Destination – Ego; Direction - Life

 

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Destination – Ego; Direction - Life

A destination is a very clear-cut thing; direction is very intuitive. A destination is something outside you, more like a thing. A direction is an inner feeling, not an object, but our very subjectivity. We can feel direction, we cannot know it. We can know the destination; we cannot feel it. Destination is in the future. Once decided, we start manipulating our life towards it, steering our life towards it.

How can we decide the future? Who are we to decide the unknown? How is it possible to fix the future? Future is that which is not known yet. Future is open possibility. By fixing a destination our future is no more a future because it is no more open. Now we have chosen one alternative out of many, because when all the alternatives were open it was future. Now all alternatives have been dropped; only one alternative has been chosen. It is no longer future; it is our past.

The past decides when we decide a destination. Our experience of the past, our knowledge of the past decides. We kill the future. Then we go on repeating our own past - maybe a little modified, a little changed here and there according to our comfort, convenience; repainted, renovated - but still it comes out of the past. This is the way one loses track of the future, by deciding a destination one loses track of future. One becomes dead. One starts functioning like a mechanism.

Direction is something alive, in the moment. It knows nothing of the future, it knows nothing of the past, but it throbs, pulsates here and now. And out of this pulsating moment, the next moment is created. Not by any decision on our part - but just because we live this moment and we live it so totally, and we love this moment so wholly, out of this wholeness the next moment is born. It is going to have a direction. That direction is not given by us, it is not imposed by us; it is spontaneous. That is what is known as the sahaj manushya – spontaneous man.

The spontaneous man is the way to the real man, to the essential man, to the God within. We cannot decide direction, we can only live this moment that is available to us. By living it, direction arises. If we dance, the next moment is going to be of a deeper dance. Not that we decide but we simply dance in this moment. We have created a direction: we are not manipulating it. The next moment will be filled with more dancing, and still more will follow.

Direction comes out of living in this moment. It is not something that we manage and plan. It happens, it is very subtle, and we will never be certain about it. “This is it!” Because each moment, this is it. It may be life, it may be death; it may be success, it may be failure; it may be happiness, it may be unhappiness. Each moment - this is it. This is what is called real prayer. And then we will have direction. We need not worry about it, we need not fix it; we can move with trust.