Living or Reacting?

Baba Ji once told us that we are not living. Our whole life is just reacting to our needs and our desires. But when we get into stillness, we are just being. What does the Master mean by reacting? And what would it be like to be living as he defines it?

With our minds in control, we are either immersed in the past or considering the future. When something in the present occurs, we have a learned and automatic response to it. We are reacting as our mind dictates. The soul’s response is repressed and unnoticed. Our true self hardly participates in the life we are leading. Perhaps this is what Baba Ji meant when he told us we are not living.

Really living would be a condition in which our true self, our soul, in conscious union with its Creator, is actively participating in the flow of life. It would no longer be a silent prisoner of a mind automatically steering our consciousness; the soul would be free to guide our awareness in an objective reality.

We would experience life as it is, not as we think it is. Our reactions would not come from the mind, trained as it is in a particular manner. Rather, we would not react. Our thoughts and actions would be guided by the soul with its wellspring of compassion and love. Since the soul is in harmony with its Maker, living by its guidance would put us in harmony with everyone and everything. The gift of the present moment, in all its fullness and beauty, would be ours continuously and we would be enveloped in his love.