Everything Is Perfect!
Nowadays meditation is becoming very popular. 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 satguru, Yogaswami, made the very bold statement once, “There is not even one thing in this world that is not perfect!” You have to take a master like that very seriously. He was satguru for over fifty years in a very orthodox area of the world. “There is not even one thing in this world that is not perfect,” he said. Some of us look around at the world, and we find plenty of things that are wrong with it. I never have. I have always thought this is a wonderful planet—wouldn’t have missed it for anything. It is a great time now to be alive, even though some of us don’t think so, even though the planet is somewhat polluted, and some people have myriad complaints.
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 at Lake Tahoe, 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.” As it turned out, we didn’t get stuck in the snow and I did get to listen to Captain Midnight. 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!