What’s going to happen tomorrow? Don’t Know, Can’t Know, Don’t Need to Know.

A phrase that can redirect our minds to the present moment.

Jun 17, 2025

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After trying to find the most recent news on the Israeli-Iranian conflict, while dealing with so much uncertainty in my own life, the life of the United States, and the world at large, I find my mind growing anxious. As always, when the mind grows anxious, it hijacks the body into anxiety too. You may be feeling anxious today as well; even newscasters are talking about their anxiety during broadcasts.

Some of the many questions that could hijack my mind into anxiety, right now, follow. Will the Middle East tensions escalate into World Ward III? Will those between Russia, Europe and Ukraine turn into that? Will nuclear weapons be used? Will the giant supervolcano in Italy called Campi Fligrei explode and create a cataclysm (it is showing some alarming signs of coming back to life)? Will Russia and China fall apart within a few years due to the rapid decline of their populations? Will European cultures fall to the influence of Islam in government and moral attitudes because of the influx of Muslim as they flee the tinder box in the Middle East? Will the United States devolve into a dictatorship or come apart at the seams as states threaten to secede? Will Canada stay together as a country, or will Alberta and Saskatchewan really hold votes to leave the country and start out on their own?

Anyone who reads the infotainment that mostly passes for news these days, could be riddled with any of these questions after perusing the Internet for a few minutes. The questions, headlines and stories are all fraught with anxiety; it’s blatant and ubiquitous. So how in the world is the average person, with little to no political power, and no ability to predict the future, supposed to cope with all this anxiety?

Riyaz Motan said this, “Don’t Know. Can’t Know. Don’t Need to Know.”

The late Riyaz Motan, a therapist and spiritual teacher who died recently after an unexpected cancer took his life in a little over a year, taught me this phrase in a video. He used it to deal with the constant uncertainty about his diagnosis and prognosis or expected outcome. It stuck with me. Because Riyaz wasn’t nationally known, I only heard of him through a dear friend who sent me a video in which he was in dialogue with three other spiritual teachers, one of whom was my teacher for a while: Adyashanti.

Riyaz made a very courageous video with these other teachers, and in it he revealed how he either discovered or created this phrase that helped him continue to live his life, rather than drowning in anxiety, as his life ebbed away. Because of his experience, this phrase really stuck with me. I latched onto it like a life preserver thrown to a drowning man. I’ve been sharing it this week with several clients.

Even with modern news technology, cellphones and other cameras everywhere, and nearly instantaneous communications around the world, we can’t really know what’s going on. As I’ve written before, every news source has a point of view, and many are so immersed in their point of view that they can be considered propaganda. Videos of the same incident, taken from different angles, can make the same event seem like it had two different causes. We also see scenes that are staged for the public, to look a certain way.

So, what’s an ordinary person supposed to do? Eventually, once our brains are finished going into overload, and our bodies are exhausted with anxiety, we might ask the question “is this really true?” Or, “is this really going to happen?” As usual, the answers end up being what Riyaz Motan said. I don’t know. I can’t know (because I don’t have the means available to know for sure). More surprisingly, “I don’t need to know.”

What we need to know is, “am I safe right now?” For those whom I try to help with trauma, with grief and loss, and other harrowing circumstances, this is the important question. If we are safe right now, then we can (and need to) return to our present moment awareness and do what is in front of us to do.

Earlier today I took part in a combination of prayer and meditation for world peace, with a group of people around the world. It was a modest group, with only about 110 people. Did it help? I don’t know what the outcome will be. The activity seemed worthwhile and important enough for me to take an hour out of my workday to join.

What did I do afterwards? I ate supper, I checked the news, and then not being able to truly know what was going on, I sat down to write this weekly column.

None of us know the outcome of the questions that I listed in the second paragraph above. None of us know much about anything at all in the future. We do our best to be prepared, but I know that staying anxious until something bad happens is the way to ruin every moment of our lives and then be too exhausted to deal with whatever does come.

So, when your mind starts driving you batty about the future, you might return to the truth. You don’t know. Not knowing doesn’t mean the future is catastrophic; the future is just unknown. You can’t know anything for sure, unless it’s already happened. Even then you’re likely relying on other sources to tell you the ‘truth.’ (Are they telling you the truth?) You don’t need to know, to be able to live your life and do what good you can do in the world, and to focus on the present moment where life is really lived.

Simply Awake

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