This idea is, of course, the reason why you see only the past. No one really sees anything. He sees only his thoughts projected outward. The mind’s preoccupation with the past is the cause of the misconception about time from which your seeing suffers. Your mind cannot grasp the present, which is the only time there is. It therefore cannot understand time, and cannot, in fact, understand anything.
The one wholly true thought one can hold about the past is that it is not here. To think about it at all is therefore to think about illusions. Very few have realized what is actually entailed in picturing the past or in anticipating the future. The mind is actually blank when it does this, because it is not really thinking about anything.
This created a fairly involved conversation with my husband who has been a long-time student of Buddhism. He says this is a concept he has encountered before, just not exactly in this way. “Your mind cannot grasp the present, which is the only time there is.” From a Buddhist perspective, you are asked to empty your mind in order to “see” reality. But Course is possibly offering a much more practical approach in terms of the Western mindset. We are enamored by rational thought in the west and have a tendency to hold on to our thoughts as reality more so than do traditional Eastern cultures. So Course approaches this tendency rationally – and it is rational: “The only wholly true thought one can think about the past is that it is not here.”
Think about this a minute. We all know that when we observe the sun, the moon, or the stars, we don’t see them as they are now because it takes a while for light to travel. When we look at the sun, we see it as it was 8.31 minutes ago, not as it is now, because it is 8.31 light minutes from the earth. It takes 8.31 minutes for us to feel the sunbeams that travel from the sun. We aren’t experiencing the sun as it is now, either. We are experiencing it from the past. The same is true if you are petting a dog. You don’t experience the sensation instantaneously. There is a gap between the time you touch the dog and register the experience. The experience actually exists in the past.
To complicate matters even more, as was indicated in a previous lesson, we experience things based upon our past perceptions. My husband used a good example: You see a boulder on the side of the road and assume it is heavy because your past experience of boulders is that they are heavy. But for some reason, you decide to pick up the boulder and realize it is made out of styrofoam and isn’t heavy at all. What you thought was a boulder was based upon past perception, not it’s actual reality. The same is true of people. We often have an immediate reaction to people based on our past perceptions of other people.
The older we get, the more we realize that our perceptions can’t always be trusted, which is why people claim that often, wisdom comes with old age. You begin to know that you don’t know. And if the only rational truth we can actually hold on to about the past is that it is not here, then every other rational understanding is necessarily illusory at some level. This doesn’t make it non-important. We do feel the sun on our skin and physical laws continue to apply. It simply points to the fact that rational thought (which applies to physical laws) is nested within something larger than itself. It isn’t all there is.
- I seem to be thinking about the sun, but my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.
- I seem to be thinking about my crying dog getting washed, but my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.
- I seem to be thinking about making fajitas, but my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.
- I seem to be thinking about how hot it is outside, but my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.
- I seem to be thinking about a cold beer, but my mind is preoccupied wit past thoughts.
- I seem to be thinking about love and death, but my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.