THE PAST CANNOT SURVIVE IN YOUR PRESENCE

 

You mentioned that thinking or talking about the past unnecessarily is

one of the ways in which we avoid the present. But apart from the

past that we remember and perhaps identify with, isn’t there another

level of past within us that is much more deep-seated? I am talking

about the unconscious past that conditions our lives, especially

through early childhood experiences, perhaps even past-life

experiences. And then there is our cultural conditioning, which has to

do with where we live geographically and the historical time period in

which we live. All these things determine how we see the world, how

we react, what we think, what kind of relationships we have, how we

live our lives. How could we ever become conscious of all that or get

rid of it? How long would that take? And even if we did, what would

there be left?

What is left when illusion ends?

There is no need to investigate the unconscious past in you except as

it manifests at this moment as a thought, an emotion, a desire, a

reaction, or an external event that happens to you. Whatever you

need to know about the unconscious past in you, the challenges of the

present will bring it out. If you delve into the past, it will become a

bottomless pit: There is always more. You may think that you need

more time to understand the past or become free of it, in other words,

that the future will eventually free you of the past. This is a delusion.

Only the present can free you of the past. More time cannot free you

of time. Access the power of Now. That is the key.

What is the power of Now?

None other than the power of your presence, your consciousness

liberated from thought forms.

So deal with the past on the level of the present. The more attention

you give to the past, the more you energize it, and the more likely

you are to make a “self” out of it. Don’t misunderstand: Attention is

essential, but not to the past as past. Give attention to the present;

give attention to your behavior, to your reactions, moods, thoughts,

emotions, fears, and desires as they occur in the present. There’s the

past in you. If you can be present enough to watch all those things,

not critically or analytically but nonjudgmentally, then you are dealing

with the past and dissolving it through the power of your presence.

You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You find yourself by

coming into the present.

Isn’t it helpful to understand the past and so understand why we do

certain things, react in certain ways, or why we unconsciously create

our particular kind of drama, patterns in relationships, and so on?

As you become more conscious of your present reality, you may

suddenly get certain insights as to why your conditioning functions in

those particular ways — for example, why your relationships follow

certain patterns — and you may remember things that happened in

the past or see them more clearly. That is fine and can be helpful, but

it is not essential. What is essential is your conscious presence. That

dissolves the past. That is the transformative agent. So don’t seek to

understand the past, but be as present as you can. The past cannot

survive in your presence. It can only survive in your absence.

CHAPTER FIVE

 

THE STATE OF PRESENCE