So, now in our Workbook Lessons, we have reached a fundamental, basic idea that Jesus tells
us may be particularly difficult to believe at first.
“I see only the past.”
This idea will be very important in our awakening, because this idea must be first acknowledged
before an experience can come that is beyond this idea.
This idea is so important that the first six Lessons of the Workbook are all based on it.
You might say it is a very fundamental step on the seeming ladder of awakening.
There will be ideas that will come along that may seem very radical like, "the script
is written”, an idea that seems very perplexing to students of this Course, but actually,
that's just another form of this lesson, number 7, “I see only the past.”
So, when we say “I see”, it means “I perceive.”
I perceive a world of images, a world of sequenced images that seem to come one after the other
in what seems to be called daily life, in what seems to be a linear cosmos, moving from
past to future in that direction, in one direction, and yet, all of that, all of those perceptions are based
on the past.
The meanings that are seen, experienced are based solely on the past.
If everything I perceive is the past, it can show at once how delusional the thoughts
that pass the mind are. And the images.
I say delusional because, think of this in terms of choice. If you go through the day,
making a series of choices that all seem to be different
choosing this over that, choosing to stay or to go, preferring one thing over the next, watching
your eyes be drawn to one thing instead of another thing, planning the day, having a schedule,
following a calendar, all of these things presume that there is something going on other than the past.
That there's something actively present and actively unfolding in the direction of the future.
It presumes that there are different locations in time and space, different increments of
time, some much shorter and tinier, some much much longer, and all of these presumptions rest on this belief that
that this world is somehow dynamic and unfolding.
It can seem like an adventure to not know what the future is.
It can seem like a mystery, yes, even a mystery.
The world can seem very mysterious, but even the belief that the world is a mystery is
simply a denial of the lesson for today, “I see only the past.”
For what is mysterious about this idea?
There’s nothing mysterious. You could say to yourself, I am looking upon the past.
All I am witnessing all throughout the day is the past.
I am trying to decide between what is past and what is past.
All the choices I seem to make during this day, choices seemingly by a person,
are all past too.
That takes the mystery away.
They used to say that the human body is very mysterious and wondrous.
No, it’s not actually mysterious or wondrous, if it’s just the past.
Such an emphasis on different body parts and parts of the script; the good parts, the better
parts, pursuing the better parts, pursuing a better world, a better life, what does that mean,
if it’s all the past?
How can you pursue what is already past? Like a cat chasing its tail.
It looks funny when we see a cat chasing its tail.
We laugh and think that is so silly.
But what is it that is going on when we are up and out of bed in hot pursuit of the past?
What if all my future goals are the past?
What if my ambitions are the past?
You see, it starts to get simpler.
Everything starts to become very, very similar.
As I open and rest my mind and settle into a very relieving thought, I see only
the past.
Now the ego may have a reaction to this idea today.
It may actually say that this is absurd; that if this idea were true, if this time idea
were true, then, it makes a farce of the human condition, a total farce of the human condition.
It’s almost like having a million angels laughing at the same time at all the perceived
problems and difficulties and struggles, because of this idea, “I see only the past.”
And when the ego says this is absurd, then let’s pause a moment and reflect how absurd it is.
Is this really absurd?
The ego may say, why do anything?
Why do anything at all?
Why go to work?
Why try to keep the calendar and play the game?
If I see only the past, the ego says, what’s the point?
But embracing this idea, opening to this idea for today is the point.
It’s actually the only point that the day has, and if you are succeeding in embracing
this idea, then you will begin to see that you have no problems at all.
That all the problems that you thought you had today are all hypotheticals.
They are all based on the belief that you can somehow, choose your way through time and space,
when actually you can accept this idea and enter the gateway to the Atonement and on
to the Kingdom of Heaven.
This is also a beautiful entry way into divine providence, because, think of it, if Jesus
Christ wants you to fully accept this lesson today, “I see only the past”, and will give
you the means and everything you need to accept this lesson today, “I see only the past”,
then everything that you need to accept this idea is already given you.
The ego may say that if you accept this idea, “I see only the past” that the world will
come crashing down around you; that you’re just through; you're just finished.
You have just thrown in the towel of being a person, of being an achiever, of being an
accumulator, a possessor.
But don’t you want to throw the towel in on that?
Have those things ever brought you lasting peace and happiness?
So, we are joined today in this idea.
I am so very joined with you in throwing the towel in on this linear progression of what
I call the past past and the future past.
Let us stop these silly games of trying to divide time up into dualistic ideas such as
past and future.
God is not a god of duality.
God did not create linear time.
God did not create the past and the future and some illusory, squeezed moment that is
in between the two called the present.
No, the present is not between the past and future.
That is not true either.
The present is before time was.
“Before Abraham was, I am.”
The glory is that anything that seems to have been linear time is not worth the power, the attention,
or the investment of the mind, we need no longer hold onto these foolish time ideas.
If you follow my voice; if you feel the presence of what is speaking to you now;
you will feel a strength, a stir of excitement, of passion, of complete release from everything
that you believed before.
So let’s just go for it and focus on that right now.
“I see only the past.”
I am grateful that I see only the past.
What I perceive is gone.
Happily, so very happily, “I see only the past.”