Living In The Past & Fearing The Future

End suggests Sure.

So last week I had asked if people had things they would like to have addressed questions or topics they're interested in to reach out.

So I got a few reach outs and I'll address one of those things today.

Somebody in the,

One of the online viewers was mentioning how in their childhood they had a couple of really traumatic events.

One was to be hit by a bus and the other one was to have become lost.

And it was so traumatic for them that it's something that just keeps replaying in their head and it makes them very anxious and fearful in their life.

And it's just like they can't get rid of it,

It just,

This anxiousness keeps manifesting and they keep considering it and asking how to address this.

So the,

This condition is actually manifest in a lot of different ways.

Sometimes people have just a really amazing childhood or as a teenager or in early adult life they had some just incredible experience.

And then they're just always,

Then their life kind of started falling apart and then they're thinking,

Oh,

You know,

They're all nervous and fretful about their life and wanting to go back to something that was in the past.

So you've got these two things where people look in the past and they either have regrets or fears or anxiousness about it or there was something really good that happened and now their life's not going very well and they wish they were back there.

So there's a lot of different things going on in this kind of situation from a spiritual perspective.

We've spoken in the past about three types of,

Or three ways in which people experience anxiety.

And the first being when you want to get something and you're fearful that you won't be able to get it,

Whether it's an object,

A position,

A relationship or whatever.

And then there's all this anxiousness about not being able to get what I think is so desirable and what I think will make me happy.

Then you have another type of anxiety when I've got things and then I'm kind of fearful of losing them and I'm being really overly protective and always considering how to put some security in my life and place so I don't lose what I have.

And the third type is when you lose that which you think is valuable and important and then you're just in this anxiety and regret and thinking if only I had have done this or if only I hadn't done that and then wanting to get back to that space.

And of course when you look at it very objectively,

It's kind of like,

Whoa,

When I didn't have it and I wanted it,

I was in anxiety.

When I got it,

I was now in another type of anxiety and then when I lost it,

Here I go again in anxiety and it's just like,

Well,

Something wrong with this picture.

This condition that I was first speaking about,

Being so much shaped by the past,

We see it very often with people that we deal with in the prisons,

For instance,

Things that really,

Especially people that were victims of heavy physical abuse as children or sexual abuse and the way that really plays out in their life.

So the thing is then,

So how do we deal with this?

How do we actually find a way to go forward?

One of the things that's really important in life is to learn acceptance and understand that to accept something doesn't mean that you condone it or that you approve of it or you support it,

But you accept it.

It's when people don't accept things and they want so much to try and go back and change things that their life becomes so problematic and their relationships and their work,

Everything that they do become very problematic.

And acceptance means I accept that something happened to me that perhaps I had no control over,

I didn't know how to deal with or whatever,

But that's that.

And I should not really be allowing that to control my life going forward.

There is this need to understand that we are eternal spiritual beings situated within a temporary body.

And along with that experience,

There will be many things that come to us or that are visited upon us or that we have to struggle with in our life in different ways.

But if I understand that I am actually an eternal spiritual being and I am not the sum total of those experiences,

I'm not my body,

I'm not my mental state,

That's not who I am,

That's something I'm dealing with.

This becomes a foundation of empowerment.

What you have control of in your life is from this very moment forward,

And that moment of course keeps moving forward as we move forward in time,

I can determine how I will let something affect me.

I'm not saying that we become cold and emotionless.

We may encounter things that are deeply sad that are very troubling,

But I can choose whether I become overwhelmed by that or I try to find a way through things.

What you have complete power over is your choices that you will make,

The decisions that you will make,

The choices that you will make and the actions that you will take from them.

Wherever we find ourself at any time in our life,

Our current experience is the product of choices that we made and things that we have done in the past.

If I want to take control of my future,

Then I must take control of my decision-making.

The more I can make thoughtful decisions and careful decisions,

The more I can guarantee that the experience I will have in my life going forward will fundamentally be okay to very good somewhere in that kind of a range.

If we are always dwelling on that,

Which may have something that we did or something that we experienced,

And that begins to control our life,

It's very much like driving a car.

And instead of watching the road in front,

You're always looking in the rear view mirror and you're constantly looking there.

If you drive down the road at 60,

80,

100 kilometers an hour,

And all you're doing is you're being fixated on the rear view mirror,

How's that going to work out?

You're putting yourself in serious danger of injury and great harm.

The same principle applies with our life.

If we are living in the past and wishing it was different and wishing it wasn't like that and wishing it was some other way,

And with our relationships,

Our finance,

Whatever,

All the stuff that goes on in life that's actually not so important.

I mean,

It's all the stuff that's just we're going through.

And it will come to an end with this body,

But I don't come to an end,

I continue.

And for me to be able to take control of my life going forward,

Then I need to do the things that will help me make really good decisions.

This is why the process of meditation is actually really important.

It's really empowering you.

It will empower you to really accept,

Okay,

What's past is past,

That's done.

I need to deal with it,

But more importantly,

I need to get on with my life.

And I shouldn't be allowing that to control how I'm going to think about things,

How I'm going to process things,

What kind of decisions I'm going to be making.

The process of meditation,

I was really moved one time.

It's always really nice working in the prisons,

Dealing with people whose lives have been crap and who have made really bad choices and decisions for different reasons and created harm and chaos.

And then they're overwhelmed with shame.

And sometimes that shame leads to contemplation upon suicide.

So many things.

One of the things that's most troubling is when one of the units that we deal with are like the sexual offender units.

And what's really amazing is how many of the people that are sexual offenders were also offended against as children.

And then everybody just wants to tuck this away,

Compartmentalize it and get on with stuff without recognizing that they are being controlled and shaped by the past.

And when they deal with counselors and psychologists there and they have to relive and go back and deal with their past,

They become overwhelmed with shame and they don't know how to deal with it.

And one of the island guys that we talked to some time back,

I mean,

It was really nice.

He told us that from this process of meditation,

He's found it so much easier to deal with the shame of his past and things that have been done to him and that he's done also.

Because he was really finding some security in this recognition that I am an eternal spiritual being.

I'm going through these different experiences,

But I am an eternal spiritual being.

And all this stuff is something that I'm experiencing,

But this is not me.

This is not me,

The eternal spiritual being.

The more that we grow in our experience of our true spiritual identity,

The more we're able to deal with these things,

The more we're able to deal with our mind,

Our mind being so out of control,

The more we learn that I don't have to follow all my impulses.

I don't have to be shaped by past disappointments or great experiences.

I mean,

And I'll just,

I've mentioned this before,

And it's something that people can't hardly relate to in modern society.

There was a report that came out of the UK with child and teen psychologists.

And they were,

As a body,

They were telling parents,

Try as much as you can to not allow your children to get into deep emotional relationships when they are young.

Because what happens,

People foolishly think that the flood of emotions that you feel in a new relationship is love.

It's not,

It's got nothing to do with love.

It's a natural mental and physiological reaction to something,

But it's not love.

Give me a break.

It doesn't last,

It craps out.

And when people experience this at too young a age,

You set them up in their lifetime.

They will think that this is love and I really enjoyed that experience and now I'm not feeling that way,

I need to feel that again.

So I need to find somebody else.

Maybe this person,

Maybe that person will allow me to feel love again.

And you set them up for,

They become serial relationships where there's just one after the other,

After the other,

Constantly seeking some perfection that's not real,

That's utterly temporary.

So this idea of being really molded by our past and then feeling this anxiousness of wanting to find some perfection going forward,

This is experienced in so many different ways.

To the person that asked me this question,

There is a need to actually practice some mindfulness meditations along with the chanting of these transcendental sounds and these spiritual sounds,

Mantra.

One can also contemplate upon the reality that I am not this body nor am I this mind,

That these two things are constantly changing and yet I am the constant principle experiencing that change.

I need to accept there is no perfection in this world.

You can live a good life,

A healthy life,

A happy life,

But there is no perfection to be had here from a spiritual perspective.

There is no perfection.

So get over that one.

Live a good life.

Be a good person.

Make good decisions.

Be compassionate.

Be caring.

Don't be selfish.

Don't be self-centered.

This life will pass for whatever reason I may have experienced something in the past and it may have been very fearful.

I can take that and use it to build an understanding that this world doesn't provide complete security and safety.

It can't.

Don't seek that in that which is material.

Seek it in that which is spiritual.

You have to actively engage in the process of meditation and contemplation upon these truths in mindfulness meditations also.

And it will help you,

Particularly when you're feeling tremendous.

I mean,

Another woman reached out to me from Australia some time ago.

She was just constantly in anxiety.

She was fearful.

She knew her parents were aging and that she knows that they're going to die and she's just so afraid of that that she just got to this point where she's constantly thinking about it and because of that,

She couldn't even function.

She couldn't get out of bed.

She became really deeply depressed,

But seems like she's worked things out through the things that we were suggesting that she try and do.

You've got to be realistic about this world.

This is not my home.

Life in this body will come to an end.

I'm here for a short time.

I should use this life for something very noble and important.

And that is my spiritual well-being to become enlightened.

That is what this human life should be used for.

If you take these guiding principles and actually apply it to your life,

Don't just let your mind run wild.

Start putting your own thoughts in there.

Start thinking about things.

Okay,

Why am I feeling this way?

What is the truth of things?

When I consider that,

All of a sudden it's like,

Hmm,

I kind of get it.

So that's about it.

Are you okay with that?

Anybody have a question?

I'm not a trained psychologist.

I have no prof.

.

.

Don't think that this is medical advice.

It's definitely not.

It's only spiritual advice.

Do I think it's important?

Yeah.

Do I think it will deal with most things?

Absolutely.

I know that to be a reality.

What is it that actually prevents you from moving past that?

Is it non-acceptance?

Yeah.

You need to just accept.

Stop wishing it didn't happen or it wasn't like that because that's not going to make any difference.

It's just kind of like worrying about something.

To be worrying about something doesn't change anything.

It just makes your ability to live a proper life.

It just minimizes your ability to live by just worrying.

I mean,

Sit down and figure out,

Okay,

What are my options?

What can I do about this?

I may not be able to solve everything,

But what can I do about it?

And then take that on board and do it,

Act on it.

You do the best that you can do.

In life,

That is all that's asked of us,

To simply do the best that we can do.

At any given time,

It will be different from previous times and future times.

But wherever we are,

You simply do the best that you can do under the circumstance.

Seek some good spiritual principle and direction to take on board and begin to guide you in your life,

In your choices and decisions.

Okay?

Thank you very much.

So it looks like we're having a Mahamantra night.

Thank you.

Rama Adi Rama Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Rama Adi Adi Rama Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Adi Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Adi Rama Adi Adi Rama Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Adi Rama Adi Adi Rama Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Rama Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Krishna Adi Krishna Krishna Krishna Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Rama Rama Adi Adi Adi Rama Adi Rama Adi Rama Adi