This is a very important question to answer. There are two answers that can be given to this. On the one hand, one can analyze the issue using the sharpness of the mind and logic and come straight to the point. It will definitely give clarity and shortcomings and ways to fulfill those.
On the other hand, the second
approach would not apply logic but rather would destroy the logic and indeed
question the efficacy of logic-finding solutions. This would also mean questioning
what is logic in itself.
Let us start with the first way.
You question here why I am not able to stay present more and why I am more on autopilot
mode all the time. The more important question would be how I am in the mode –
in the autopilot mode or the presence mode. This would give you several
answers.
Let’s say one has an impulsive
sense of thinking all the time. The body reacts in a certain way when one is
lost in imagination. The head may be down, the hand may be playing with the hair
(as in my case), etc. Mechanicalness takes over and you become the body-mind which
is nothing but a machine whose software is already uploaded.
So this is how you are in the
autopilot mode. Then further questioning can lead you to the answer that you
may be asking. It starts with self-observation, observing over a period of time
how your body functions, what happens when a certain type of stimuli is presented
to it, and how it reacts. Is the presence held, or is it lost? Then over
several months, maybe years of observation one understands in the depths of the
being that one is really a machine and there starts the real journey of change
in the shift. Then one observes the mechanicalness and tries to change it into
the presence. Slowly and slowly changes start happening.
Another reason can be given
from the perspective of yoga. That there are blockages in the nadis that don’t allow
the energy to flow perfectly and hence one is bound by the limitations. So one then
adopts certain practices of yoga. There are many practices, where I am not
going currently. Slowly-slowly change starts to happen same as stated
previously.
The second approach is radical
and transformative once it has been understood by the depth of the being. It goes
like this. There are two entities here – one is the subject i.e. awareness which
is living, and the other is the object of the subject i.e. thoughts feelings
sensations, and perception, which are non-living. The two entities finally are
found to be one, where these objects are nothing but the appearance on the
subject because of the will of the subject.
The subject projects those
objects over itself and knows them simultaneously. Thus holding presence is
also a thought not in the control of the body-mind, because the body-mind is
nothing but an object to the awareness, hence they are non-living. Staying present
is a thought that is presented to the awareness. It is the awareness that
decides what to do next. What course of sensations, movement, or thoughts she want
to project and fulfill the purpose that is known only to her. There is no free
will here, as the will is only of the awareness here. Mind doesn’t exist. No mind
means no free will. Or we can say that the mind i.e. thoughts are non-living
and hence dead cannot have will.
Now what does this all mean? In
case you understood this, then there is nothing more to say. In case it is
still not clear, one needs to first come to an experience where one
differentiates between the thought and the knower of the thought. Then one
eventually understands that nothing is in your i.e. body-mind control and one
should then relax and let the awareness that is one’s true nature fully express
itself through that body-mind.
