When Tomorrow Eats Today

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Out of habit, we live in tomorrow.
Out of habit, we live in last year.

We were going to start meditation.
We were going to read the Gita.
We were going to fix our temper, our diet, our sleep.

Out of habit, the sentence never becomes a step.
We polish the plan and call it progress.
We feel busy without moving.

This note is about that habit—
When tomorrow eats today, nothing is left on the plate.

There is a man who has sat in the same hut for years.

Each summer he says he is going to Kashmir.
Last year it was Manali.
The year before, Nainital.
His bags are half-packed in his stories.
His body has not crossed the village stream.

A friend came and asked,
So this year—Kashmir?

The man smiled.
Kashmir? We were going to Kashmir last year.
Before that, Manali.
This year we did not even go to Nainital.

The friend was confused.
Then where did you go?

Nowhere, the man said.
And that is the point.
Enjoy from where you sit.
Where is all this coming and going?
For three years I have been going
to take break to learn Meditation.
For three years I have been almost ready.
The mind stays calm if I keep a trip in front of it—
A mountain, an ashram, a new life after the holiday.

He was not lazy.
He was fed by the future.

The trip lived in his head so well
That the real road felt unnecessary.
Not going to Kashmir became its own kind of going—
A drama he could watch from the hut
Without paying the price of change.

You may smile at him.
But listen to your own calendar.

After this project, I will meditate.
After the child settles, I will simplify.
When I have more money, I will be generous.
When I retire, I will find God.

Each line is a hill station in the mind.
Each line postpones the only life you own—today.

We think freedom is geography.
Peace behind snow, silence behind saffron robes,
Wisdom behind a ticket we have not bought.

So we wait.
And waiting becomes a personality.
People know us as the one who is about to begin.

That is not humility.
It is a trick.

The mind loves a future that cannot fail today.
Tomorrow’s meditation never disturbs today’s anger.
Tomorrow’s renunciation never disturbs your today’s hoarding.
Tomorrow’s charity never opens the wallet tonight.

Preparation without today is postponement dressed as virtue.

There is another story.

A rich man spread gold on the road and said,
Take, holy man, take it all!
Prove you are free of the world!

The holy man looked at the heap—
Enough to build a life, enough to drown in.
He bent and picked up one copper coin.

This is enough, he said.
The boatman will carry me across the river.
I do not want more weight than that in my pocket.

The rest is for your village.
Use it where hunger is real.
Do not ask me to sink to show you I am holy.

The rich man wanted a spectacle—
Renunciation as theater, detachment as performance.
The holy man wanted a crossing.

Life is also a river.
You are already on the bank you stand on.
The ferry does not ask for your whole warehouse—
Only what is needed to move without drowning.

God, truth, peace—
They are not impressed by how much you carry.
They ask: Can you live without crushing yourself?

Take what you need for today’s duty.
Give what blocks your hands from opening.
Leave the rest.
The rest is fear in a golden dress.

See how the two stories meet.

The hut man hoarded trips he never took.
The rich man hoarded gold the teacher would not lift.
Both are the same movement:
Clutching what feels safe,
Missing what is here.

We collect plans like property deeds.
We collect spiritual goals like medals we will earn later.
We call delay preparation
So we do not have to feel afraid today.

But the ferry leaves from this bank.
Not from the bank you promise to reach after Kashmir.

You need not run away to be free.
You need not wait for permission to begin.
Renunciation is not only leaving home—
It is stopping the lie that life starts after the next turn.

So what can you do—plain and small?

Sit where you are.
Breathe once without the story of Manali.
Notice one thing that is already given:
This breath, this roof, this person in front of you.

Before sleep, do one true thing—
Not the thing you were going to do,
The thing that is here.
Five minutes of silence.
One honest apology not a rhetoric sorry.
One meal eaten without phone in hand.

When the ferry comes, travel light.
One coin is enough.
This day is enough.

Tomorrow will also become today.
At present moment
If you keep feeding it today’s food,
You will arrive nowhere—
Full of plans, empty of life.

Stop living in the grammar of was going to.
Live in the tense that is alive under your feet: now.

Hari Om Tat Sat
Yours Truly Hari