People think that sitting down for a moment in your garden or watching the beach or watching the sunset in the desert is laziness.
People think that we're running away from life because we're taking some moments to notice life.
Beingness is not laziness.
To take a moment just to be takes tremendous courage and tremendous patience and tremendous energy.
Why?
Because you have this busy mind and within your mind you have this subconscious mind.
This subconscious mind is now controlling 80% of your life through habits.
All of your habits are in the subconscious mind and you don't notice them because the subconscious mind hides things from you.
So for example,
If you feel compelled to have a Turkish coffee at a particular hour in the morning and then to have a cigarette afterwards or to watch a TV serial exactly at 7 30 p.
M.
All of these habits,
Even the way you treat your children or your fiancee,
Those habits are in your subconscious mind.
The subconscious mind loves repetition.
It does not want to leave its habitual reactions,
Habitual beliefs,
Habitual habits.
So when you take a moment to follow your breath,
When you take a moment to look at the sky,
To look at the sunset in the desert,
You're eliminating the influence of the subconscious mind.
When you eliminate the subconscious mind,
You stop reacting based on habits and you start to act in accordance to the needs of this moment.
Imagine on one particular day you are invited to a birthday party,
A funeral,
And a wedding.
Each one of those occasions has its own needs.
But if you are lost in your own head,
If you are so busy trying to complete your to-do list,
If you are lost in your iPhone or in social media,
You have no idea what the unique particular needs are of a birthday party,
A wedding,
Or a funeral.
You are lost in your head.
So I encourage you to be courageous enough to purposely take time to sit still,
To follow the breath,
Not athletically.
I want you to feel the breath going through your nostrils.
I want you to feel your stomach,
Your abdomen,
Rising and falling as breath comes in,
Breath goes out.
Your oldest,
Oldest friend is your breath.
Your breath knows your past.
It knows your present.
It knows your future.
The breath has a sacred rhythm.
Breath comes in,
Breath goes out.
That rhythm is no different than the rhythm of the waves in the Persian Gulf or the ocean.
When you take time to pay attention to this moment,
There's an immediate inflow of wisdom.
You get closer to your own heart.
You get closer to your husband and wife.
You get closer to society and you get closer to nature.
By watching the waves of the ocean,
By watching the trees bend to the wind,
By watching a falcon or a seagull fly through the sky,
You can be learning.
Nature is constantly screaming in your ears,
Begging you to stop doing,
Doing,
Doing,
Worrying,
Watching the news,
Watching the TV serial.
Nature wants you to pause so you can learn from this moment.
You can learn from a seagull flying through the sky.
You can learn from a sunset in the desert.
You can learn from the plants growing in your garden.
So please be courageous enough to take time to pause.
Shut off the news.
Shut off your iPhone.
Stop watching the TV serial exactly at the same time.
And then pause and follow the breath.
Feel the breath.
Feel the physical sensations in your body.
Watch the thoughts going through your mind instead of believing the thoughts going through your mind.
This is called non-doing.
This is called being.
This is called your presence coming into the moment.
When you step into this moment with presence,
You realize that every moment of life will be okay if you are okay with life.
There's a part of you called the ego.
The ego is that feeling of me,
Me,
Me,
My preference.
This is what I like.
This is what I don't like.
And what happens is that ego plus your busy mind,
They step into the moment and they want to control life.
They want every incident happening today to be aligned with your personal preferences.
And that,
My friend,
Is an illusion.
It's a dream.
Life will not obey your personal preferences.
Through this practice of mindfulness,
Through this practice of following your breath mindfully,
You will learn to trust the rhythm of the day.
You will learn to trust the flow of life.
If you pay attention to the waves,
To the sky,
To the seagull and the falcon flying,
To the way the trees bend in the wind,
You will gain a lot of wisdom,
Because life is the best teacher.
Nature is your guru.
So take time to pause.
Look at your garden.
Look at the sunset.
Look at your grandchildren.
Listen to some music purposely,
Intentionally following the notes.
Put your hand on your heart and feel your heartbeat and thank God that you're still alive.
All of this is purposeful mindfulness.
Through mindfulness,
You will discover that when you are okay with life,
Life will be okay with you.
Life does not have to follow the personal preferences of your busy mind and your ego.
Life has its own rhythm.
When you learn to pay attention to this moment,
You will learn that life will unfold at its own rhythm.
If you are being stubborn,
If you're being aggressive,
If you're being angry and impatient,
You are not trusting nature.
You are not trusting the flow of the day.
So by gaining this wisdom,
You realize that everything has its own time.
If you are a young woman and you are not becoming pregnant right now and you get angry and you start taking all sorts of drugs,
You're not paying respect to nature itself.
Even paying respect to our age.
I used to be 23.
Then I was 43.
Then I was 63.
Now I could be 73.
I can fight that.
I can get angry.
But that's not really wise.
Follow your breath.
Feel the breath going through your nostrils.
Put your palm on your heart and fall into alignment with your heartbeat.
And you will see that wisdom immediately rushes into your mind.
Instead of being angry,
Nervous,
Anxious,
Fearful.
Instead of being impatient,
You realize that life is intelligent.
The flow of the day is something that you need to trust.
Develop the trust in the flow of the day.
Imagine you are a leaf flowing on a river.
That leaf flowing on a river needs to trust the current of the river.
That river is life.
Life has some turbulent waves and it has moments of stillness.
That's all right.
If you learn to breathe,
If you learn to follow your breath,
If you learn to be mindful,
If you learn to bring your presence to the day,
You find that instead of trying to eliminate events that you don't like,
You learn how to surf the waves of life.
When you are okay with life,
Life will be okay with you.
