By Amara Gayle Gregory
There is no past. There is no future. These aren’t just words. They don’t point to something at a mysterious or quantum level. They are much more valuable than nearly all words in any language but you need to go deeper than a mental understanding to grok what they offer. You have to go into the feel of it.
When I look for the past it is only available in the form of thoughts. I can’t go there. There is no point along a line that I can visit. I can’t use the normal suspects: touch, smell, taste and sight. I can’t even feel it. I can see and feel my stories, my thoughts about it, but that’s about all.
It’s the same for the future. At least with the past the story is based on recollection. Recollection though, is always skewed, not just because this supposed thing called time has passed, but because our experience is always skewed. We see through the glass darkly, rarely seeing the truth of it, let alone the facts.
It has long been proven that we look through the lens of our thoughts and concretized thoughts — beliefs. We can’t see what we don’t believe. That’s the reason a friend can see how much someone cares about you while you think the same person always disses you and they’re a jerk who doesn’t care about you at all.Once you are willing to admit that maybe, just maybe you don’t know what’s going on here, you have an opportunity to explore past and future, to feel into what they are, whether they exist at all.
If past is a box of thoughts, generally anchored with emotional barbwire, is it real? What would it mean if it wasn’t?
What about future? I know I have tormented myself about something that was going to happen in the future. Death is a good example. I think we can all cop to that one. What if there is no future?
What does that mean for death?
And … if there is no past and no future, what does that mean for you? What are you without the goal posts of past and future stabilizing your storyline?
No past, no future: that means my exes are passing thoughts, as are the last two years of health issues. Estrangement with family members doesn’t require a storyline for the storyline. It also means that all the good, precious memories — my life with Kenny, the person I’ve become, my love for my sons, and all the other cherished memories are simply thoughts too. Yikes! What am I but a thought in the mind of God? No past, no future, nothing but Now, but This luminous awareness — leaves little room for any thing else. I think that’s why most avoid looking too close. It’s a bit direct and cuts through all the self-help self-reinforcing self-savior-ing propaganda out there. It does not leave much in its wake.
What does it leave? Experiencing, pure and simple. Freedom from doubt and judgement. Wide-eyed wonder at the miracle of life in all its forms. It frees its expressions (that’s you and me) of the need to make sense of it and open to simply live It. It doesn’t make you non-existent. It opens your eyes and heart, body and soul to what This has always been, will always be — The Divine Activity, Life Life-ing, the precious display of God experiencing itself as human, as this glorious world.
5 Comments
I quit thinking too much about these matters – it made the brain itch.
Have come to a few conclusion:
1. What ever happens it happens now. Whatever we do we do it now.
2. Think of it as a film being watched. From start to finish everything follows in logical progression … BUT, one can rewind or fast forward and view, now, any event in the film. Not a perfect analogy,however, close enough which brings one to:
3. Remote Viewing during which one can view, feel smell and experience events and situations both ‘past’ and ‘future’.
#3 being tried, tested and proven beyond any doubt.
That raises many more questions – not going there.
Like I said,it makes the brain itch 🙂
Hi again. Yes. It all happens now. That is undeniable. I love the research into remote viewing — really points back to it’s all now. Years ago I was visiting Chaco Canyon and touched one of the kivas. I was told I could ask a question and I asked, What was it like to live here? A shockwave rolled through my arm and I heard — you’ve asked the wrong question. What you should ask is what IS is like to live here? Time kinda imploded permanently into the Now. I like to muse about the possibilities that make my brain itch. It seems there is always something new to discover beyond the itch. But … I’ve been called crazy before 😉 A
Beautiful guidance. Especially relevant today with so much fear that the future will be dark and bleak. There is also the other side where we speculate some of us will be ascending into a lovely place leaving the defectives behind. What you say really brings into focus how speculative all of this is. Best to be present isn’t it?
Hi Richard. Yes indeed. It is all we really know. No matter what I’m shown it always comes back to Now — to the Aware Awareness we are — to simply being, what some refer to as presence. It is the bottom line truth of us, or how it seems Now, at least that’s my current best understanding;)
Hi Richard — wanted to thank you for giving me a boot on my website issue. It is finally fixed. Guessing I would have let it slide without your comment on my site. Blessings and gratitude — Amaya