Even though there really is no certainty in life, there never has been and there never will be, we do normally have a sense of certainty regarding our lives. We normally make plans for the future and then go about our day to day lives fulfilling those plans. In business and in our personal lives. And, for a while, we had a certain knowingness that we could function within our way of life even if that is a collective constructed reality. With this sense of certainty we feel that there is solid ground beneath us both psychologically and physically and this helps us to pursue our desires.

In the back of our minds we know that life is impermanent. We know that our comfort in the usual is somewhat precarious even as we allow the illusion of certainty to carry us forward into what we hope for in our lives. The fact is, most of us have not trained our minds to accept the fact that uncertainty is constant.

All of us can agree that the events of the past year on a global scale came as a surprise to say the least. I myself was on a major trajectory of getting busier and busier without giving myself much time out. My energy and passion for my work and for my personal life was unfailing and I was single-mindedly driven to fulfil all my plans. I really do love my work. After all, as Kahlil Gibran has said: “Work is love made visible.” And I really do love my life. All of a sudden we were forced to stop, we could not leave our houses, many of us went into fear and panic and the world began to look like a very dark place. We all collectively agreed to hold on until this pandemic had passed and waited for the moment to breathe a sigh of relief. But, it did not pass as quickly as we had hoped. Each of us grappled with grief and loss as our lives have inextricably changed. Essentially we have been forced out of our comfort zones and so, how do we move forward in this uncertain reality?

What helps is if we contemplate the very nature of life. That it is constantly changing just like waves in the ocean. One moment, the ocean is the wave, the next moment it is the wake that follows. Continuously moving. The important thing here is to reflect, recognise and remind ourselves that certainty is ever elusive. With such insight we are able to find equilibrium within ourselves knowing that uncertainty is part of life and over time nothing can really sway us as we develop a deep inner flexibility.

Here is a wonderful opportunity for a deeper practise to realise this inner freedom. To be present in the eternal now moment. Our minds do keep pulling us back into either the past or into the future but if we can train ourselves to be mindful of the present moment, the present feeling, the present thought… then it is possible to keep reminding ourselves over and over again to come into the present now. It is here where the juice of life is. We never enjoy the future in our minds as much as we do when we arrive and the future is never what we imagined it would be. It is better to be present. That is not to say that we cannot dream of a more fulfilling future, we definitely must dream in order to create the lives of our choosing. But we must also understand that the spiritual life requires from us that we hold to our centre. When we hold to our centre, it doesn’t matter what the external environment is, we will always manage to remain present.