It’s crucial for us to understand that the thrust of our habitual thinking lives with its attention fixed, not on beginnings, but on the end of things. Don’t we always wonder what our lives will be like tomorrow? Aren’t we forever dreaming about how different things will be once we win this or achieve that? Don’t we, in our mind’s eye, perpetually walk towards a brighter moment to come, thinking about how good we’ll feel once we’re able to resolve some nagging situation? 

We are betrayed every time we set out on any journey — mentally, emotionally, or bodily — with our eyes fixed on where we think we’re going, rather than in the profitable awareness of where we are. It’s within this full awareness of where we are — which includes the alert observation of all our attending mental and emotional states — that is the true beginning we’ve been searching for all of our lives. Do you see why? 

We don’t ever have to worry about happy endings to any of our life stories if we’re awake enough to refuse all unhappy beginnings. If we attend to the true beginning of whatever tasks or life travels lie ahead of us, their endings have to take care of themselves. Thinking, or hoping, that any destination we have in mind is going to be superior to where we’re presently standing, is exactly why we’re still standing in that same place where we have to hope that some tomorrow will be better. 

Before we can change our destination and arrive in that higher world we want, before we can ever start out in that new direction that leads to liberation, we must wake up to the steps we’re being given to take by a nature whose favorite direction is down. Victory over our lower nature is now or never.