The following text has been written by spiritual teacher, philosopher and peace advocate Sri Chinmoy (1931-2007):
The past, present and future of a spiritual person are inside him. A seeker embodies present, past and future. It is all there inside you.
A tree has three branches, let us say. The past is the lowest branch, the present is the middle branch and the future is the top-most branch. Even when you observe from the foot of the tree, easily when you look up you can see the first branch, the second branch and the third branch. Now it is up to you to climb up to the first one or to the second one or to the third one. So think of your future in that way. This is your life-tree. In your life-tree, the past is already there, the present is already there, the future is already there. Now you have climbed beyond one branch, the past. You are sitting on the present branch but you are not satisfied with the present one because you feel that still there is a higher one. Just because you were not pleased with the previous one, the past, you thought that still there was one higher, so why should you sit on the lowest one? So you said, “Let me climb up to the higher one.” Then you came up.
Now you are on the present one. Now you feel that still there is one higher than this one, so you climb up. But it is the same life-tree that has three branches: past, present, future. If you remain as the life-tree constantly evolving and offering flowers and fruits to Mother Earth as a token of your love or as a spiritual gift to Mother Earth, then eternally you will remain in her consciousness, in her heart.
So please feel that you are the life-tree, the cosmic life-tree with three branches: past, present and future. It is up to you to decide where to remain. You can remain on the first branch, the lowest branch, all the time thinking of your childhood, your friends, your neighbours and what happened to you at the age of six or ten. That you can do. Again, you can think of your immediate necessity, which is God-realisation. What will you do right after realisation? You will reveal God more powerfully, more soulfully, more effectively. This will be your aim. So think at every moment of the life-tree, the cosmic tree. You have three goals. The first goal already you have passed. Now you have reached the second goal. But you feel that still there is a higher goal than the goal that you have already achieved and attained. So if you cry, if you cry desperately for the third goal, then you will reach it.
Each time you reach a goal, even while you are in the process of reaching the goal, you manifest. Movement itself is manifestation. While you are moving, at that time you are manifesting. While you are moving in the present, you are manifesting. And while you are moving in the future, you will be again manifesting.
I wish to say that the future is not something ahead of us; it is something inside us. The past, the present and the future are like the first rung, the second rung and the third rung of a ladder. Two rungs we have climbed up. Now, to reach the third one is only a matter of time. We can feel that the life-tree which we are climbing is our very existence. The cosmic life-tree is nothing other than our own life. God’s eternal Life is our life, our eternal Reality. When we believe that, we become that Reality itself.
– Sri Chinmoy
