When the Past Holds us

Between the idea

And the reality

Between the motion

And the act

Falls the Shadow …

 

Between the conception

And the creation

Between the emotion

And the response

Falls the Shadow …

 

Between the desire

And the spasm

Between the potency

And the existence

Between the essence

And the descent

Falls the Shadow …*

The idea is the future, the action is the present, and what is this Shadow? It is that of the Past. For, what is doubt, but a reminder of a negative experience? What is misgiving, but a hesitation arising from a reminiscence? Lack of commitment is only a lack of substance in oneself – substance that has been eaten up by constant denial of one’s own potential.

 

This is how the past holds me/us…

• Through memories… memories that generate a negative response to a person or a situation or a future; memories that create fear, distrust and doubt; memories that stop me/us from perceiving the situation as it actually is; that cloud my/our soul(s) from receiving the warmth of another person – veiling the truth from me/us.
• Through traces of my/our actions in other people’s consciousness. To me/oneself it may seem I have/one has come far, but the others too have their memories and these still hold me/one in the past – judging me/one by my/their past behaviour – just as I judge/one judges others. 

It is this past that I wish to let go of. How does one do that?

1. The Mother says: “Concentrate exclusively on what you want to be. Forget as entirely as possible what you do not want to be.” I do not want to be what I was. I do not want to be the projection that others impose on me from their memories. And so, when faced with such interactions, one must disassociate and refuse to become what one was but no longer wants to be. And more importantly, and much more difficult to practice – one must act and respond even in this – rather, especially in this situation, from how one wants to be – becoming that in that very moment.
2. With regards to the others, I too have to practice the same principle: ‘Concentrate exclusively on what they want to be. Forget as entirely as possible what they do not want to be.’ That is, give them the same freedom from the past as one demands for oneself, the same scope to grow into their true nature as one asks for oneself.

The past holds us also by a false sense of accomplishment. A past progress sheds its warmth on us and makes us forget the need to go on. One’s halo fossilises around one and then one realises life has moved on. How do we emerge out of this?

 

The Mother says: “Remain young. Never stop striving for perfection.” To rest satisfied with a past progress is the sign of old age. To strive for perfection is the road to progress and everlasting youth.

 

The past holds us through its power to preserve certain contacts almost intact in our consciousness, certain experiences that our being no longer needs but which one’s vital still has the power to recall in order to amuse oneself. What does one do?

 

As The Mother says, the answer lies in giving oneself to the future – to give oneself entirely and without reserve to the future. For, it is only in moments of delinking from the future that the past sweeps in.

 

The past has many gifts to offer as well. These too have to be seen and used for one’s progress too. But, as the shadow of the past may be stronger than its light, here I focus on that which needs to dissolve in the light of the future.

 

- Anuradha (The Gnostic Centre, India)

Modified from 2002 version published in ‘The Awakening Ray’

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* TS Eliot, 'The Hollow Men'