Just Living for the Moment is Another Form of Escape

You know, there’s some spiritual teaching out there in the world that really emphasizes just living for the moment as a kind of way to escape anxiety and fearfulness and regret and…Just live for the moment, like a frog in a pond, or, you know, a lily in the field. You know it’s only gonna live for a few days, but that’s beside the point. But that’s kind of an escape. It’s another form of escape, living just for the moment. You don’t need to plan for the future. Things will work out. They always work out.

The problem with that perspective is that you were born with a purpose and you cannot rid yourself of it. You can live at the surface. You can be constantly mesmerised and absorbed in things, fantasies and stimulation and romance and what you’re going to do this weekend and every minute taken up with something to keep you occupied, like you’re an experience junkie. You have to have more and more experience. But you live with this purpose. And it doesn’t go away.

And this is one of the reasons why people do not want to go within themselves. There’s something in there that may drive them in a different direction, the direction to which they’ve already committed themselves or invested in. Something’s in there.

And it comes up from time to time with a feeling or a sensation or a desire, a desire that cannot be fulfilled by anything they’re doing, anything they see, anything the world has to offer, a thirst, hunger. “I must do something about this that I just heard about. I’m here to do something, something important.”

And with purpose, there comes destiny because the purpose is trying to take you somewhere to do something. It’s not a blank check. It actually is a prescription. It’s a blueprint. And you need to get wherever that is. So you have a destiny, a destiny in being here.

And this runs counter to anything the world can teach you, tell you, persuade you to do, manipulate you to do, anything—purpose and destiny. So even a big bad future has purpose and destiny written all over it.

So at the end of the revelation that we heard last night, The Great Turning Point for Humanity, is this: They said, this is the best thing for you. After they scare the hell out of you, they say, this is the best thing for you. Without this, you’re adrift; you’re confused; you’re lost; you fall into despair and depression eventually as you age. And somehow, whatever it was in life that was supposed to happen—should have happened, could have happened, would have happened—did not happen, that purpose and destiny unfulfilled.

And if your purpose and destiny is to be part of something really big, then wow, that’s an even more powerful force within you that keeps you from becoming entirely complacent, or satisfied with little things, or interested in people who can only be superficial and who do not want to dig very deeply into anything.

So your relationship with the future means you have destiny there. Otherwise, if you only live for the moment like all of the creatures, most of the creatures, sure, but destiny doesn’t mean anything, the future doesn’t mean anything. You’ll live and then one day you’ll die, which is okay until you get to that one day.

But it isn’t okay because in the meantime you’re living with this unmet need that is so fundamental that nothing you can do, no amount of therapy or indulgence or acquisition can satisfy this thing. As you mature, you lose interest in the illusions of the world—if you’re maturing—and bigger things begin to arrive to concern you, some of them very important.

This is bringing you closer to purpose and destiny.