Create your perfect future.

I was not into physics in school. I skipped most of the classes and whenever I made it, I found it really boring. Until a few decades later as I have discovered the mind blowing concept of yoga, followed by the quantum physics, parallel universes and endless possibilities. Interestingly, once you are into something, things come knocking through your awareness doors to gradually awaken the memory. As I was reading Be Love Now book by Ram Das, one of the stories made me get up and dig the Yoga of Time Travel by Fred Alan Wolf out of the closet.

With an introduction from Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland) followed by a stanza from Bhagavad Gītā, this book proved to be a special treat. Expert from the first chapter:

In the early part of the first millennium BCE, Indian Philosophers found evidence for the beginning of what we today call perennial philosophy. It can be stated in 3 sentences:

1) An infinite, unchanging reality exists hidden behind the illusion of ceaseless change.

2) This infinite, unchanging reality lies at the core of every being and is the substratum of the personality.

3) Life has one main purpose: to experience this one reality – to discover God.

The book story unfolds with the discussion of Yoga Sutra 2.5. Alan Wolf defines klesas as five barriers to reaching the state of egoless mind. He explains that yoga will help you detach your mind from the physical constraints that impede you from travelling forwards and backwards in time. There are several references to Raja Yoga and Transcendental Meditation. The following chapters discuss an insight of the theory of quantum physics, parallel universe and mechanics of ordinary and extraordinary time travel.  Some of the modern trends in physics are explained as well.

There are many more puzzling chapters on time and other similar subjects.

To conclude, the idea is to free ourselves from the constraints of time through meditation and by entering into the timeless realm where we can surrender the ego – Yogah-Citta-Vrtti-Nirodhaha: practice yoga to cease the fluctuations. Alan Wolf also explains that we can travel back by remembering and changing our past where we can learn from our mistakes and forgive ourselves and others. And the time travel is theoretically possible, or at least not barred by the laws of physics!

I was totally captured by this book and spent most of my weekend and every bit of a free time reading it. I was entertaining some what-if ideas…

What if I could go back in time and talk to my younger self (regardless of the time travel possible paradoxes and realities)? I would ask my younger self not to smoke, to do better in school, to not drink and to not go out with those not-so-nice fellows. Oh, maybe just to look up a lotto ticket?

But what about all the obstacles and knowledge which came from these experiences? I wouldn’t be the same person now if I was never overweight, smoked and other non-written material…

I also imagined a perfect future where I would be teaching full time in my perfect studio in the Rocky Mountains…

I have a perfectly strong healthy body, maybe a few kids. My body is perfect. I can get into any asana and meditate with no interruption. I control my senses. I help a lot of people and teach yoga and hopefully can make the world a little better place.

I know Sanskrit and Spanish. I travel, hike, rock-climb, ski and organize retreats. My studio is very profitable and I donate and teach for charity. I write for magazines and have a few published books. I’ve completed KYM yoga therapy teaching training and studied with Gary Kraftsov. 

Hmmmm…What can I do today to get this future? Revisit the Sanskrit alphabet, continue with my practice and teaching, order CD from the library to learn Spanish. Say “no” to extra desert (i.e. perfect body). Not so hard. To act on my future, I created a simple excel worksheet with three columns: Desire, Intensity (1 to 10) and Cost.

I added an “Already have’s” column as well. I have chosen the items with the highest intensity to see what I can do daily. Looking at “Already have’s” I realized that I am back here and now and there is so much to be grateful for right now!

What is your perfect future and what are you doing for it right now?

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