Momentary Things

Photo Credit: Carl Sagan Quotes

Momentary Things

We all live with momentary things and that’s why we live in so much misery – because no momentary thing is ever going to satisfy us! By the time we become aware of the thing’s existence, it goes away. This life is in a state of constant flux, it is continuously moving, it is out of our hands. Nothing is certain, nothing is constant – everything is a continuous movement.

How can we make our abode in these constantly shifting sands, in this momentary world? If we do make our abode it will collapse – the collapse will happen at any moment, and we cannot live in peace.

We fall in love, then there is the fear about whether the love will be there tomorrow or not. Our lover may leave us or we may start thinking about leaving him/her. So, we start making arrangements to stabilise it, to make it something permanent, and in that the very joy is lost.

Lovers start trying to possess the other so that tomorrow it is still there, but in trying to possess love we are already destroying it. We are not even waiting for tomorrow to destroy it, we have destroyed it today… because nobody wants to be possessed, nobody wants to be thought of as a commodity. Nobody is a thing. To behave with a person as if he or she is a thing is to humiliate; it is utterly disrespectful. And everybody resists it, hence the fight starts.

The desire is for something eternal, but that cannot be fulfilled in the outside world. The poor trying to get rich, through great effort reaching the goal and then worrying to death about becoming poor again. When a person is poor, he/she at least sleeps well, a rich person cannot even sleep, his/her worry makes him/her restless.

This is what goes on happening unless we start looking inwards. The outside world is not going to satisfy because it is a changing world, momentary, and our innermost longing is for the eternal. And that cannot be fulfilled on the outside. So, on the outside remain joyful with the momentary, don’t ask that it should be eternal. Nothing can be eternal on the outside. Enjoy the momentary as momentary, knowing perfectly well that it is momentary.

The flower that has opened up in the morning is bound to die by the evening. It has come with the sunrise; it will go with the sunset. So, rejoice! But remember, don’t cling, don’t hope, otherwise we will be disillusioned. Rejoice in the momentary on the outside, and search for the eternal on the inside. 

And inside we will find amrit, nectar, the immortal, the eternal, the divine. And once we have found that then there is nothing more to be found. Then all is bliss, then all is joy. Life is fulfilled. One has come home.