Live in the present is a popular and valuable saying among self-help teachers. After all, that’s where we can do anything worthwhile. We can and should learn from the past; and we can and should plan for the future. But irrespective of whether we don’t learn or plan at all or do so in the most thorough way possible, at the end of the day whatever we are going to do has to be done in the present.

Yet we all know how difficult it is to live in the present. Our mind wanders forcefully towards either the past or the future – in fact anywhere except the present. Being present in the present requires willpower and often we just don’t seem to have enough willpower.

Gita wisdom complements our willpower with divine power. The Gita explains that we are souls who are eternally parts of Krishna and are meant to delight in loving service to him.

And serving Krishna is practical activity done in the present, in the here-and-now. In fact, our very material existence, more specifically our human existence, is an opportunity given by Krishna for us to reconnect with him. So every moment in this life is a present from Krishna, a precious, irreplaceable chance to reclaim an eternal life of love with him. In fact, the Gita declares that Krishna himself manifests as time to show us the way from the temporary to the eternal.

Gita wisdom helps us understand that Krishna is present in our heart constantly – he is the Supreme Presence whose existence sustains the existence of everything else. And he makes access to him easier through the wisdom of scripture and the taste of devotional remembrance, thereby making being present in the present an exciting and fulfilling adventure.

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 11 Text 32