Stop Running

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Stop Running

“Miles to go before I sleep” – are lines from Robert Frost’s poem ‘Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening’ – these lines depict the state of most people today. They are running, chasing their goals and dreams, and these goals, dreams keep changing and man never stops running.

People say that they want to stop, but they are not yet tired – so they say one thing and they do just the opposite. Because to stop running means to stop ambition. To stop running means to stop desire. To stop running means to drop the future completely – to live here and now. Then there is no running. If there is a then and there, one runs; one has to run.

To stop running is difficult as that means stopping the goal-oriented mind. To be in the here and now without any goal, without any desire, is the greatest renunciation – just to enjoy oneself as one is.

If one is really tired there is no problem, one can stop running this very moment. We need to understand that trying to stop is not going to help, because even the effort to stop can become a running. That’s the whole problem with the mind. One can start running to stop running. One can start warming up and running because one must stop running and start doing this and that. We can create desires and goals saying, “Unless I stop running, I am not going to be happy.” Again, we have created a goal – in the name of a no-goal.

It is a question of simple understanding. It has nothing to do with any action. Action cannot be stopped by another action. Action can only be stopped in a non-active understanding, in a passive understanding. So, just see the point – that there is nowhere to go. Just see the point that for the whole of our life we have been running and we are reaching nowhere. We are simply wasting the time that is available to us to enjoy and delight in. We go on sacrificing the present for the future, and the future never comes.

So, delight in small things: eat and enjoy, love and enjoy. Go for a morning walk and enjoy. Sit while it is raining and enjoy. Lie down and enjoy. Each moment, small things, tiny things, of no importance for the ego, but very very important for life.

Enjoy gossiping, chit-chatting, singing, dancing, anything. Whatsoever one feels like doing, do it and enjoy it. Don’t make it a means to some other end. Let it be the very end itself…. Then it will happen.