This week the wisdom of two men flowed into my days. The one I have been a huge fan of for many years. The other I have heard about before, but only this week stumbled upon one of his videos. Let’s begin with Sir Anthony Hopkins. He is simply my favourite actor. He seems to become the characters he portrays. Someone re-posted an Anthony Hopkins quote on Facebook recently, and there is no way of knowing that he actually said these words, but they sounded very true, and wise: ‘I expect nothing, and accept everything. It makes life easier.’ So I went in search of more of his quotes and found one that makes complete sense to me: ‘Today is the tomorrow I was so afraid of yesterday.’ To me it sounded like one of those reminders that we really should be living in the present moment. That means, today. It is the only day we have. Quite apart from this fact, today is also the last chance we will get to shape tomorrow into the present we want to experience when the sun rises in the morning.
I have to admit that I have diligently tried to live in the present for almost a decade now. After all this time I can tell you it is really worth it. I discovered that the more I refused to say things like ‘one day I would like to do this’, or ‘I want to do that as soon as I get the opportunity’, all fearful thoughts of what tomorrow might bring simply stopped. I became so focused on today, that I completely lost the ability to worry about stuff that ‘tomorrow’ might bring. This does not mean that I do not make plans, or work out whether I am going to be able to finish a project on time, or calculate whether my bank balance would cover my entire budget or just a part of it. It simply means that I am letting life flow. This is how I discovered that life can surprise you – in a good way – if you allow it to bring you what is meant to come to you. As time passed, I began to understand that by trying to focus on tomorrow, one removes the creative power from the present day, the power to manifest what is right for you, by simply being the best version of you in the moment you are busy living. The practice of living in the present eventually helped me to stop being a ‘worrier’. Admittedly, I do sometimes worry about the fact that I am never ‘worried’ about anything, as if that might be considered irresponsible in some way. But the other side of the coin is that I also have no expectations, which is probably why I immediately resonated with the wise words of Sir Anthony Hopkins mentioned above, about expecting nothing. Apart from expecting nothing, he is of course also right that accepting everything, makes life easier. I think the ability to accept everything without trying to change other people, also makes us less judgmental. That one I still have to work on, but I know that once I can accept people for who they are, even though what they get up to as a result makes my own life really difficult, it would indeed make me feel easier within my own space. Acceptance is definitely an easier energy to carry within the body than the vibration of feeling annoyed, which in my experience is the normal result of being judgmental.
And then there is the Yogi Sadhguru. I regret that I never took the time to listen to this wise man speak before. He did not grow up within the confines of any framework, and never allowed anyone to build a box around him either. When he talks about the pain and suffering that something which he terms ‘limited identities’ cause, it resonates with me on a very deep level. We look after our own, those like us. In this regard Sadhguru is referring to different cultures, races, groups, etc.. Separate identities. We focus on our own identity, as if it is the only one out there, and as if no one else’s identity can possibly be acceptable. Somehow one group always feels either superior, or inferior to another. And so we have wars, and other things. We find it so very easy to find something wrong with other people’s religion, culture, race, country, beliefs, etc.. But Sadhguru is an excellent communicator and one of the ways he uses to get through to people, is by asking them questions that are direct and to the point. The answer – whatever the answer – always clarifies the thinking around the subject. Like when he asks: ‘Is your life in pursuit of happiness, or is it an expression of joy?’ We are back to the theme of living in the moment. If you live in the present, you will find it easy to say that your life is an expression of joy. If you are living today while focused on tomorrow’s dreams, you will probably answer that your life is in pursuit of happiness. Is that not another way of saying that you would like to be happy one day? It is also a silent affirmation that today, you are not happy.
And so this week two very wise men from different worlds brought wisdom into my world from two vastly different vantage points. I realised that wisdom is wisdom. With the passage of time, some acquire it. And when they share it, that wisdom flows to us, to find us there where we are living today. It is up to us either to embrace the words of their wisdom in the now, or to write them down to think about their meaning some other day. I suppose that too will depend on whether we live in the moment, or not.
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