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