This article is an invitation to look again at one of the most misunderstood and quietly radical teachings of the Master: take no thought for tomorrow. These words are often heard as moral instruction or gentle reassurance, as though Jesus were simply telling anxious people to worry less and trust more. But this reading never touches the depth of what is actually being offered. What Jesus is naming here is not a behavioural adjustment. It is a doorway into a different way of Being – a doorway into being free. To hear this invitation rightly, we must come to understand what “thought” is, what “tomorrow” truly means, how it is continually created, and why relinquishing it is essential if one is to be present to Presence itself. To give no thought for tomorrow is to honour the way in which Divine Presence can think through you. So how do you begin to give no thought.
There is a voice inside you that speaks almost without pause. It narrates your life as it unfolds, evaluates what is happening, and continually projects itself forward into what it imagines must come next. This stream of thought rehearses conversations, anticipates problems, secures outcomes, and carries tomorrow into the present as a psychological weight.
It is this voice—this never-ending commentary—that veils direct experience and keeps LIFE at a distance. Most people do not question it because they believe it is who they are. But the Master does not tell you to silence this voice or replace it with better thoughts. He says, “I say unto you, watch.” Watching this never-ending stream of thought without trying to control it is the practice of “giving no thought.” You simply witness thought as it arises. The moment thought is watched rather than inhabited, identification which the separate sense of the personal self begins to loosen. The voice continues, but it no longer commands. And in that simple, faithful act of watching, Presence is revealed—not as something you create, but as what remains when thought is no longer mistaken for who you are.
“Tomorrow,” as the Master speaks of it, is not simply the next day on the calendar. It is a psychological construction, continuously generated by this personal thinking mind. Tomorrow is where the inner voice rehearses, predicts, fears, strategizes, and attempts to secure control. Tomorrow is not time itself; it is time burdened with identity. It is the future imagined by a self that believes it must protect and preserve itself in order to survive. There is only ever one time and that is the present moment. When tomorrow arrives if arrives only ever in the present moment.
This inner dialogue is not neutral. It is the primary generator of anxiety, worry, and psychological suffering. It is the place where tomorrow is endlessly anticipated and brought into the present as a threat. When Jesus says, “Take no thought for tomorrow,” he is pointing directly at this mechanism. He is not condemning practical intelligence or wise preparation. He is exposing the futility and violence of compulsive, self-protective thinking that abandons the present moment in the name of imagined futures.
The separate sense of the personal self (the life you are trying to save) believes this never-ending stream of thinking is necessary. It believes that if it can think enough, plan enough, worry enough, it can make life safe and predictable. This separate sense of the personal self that you call “I” believes it stands outside of life, managing events from a distance. But this belief is an illusion even if it is felt to be real. The thinking mind is not separate from life. It is an activity within life. All this thinking is life thinking about itself, narrating itself, attempting to control itself. And the effort never succeeds. Life continues to unfold beyond prediction. Tomorrow arrives in the never-ending present carrying what thought could not foresee.
This is why the Master’s invitation is so precise. He does not say, “Think better thoughts about tomorrow.” He does not say, “Trust your thoughts more faithfully.” He says, “Take no thought“. In other words, release your identification with the voice in your head that believes tomorrow must be controlled in order for you to be safe. Release the habit of carrying the future into the present through compulsive narration. Return instead to Presence.
Presence is not something you create. It is what remains when you stop abandoning the present moment in favor of imagined futures. Presence is the open awareness in which thoughts arise and dissolve. It is the stillness beneath the mental noise, the silence in which the never-ending thinking voice appears. And crucially, Presence is where the Divine is KNOWN—not as concept, not as belief, but as living KNOWING.
This article is not only about understanding this invitation to “Give no thought for tomorrow.” It is about learning how one practices it. The practice is subtle because it does not involve effort or suppression. You cannot stop your never-ending thinking mind by force. The mind cannot free itself from itself. But you can watch it. You can notice the voice without believing it, without following it, without mistaking it for who you are. When thought is seen rather than inhabited, its compulsive grip begins to loosen. Not because you have defeated it, but because you have withdrawn your sense of self from it. In this way you honour the statement of the Master when he says, “He who would save his life shall lose it.” When you disidentify with thinking you stop saving the life you think you are for the Presence that is the truth of who you are.
As this shift occurs, thinking naturally finds its proper place. Practical thought still arises when needed and subsides when complete. But the endless rehearsal of tomorrow begins to fade. In its place, a spacious awareness opens, and life is met directly rather than through constant commentary. You are no longer living ahead of yourself. You are here. You have saved your personal life for the sake of the Divine Life that then flows through you as Life more abundant. You get out of the way and allow “Thy will be done.”
This “Give no thought for tomorrow” practice is not the end of the path. It is the preparation for what comes next. Only in Presence can one begin to receive LIFE more abundant. As long as the separate sense of the personal self is preoccupied with managing tomorrow, it remains closed, defended, and contracted. But when thought is relinquished and Presence is restored, something within relaxes. The grasping ceases. The striving softens. And the heart becomes capable of receiving rather than securing.
Take no thought for tomorrow is not an ethical burden. It is a merciful release. It is the Master inviting you out of the tyranny of the imagined future and back into the living now, where Divine LIFE is already being given. What follows this return to Presence is not passivity, but participation. Not fearlessness through denial, but trust grounded in Being. And from here, the next step can be taken—not toward effort, but toward reception, where the life more abundant is not achieved, but received as gift. The next step into living life more abundantly is to honor the invitation “Be Still and KNOW that I AM God.” This stillness is the grounded in the absence of the over-thinking personal mind.
This invitation to “Take no thought for tomorrow” is not isolated within the teaching of the Master, but belongs to a recurring way by which he loosened the grip of the anxious, self-managing mind and returned his hearers to trust in Being. Again and again, he exposed the futility of anxious calculation—“Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?” (Matthew 6:27, KJV)—and pointed toward a different posture of reception, one that could only be entered through humility and openness: “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3, KJV). This same release from over-thinking finds its deeper ground in the Divine assurance echoed by the prophet: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD” (Isaiah 55:8, KJV). Together, these are not commands to strive for a better mindset, but invitations to relinquish the false burden of managing life apart from Presence, and to rest once more in the LIFE that is already being given and which allows you to live the life more abundant.