Meditative Self-Inquiry with Mukesh Gupta, October 17, 2020

Meditative Self-Inquiry with Mukesh Gupta

Saturday, October 17, 2020

Zoom online

 

There were twenty people in attendance, all included, for this presentation by Mukesh Gupta, who was himself in Varanasi, India. The title of the talk and dialogue was “What Prevents Us from Living Fully Now?” Mukesh began, after a short silent meditation, by pointing out that our life is made interesting or not so by the thinking mind and its intercession into our experience. Thought gets in the way of being fully present in the moment, but asking questions about its activity can invite the life force to become more available to us. Can we live without the baggage of the past, the “me” and its stories? This requires total attention to the past as it arises in us. Can we watch the whole process of thinking? It may then lose its strength to dull our experience and create conflict and struggle in our consciousness. This attention, which the Buddha also recommended, is timeless, open, and loving. It is the essential thing that is needed. “Can we live with this quality of attention?” Mukesh asked of us.

After a half-hour presentation, Mukesh opened the floor to questions and comments. A few perceptions were shared by group members and then the sharing turned to the issue of losing a loved one to disease and death, an actual fact in the lives of a couple of the participants.. Mukesh led the discussion by asking, “Can we be fully alive in this moment, no matter what the future may bring?” In fact, psychologically, is there any such thing as the future? Can we die to the past and the future and allow a greater Intelligence to respond to the challenges of life rather than trying to meet them with thought? Perhaps we will see that everything that happens is a blessing.

It was another quality session with Mukesh, with appreciative feedback from the participants.