Letting go of the past

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

-Attributed to Jesus, Gospel of Thomas

Do we ever make our morning coffee, enjoying fully the aroma, taste, and experience of it. Or, are we occupied with the endless chatter of our mind, projections of past and future. Is it possible to engage with each moment, free of this ceaseless wandering of the mind? This will come only when there is complete attention to the present moment, and all the intricacies within it. You are afraid of such intense attention because you do not want to look within yourself, to understand your actions, motives, and ideals completely. However, would you not observe such conditioning fully, in each and every second, there is accumulation of guilt, fear, anxiety, anger, grievances towards others or yourself, and so on. These areas of the Self beg to be seen for what they are, and in doing so you will free them.

Please look into this for your own sake. Are you a slave of your past? You may think “I do not care about the past anymore, I have moved on”, or “This grievance against so and so has been settled”, or “I do not want to associate with this person”. In America, we consider moving on from the past most popularly as stuffing avoided things in a dark, disheveled corner and secretly hoarding them until they come back to haunt us. But if we are to be free, truly liberated from our conditioning, the closet must be observed completely. Observation free of every emotional string of attachment, of every bias and filter that we look through. Only then will the closet begin to organize itself, and order reinstated.

Meditation

Find a quiet place to sit, close your eyes, and follow 10 inhales and exhales.

Ask yourself internally, “What am I holding on to? What do I need to let go of?”

Without intellectually searching for an answer, drop this question into your mind as if you were dropping a coin into an empty jar. Trust the answer will be revealed.

Sit quietly and see what emotions, experiences, and visualizations arise. View them fully, feeling each emotion but not pushing it away, accepting, or rejecting it. Just BE with whatever arises.

Continue to observe and write your experience down at the end of the session.

Art by Melanie Meyer