fact there is only one thing we can do-to live in the present. To live in the moment is the only thing we can do. To tell life is a celebration, we need to live in the present.

When we say life was a celebration, we are living with the ghosts. When we say life will be a celebration we are living a dream. We get life only by living in the present. We need to life to live it.

Not only can we celebrate life by living in the present, we can also make it an eternal celebration. Understand the saying: Life is an eternal celebration. The key here is to be clear about the word 'eternal.' The word 'life', as we understand is either with reference to the past or future. But eternity, if it lives in the past and the future, should also live in the present.

Understand! Eternity is now. Eternity all the three- the past, present, and the future, put together.

A small story:

A Sufi master called Abdullah, lived throughout his life in nithyananda, eternal bliss. He was happy and blissful from morning to night, wherever he was. Even his unconscious mind was in ecstasy.

Once a disciple asked him*,* 'Master how are you so continuously happy? What is your technique?' His beautiful reply was, 'When I get up in the morning, I ask myself, Abdullah do you want to be happy, do you want to be blissful today or do you wish to be in sadness. My mind always tells me I want to be joyful. Then I tell myself, okay, then be happy. Over. I decide for that day itself, not for the next day. I never decide for eternity.'

If we are asked: what will you do? We will say, 'from now on....' We decide for eternity, although we may not remember it tomorrow.

Decide to celebrate today. Decide for now. Decide to enjoy and live in the moment. Eternity will be ours!