I'm All Right, Right Now

Yesterday I got back from three weeks in Europe, Ramnarayan, and read your letter about how you are making stress your friend, using prayanamaalong with the affirmations, as Swami Radha taught you. Our readers, like you, are deeply committed to the path and striving so sincerely, yet things do come up. Karmas are there to be met with the wisdom called Sanatana Dharma. You mentioned your daily six-mile walking meditation. Here's another meditation for those days when things just don't go perfect, or seem not to, because they really always do.

Everyone is talking about being centered. If you're right in the center of yourself, you don't hear any of the noise or activity. You're just peaceful within yourself. It's only when we come into the cross-section, the cross-fire of life, that we feel we're not all right. Then we begin living in the great lie of the universe, the great fear that if we die we might be gone forever. We forget all of the wonderful philosophy and beautiful teachings that we've been studying and we're just not all right.

My master made the very bold statement once, "There is not even one thing in this world that is not perfect!" You have to take a satguru like that very seriously. Meditation is not an escape from the exterior world. We have to straighten ourselves out in the exterior world first before meditation and inner life can really be successful. Sometimes we worry about our job, our business, our family, or even that we are not living as spiritually as we think we should. This is my advice: gain the perspective first that it is a wonderful world, that there is nothing wrong in the world at all. Then ask yourself this question: "Am I not all right, right now, right this instant?" And answer, "I'm all right, right now." Declare that. Then a minute later in another now ask again, "Am I all right, right now?" Just keep asking this one question for the rest of your life, and you will always feel positive, self-assured and fine. This attitude eliminates fear, worry and doubt.

I discovered this formula when I was seven years of age. It came to me from the inside one day when I was worried about missing my favorite radio program. We were on our way home in a snow storm, and I was afraid we might get stuck and I'd miss the program. I saw my mind, awareness, go off into the future, and I brought it back by telling myself, "I'm all right, right now. It hasn't happened yet." After that, I would say to myself "I'm all right, right now" every time something came up that stretched my imagination into the future, into worry, or into the past when something disturbing lingered in my memory patterns that I did yesterday that maybe I shouldn't have done. Each time that happened I would say, "I'm all right, right now, am I not?" And I would have to always answer, "Of course, yes." I started doing this at the age of seven and still today I am convinced that I am all right, right now!

The first thing to do on the path is to change our perspective of looking at life. Initially, as we come onto the inner path, we look at the map of the journey-we read books. A book is a map. We then make up our mind whether or not we want to make a change in our lifestyle and our perspective. Once we decide that we do, a good way to begin is to reprogram the clay-like subconscious mind. Reprogram the negative habit patterns by firmly believing that you're really all right.

The second thing to accomplish is to learn to lean on your own spine. Everyone nowadays wants to lean on someone else. We lean on our families until they push us out into the world. Then we lean on our friends until they can't help us anymore. But still we keep on leaning. Then we lean on our therapist until we run out of money. This attitude of leaning on another is not the foundation needed for the delicate states of deep meditation to be sustained. We have to lean on our own spine. But first we have to claim our spiritual heritage and feel, "I'm all right, right now." By saying this and believing it, we pull the energies in just a little and become centered again. When we ask ourselves point blank, "Am I all right, right now?" we have to come up with a "yes." Lean on your own spine. Feel the power in the spine. Feel the energy in the spine. The energy in the spine is not concerned with any fear or worry or doubt-not at all. It is a pure, powerful, blissful energy. Lean on it, and you will go crashing through into inner states of meditation. Things in the world will also work out right for you. You will be in the flow of life. You will have perfect timing. Beautiful things will begin to happen to you in the exterior world. Opportunities will open up for you where there were no opportunities before. People will become nice to you who ordinarily would not. All this and more begins to happen because mentally you are leaning on yourself, and people in general like you to do this. Don't lean on a philosophy. Don't lean on a guru. Don't lean on a teacher. Lean on your own spine and that power within it. Then the guru can be some help to you, for you will obey his directions when he speaks. The philosophy begins to come alive in you, for you can complement it with your own inner knowing and enjoy your life on the path.