I see only the past.I
1. This idea is particularly difficult to believe at first.
²But it is the fundamental reason behind all the previous ones.
³It is the reason why nothing you see means anything.
⁴It is the reason why you have given everything you see all the meaning that it has for you.
⁵It is the reason why you do not understand anything you see.
⁶It is the reason why your thoughts do not mean anything, and why they are like the things you see.
⁷It is the reason why you are never upset for the reason you think.
⁸And it is the reason why you are upset because you see something that is not there.
2. Changing your old notion of time is very difficult for you, because everything you believe is rooted in time, and your continued belief in it depends on not learning these new ideas.
²But that is exactly why you need new ideas about time.
³This new idea is not really as strange as it may seem at first.
3. Look, for example, at a cup.
²Are you really seeing that cup, or are you simply reviewing your past experiences of picking up a cup, being thirsty, drinking from it, feeling the rim against your lips, having breakfast, and so on? II
³And are your aesthetic responses to that cup also based on past experiences?
⁴How else would you know whether this kind of cup would break if you dropped it?
⁵What do you know about that cup except what you learned about it in the past?
⁶If it were not for the past, you would have no idea what this cup is.
⁷So, are you really seeing it? III
4. Look around you.
²This is equally true of anything you look at.
³Acknowledge this by applying today’s idea indiscriminately to whatever catches your eye.
⁴For example:
⁵I only see the past in this pencil.
⁶I only see the past in this shoe.
⁷I only see the past in this hand.
⁸I only see the past in that body.
⁹I only see the past in that face.
¹⁰Do not linger on any one thing in particular, but be sure not to leave anything out deliberately.
¹¹Glance briefly at each object, and then move on to the next.
¹²Three or four practice periods, each lasting about one minute, will be sufficient. IV
I You see only the past because the meaning of everything you perceive was assigned by you in the past, and because, in truth, you do not relate to things themselves but to what they mean to you. The meanings of things are like labels you yourself attached to them in the past. Written on that label is what that thing represents for you, and this applies not only to objects but also—and even more clearly—to the people with whom you relate.
When you say you know something or someone, what you really mean is that you have already judged it in the past, and to issue that judgment you once relied on what you had learned in an even earlier past.
This Course gives enormous importance to this idea, not only here but also in the Text. For example, three sections of Chapter 13, from “The Function of Time” (T-13.IV) through “The Eternal Present” (T-13.VI), address the notion of time and the fact that “…for the ego, the past is important, for in fact it believes it is the ONLY aspect that has any meaning at all” (T-13.IV.4:2).
It speaks of the shadowy figures of the past, based on illusions, which obstruct the vision of present reality. It says: “To be born again is to let the past go, and look without condemnation upon the present” (T-13.VI.3:5).
“…everything you believe is rooted in the past, and maintaining it depends on not learning these new ideas” (T-13.IV.2:1). Everything we have learned we learned from the past—this cannot be disputed. Therefore, everything we think we know is based on the past. We look at the present through the filter of our prior learning.
To train the mind in a new way of beholding reality, it is essential first to undo what has been learned and accepted as true in the past. This is why the Course insists so strongly that what you learned in the past must not be the light that guides you now.
Instead, it urges you to turn to the Holy Spirit at every moment, asking Him to teach you His vision of the present, because the present is the opportunity to assign new meanings to what you perceive. And that is precisely what it means to be “born again” or “reborn.”
II This same epistemological intuition was expressed poetically by Alfred, Lord Tennyson in his poem The Ancient Sage, where he affirms that the senses do not convey truth, but rather reflect what the mind is prepared to receive.
The Ancient Sage
(by Alfred, Lord Tennyson)
Once, in a lonely hamlet, not a month had passed before I heard of a man, a Sage, whom all men praised, and whom some believed to be the wisest of the wise; though others said that his true wisdom was not of this world, and that he lived apart, withdrawn from men, upon the mountain. Toward that place I took my way, a youth who had scarcely learned the faith of reason, yet was still hungry for something that might feed both mind and heart.
I found him seated upon a rock that looked toward the west; the mountains were glowing red with sunset, and the valley lay dark below. His countenance was calm, his eyes were clear, and in his face there dwelt a solemn peace. I spoke to him and asked what he thought of life and death, of God and of human fate.
He did not answer at once, but gazed awhile upon the sinking sun, then turned to me and said: “O thou who questionest of such things, learn first to know thyself. The world without is but the shadow of the world within. The forms thou beholdest are only signs of something deeper than the senses can grasp.
“Men see the shows of things and call them real; yet what they see is shaped by what they are. The eye reports not truth, but only what the mind is ready to receive. The ear hears according to the heart that listens. Thus each man fashions a world in his own image and dwells within the limits of his sight.
“Seek not for God among the stars or seas, nor in the thunder nor the rolling deep. He is not far away: He is nearer than thy breath, closer than hands and feet, more inward still than thought itself. The soul that turns within finds Him already there, the Life of life.
“That sense of ‘I’ to which thou now dost cling, which says ‘I am apart,’ ‘I am alone,’ is but a passing cloud before the sun. When it dissolves, the light remains unchanged, unbroken, indivisible, and whole.
“Ask not what shall befall thee after death. Death is but a change of state, not the end of being. As thou didst wake from sleep, so shalt thou wake from what men call the grave. The fear of death is born of ignorance of what thou art.
“Time is a dream that thou hast learned to dream; space but a form that thought has given to things. In truth there is no before and after, no here and there; all lives in the Now. Eternity is not unending time, but the deep Presence in which time appears.
“Therefore be still. Let striving fall away. Cease from the labor of the anxious mind. Truth is not attained by argument, nor seized by force of will or subtle thought. It comes when thou art empty of thyself and stands revealed, self-evident and sure.
“So live, that when the veils of sense are drawn and all the shows of outward life dissolve, thou shalt not mourn the loss of what was false, but know thyself at one with that which is.”
He ceased. The sun had set; the stars came out. And in the silence of the mountain air I felt a Presence deeper than all words.
III This paragraph is an epistemological argument that questions the very nature of the act of knowing. Here “seeing” is equated with “assigning memories,” and the question arises: is that truly valid? Do you believe that is really knowing?
IV This line appears in the FIP version, but it is not found in the Urtext nor in Helen’s Notes.