Releasing the Anchors of the Past

‘If you live in the past, you die in the past. You’ve got to reinvent yourself – try to move on.”

Sir John Hall

Even though we talk about living in the present, it is physically impossible for us. Let’s say you touch a hot stove. The thought ‘ouch’ takes 500 milliseconds to form. When you register the fact you are touching the stove, the event is already 500 milliseconds in the past. We consciously live just behind the present, 500 milliseconds does not sound very long, but in the subatomic world it is significant. A photon will have traveled 93,141 miles in that time, which is nearly halfway to the moon.

Time feels real to us. According to quantum physics, however, it doesn’t exist at all. “There is no time variable in the fundamental equations that describe the world,” so says theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli. “Time is a fascinating topic because it touches our deepest emotions. Time opens up life and takes everything away. Wondering about time is wondering about the very sense of our life. This is why I have spent my life studying time,” Rovelli explains.

Rovelli’s The Order of Time, published in April 2018 is about our experience of time’s passage as humans, and the fact of its absence at minuscule and vast scales. He makes a compelling argument that chronology and continuity are just a story we tell ourselves in order to make sense of our existence.

Rovelli argues that what we experience as time’s passage is a mental process happening in the space between memory and anticipation. “Time is the form in which we beings whose brains are made up essentially of memory and foresight interact with our world: it is the source of our identity,” he writes.

In this way, we recreate the past every time we remember it. Again, it feels a bit like a brain-loop holding us back… and it is. Let go of the past and we truly do let go. It is so simple, but for many people it seems a hard thing to do.

In later lessons we will consider more of what Rovelli has to say (lesson ‘The Illusion of Time’) and the implications of an alternative concept of time. It is important for how you construct imagination and Intentions to create the dream that currently eludes you. For now, I ask you to trust me in accepting these truths:

1. Time is a human construction used mostly to help us process physical experiences in a linear fashion. Some scientists suggest linear time helps us learn the physical world. For instance, we have to remember putting our hands on a hot stove in the past to avoid repeating the mistake in the near-present and maybe in the future we decide to use oven gloves. As the burn on my right thumb is reminding me after I forgot to use an oven glove to remove a cast iron skillet the other day, it is not a foolproof theory. I think it is more that time as we think of it imprisons us in a 3-D world with a fixation on starting, doing and ending, beginning-middle-end, birth-life-death.

2. The past, present and future are connected as one rather like a concertinaed instrument. Each ‘time’ has equal value to the other. That is almost impossible for us to imagine because our brains are wired to think in a solid present, a hazy past, and a vague future. As with any process, if we tweak the first step or the middle step or the last step we change the whole flow of the process even if we don’t know how.

This ‘visual’ helps: Imagine throwing a log across a fast moving stream. Not only is the present flow impacted where the log falls (there is a splash and an immediate build up of water upstream), but back-eddies start forming up stream as well. With less volume downstream the river starts to meander differently than before due to the disturbed flow. So, how we behave in the present impacts the past and future instantaneously.

3. The past, present and future occur instantaneously just as the river flows upstream, downstream and here in front of us. To use the river/time analogy some more, most people stand in the middle of the flowing water while facing downstream. They look to the future. They drop in a log at their feet and they see the effect on the present flow. Then they try to perceive what might happen downstream. They cannot look behind them unless they change their position and perspective. Time, Rovelli contends, is merely a perspective, rather than a universal truth. It’s a point of view that humans share as a result of our biology and evolution, our place on Earth, and the planet’s place in the universe. “From our perspective, the perspective of creatures who make up a small part of the world—we see that world flowing in time,” the physicist writes. At the microscopic level, however, duration is so short that they can’t be divided and there is no such thing as time.

Upstream and downstream, however, can be observed simply by adopting a new perspective in space-time. We step back from the river edge and look left and right to view the effect in time of dropping the log. In other visual terms we might fly to a distant planet and then look back. Time would be completely different.

In the “elementary grammar of the world, there is neither space nor time—only processes that transform physical quantities from one to another, from which it is possible to calculate possibilities and relations,” the scientist writes. Even what might seem like a thing—a stone, say—is really an event taking place at a rate we can’t register.

If something happened to you in the past that causes negative thoughts in the present then what happened in the past becomes cemented as much as if it just happened. Every time you remember it you repeat its effects as if it just happened 500 milliseconds ago.

While it helps us process life, time can grab us by the shoulders and sink us in the quicksand. It is like you keep dropping the log in the river. The more you think about it the more it hurts… now and back then because of the observer effect and the power of thoughts and the illusion of time.

From Blavatsky Vol I & II Stanza 1 The Great Breath (c)

Explanation of ” that which is and yet is not” is meant the Great Breath itself, which we can only speak of as an absolute existence, but cannot picture in our imagination as any form of existence that we can distinguish from Non-existence. The three periods – the Present, the Past, and the Future – are in the esoteric philosophy a compound time; for the three are a composite number only in relation to the phenomenal plane, but in the realm of noumena have no abstract validity. As said in the Scriptures: “The Past time is the Present time, as also is the Future, which, though it has not come into existence, still is”; according to a precept in the Presanga Madhyamika teaching, whose dogmas have been known ever since it broke away from the purely esoteric schools. Our ideas, in short, on duration and time are all derived from our sensations according to the laws of Association. Inextricably bound up with the relativity of human knowledge, they nevertheless can have no existence except in the experience of the individual ego, and perish when the evolutionary march dispels the Maya of phenomenal existence. What is time, for instance, but the panoramic succession of our states of consciousness? In the words of a Master, “I feel irritated at having to use these three clumsy words – Past, Present, Future – miserable concepts of the objective phrases of the subjective whole, they are about as ill-adapted for the purpose as an axe for fine carving.” One has to acquire paramartha lest one should become too easy a prey to Samvriti -is a philosophical axiom.

How to fix this.

Forget about time as a concept. Just let go of the past. It is that simple, but by no means easy, and it takes great courage and discipline. We do it in a very simple three-step process.

1. Take some quiet time and write out everything in the past that gnaws away at you now. Just thinking about it and writing it down reinforces its hold on you in the present, so only do this once. Maybe some things you did you wished you hadn’t and maybe some things you felt others did to you that you wish they hadn’t. Focus on the big things, the ones that are constantly in your mind.

Try to take a detached stance, almost as if you are watching a replay of your life on TV and just making objective notes. This can be a cathartic process, and harder for some than others. It is, however, an essential exercise for everyone because what you write down will be what the brain’s RAS is reinforcing (because it thinks it is what you want). This is not a psychological exercise, it is playing with energy. It is science. The past is only the past in the way that you think. If you release its hold on you, you release the present you and, yes, the past and future change instantaneously.

2. Next, take a short break. Re-hydrate. Take some deep breaths of fresh air. Come back to your note pad and now you are going to relive these events in a new way by using nothing more than a vivid imagination.

Take each person and/or event and just for fun imagine it happened in a totally different way, the way you wish it had happened or not happened. If it is a person who angers you, then imagine you both hugging and laughing about it. If it is was a bully, imagine her contrite and apologetic and you being magnanimous and forgiving. If it was a work situation, recreate it with a good outcome with lots of kudos and admiration for you.

It is all imagination and play, but the essential part is that you imagine it all turning out well instead of the way you experienced it before. This is not a case of turning the other cheek or forgiving. This is science. You are changing what happened in the imagined past. Remember what you learned about the cosmic glue. By imagining this, you are actually reaching out across space and via quantum entanglement impacting that person and that event. This is powerful. Miracles show up. I know it because I get emails every day about what happens next… or happened next.

3. When finished, go stand in front of a mirror. Say out loud: (do this often)

“I did my best with the information that was available to me at the time. Everyone makes mistakes. I release everything in my past and send it on with my love and best wishes. By holding onto the past, I re-create the past. By worrying and hoping for my future I destroy the present potential. I (name) am not bound by the process of time. I am present and in this moment I recreate the past and the future in my best interests now. Let it be.

Do this as often as you feel like it. It is powerful and you will be astonished when the phone rings and a haunting presence from the past calls to apologize or forgive. If you feel an overwhelming compulsion to call someone, do it. Follow your instincts. Before you do anything, however, spend five minutes quietly imagining a brilliant outcome… hugs, tears, love, success.

This exercise should be done with an attitude of playfulness and fun, the results will astonish you. It will also help you appreciate the illusion of time and the hold it has on you. Through this course we will gradually release its grip. The point is not to try to become omnipotent, but to understand that holding onto past injuries just makes our present hurt more and holding onto present limitations restricts our future potential.

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