Seeds of Real Action

Why is it that the mind cannot be in the present?

The mind moves on and on because it just cannot be quiet. We do not really need anything else in order to be peaceful and free in the present, but the mind is always agitated and uneasy with itself. The mind cannot be silent to take a look and feel what is here and now. With silence and attention, we can discover a new quality of wealth and warmth which is the state of the present. But the mind cannot permit this looking. The mind constantly craves, plans, imagines, aspires, chatters, and we call this our intelligent way of living!

We do not pay attention to that true quality of life, the life of freedom and quietude, the life in which you are truly creative and active within yourself. In this dimension you become sensitive, alert, dynamic and peaceful in the present. This is the activity of the whole man, of the whole energy in the present, whereas the action of an idea is always an exclusive one, through fragmented drives.

The real action -- the spiritual expression -- comes out of the integration and total understanding of life. Although at first we begin with an intellectual perception, we must go beyond the intellect. See that there is nothing sacrosanct about this mind, these ideas and desires, not even our mental activities concerning religion and philosophy. By seeing the falsity of the constant agitation of thought, and by dropping it, a new dimension arises. This new dimension is unconditioned, uninfluenced and unmotivated.

--Dada