360 degree shift

If your future self could send you one sentence, what do you hope it would say?

“You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions.”
— Bhagavad Gita 2.47

The monk sat beside the sage, looking unusually serious.
“I have finally figured it out,” he said.

“Figured what out?” asked the sage.
“The future.”

The sage smiled. “And what did the future tell you?”
“Nothing.”

The sage laughed.
“Exactly.”

The monk continued.
“People keep talking about the future as though they have already visited it. Astrology says this will happen. Someone else says that will happen. Another person gives another prediction. Everyone seems to know what my life is going to become.”

He shook his head.
“I don’t want to listen anymore.”

The sage remained silent.

“I don’t want to waste my time listening to predictions,” the monk continued. “If I don’t see it happening in my life, why should I believe it? I have my own eyes. I have my own experience. I have this moment.”

The sage nodded.

The monk suddenly became more determined.

“So from now on, I reject all the noise. I won’t allow predictions to decide how I live. I will listen to what is actually happening around me.”

The sage looked at him carefully.
“And what about the voices inside you?”

The monk stopped.
“What voices?”
“The ones that tell you that someone is against you. The ones that tell you someone is judging you. The ones that tell you what another person is thinking. The ones that create fear about tomorrow. The ones that replay yesterday.”

The monk became quiet.

The sage continued.
“You have been trying to escape other people’s predictions while still believing every prediction your own mind creates.”
Silence.

That was the 360-degree turn.

The monk suddenly understood.

Perhaps the biggest astrologer he had been listening to was his own mind.
It was constantly predicting.
This will happen.
That person will say this.
Tomorrow will be difficult.
Something is going to go wrong.
Someone doesn’t understand me.

What if…?

The mind never seemed to run out of stories.
The monk smiled.

“So the real work isn’t predicting the future.”

“No,” said the sage.

“It is learning to watch the mind without believing every story it produces.”

The monk looked toward the temple.

“What if nobody understands the way I practice?”
“Practice anyway.”
“What if nobody else does their sadhana?”
“Practice anyway.”
“What if people think differently from me?”
“Let them.”
“What if they don’t understand my path?”
“That is their journey.”
The monk took a deep breath.

For years he had been looking outward for answers.
Now he turned inward.
Kriya.
Sadhana.
Awareness.
Observation.
Practice.
Again and again.
Not because someone promised him a particular future.
Not because somebody predicted that his life would become extraordinary.
But because he wanted to work on himself now.

The sage smiled.
“Your future self cannot send you a map of tomorrow.”

The monk asked, “Then what sentence would I hope my future self sends me?”

The sage looked directly into his eyes.
And the monk finally heard the answer from somewhere deeper than prediction:

“You stopped waiting for the future to save you, and started working on yourself in the present.”

The monk smiled.

He had spent so much time trying to discover what would happen next that he had forgotten the only moment he could actually change.
This one.
Right now.
The future remained unknown.

And for once, he did not need to know.

He simply returned to his practice.
The sage watched him walk toward the temple.

The monk had not discovered his future.

He had discovered something far more important:
His mind was not his destiny.
And that was the beginning of freedom.

“Wherever there is Krishna, the Lord of Yoga, and wherever there is Arjuna, the archer, there will certainly be prosperity, victory, happiness, and firm morality.”
— Bhagavad Gita 18.78