What is it like to live in the present moment?

To live in present is the key to happiness.

How can one always remain happy?

While the past is locked in our memory, the future is mere imagination. And the present moment is the only moment where life is available, as we are living in that moment right now. So, the key to happiness is to live in the moment, in the present. This makes both the past as well as the future beautiful.

To watch a small video on this, please click on https://www.dadabhagwan.org/books-media/videos/english/live+in+present+-+a+key+to+happiness/

How does it compare to how people describe it?

Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan, an enlightened being, explains:

“We have conquered time. People are consumed by time. You still have to conquer time. How can you conquer time?… The past is forgotten. The future is in the hands of scientific circumstantial evidences (which when come together, only then can any event occur).

Therefore, you need to remain in the present, only then time can be conquered.

As you go on to do our ‘Akram samayik’ (a one-hour meditation in the awareness of the Soul), you will learn how to hold onto the present. It does not come straight to you. When you do samayik (being the Self i.e. the Soul and ‘seeing’ everything that arises within) for an hour, you are in the present.

What does it mean to stay in the present?

When you are writing down your financial accounts, don’t you stay fully focused on your accounts? If you drift off into the future, you will make errors in your accounting. If you remain in the present, it is possible that you don’t make a single error. What I am telling you is that you should experience the present that is before you.

The past is gone. Even intellectuals would not stir up the past. And to think about the future is to worry. Therefore, remain in the present. While the satsang is going on now, listen to it with concentration of chit (consciousness). When you are balancing your books, do it with such concentration of chit. And when you are swearing at someone, do it with the same concentration of chit. He who perpetually remains in the present is a Gnani (enlightened person). People cannot enjoy the present because they worry about the future and the past. They even make errors in their accounting. The Gnani Purush will never ruin the present.

You do not have to forget (the past), you just have to remain in the present. Forgetting is a burden. You cannot forget even if you want to, and besides, the more you try to forget something, the more you will remember it. One man was telling me, “When I sit down to do a samayik (meditative introspection) I think to myself, ‘Today I am not going to remember the shop’. And that day, the very first thing I see in my samayik is the shop!” Why does that happen? It is because, when he said he did not want to remember it, essentially he showed contempt towards it! You should not be contemptuous of anything.

There is only one thing, and that is to remain in the present. You have nothing to do whatsoever with the past or the future. Remaining in the present is the immortal state. We remain exactly as we are being in the present; if you wake us up at night, we will be the same, and if you wake us up in the day, we will be the same. Whenever you see us, we will be just the same as we are now.”