In the last days we have been dealing the Present Moment Awareness and a lot of excitement was generated in speaking on this topic and I have been inspired to deal with it more. Today I want to explore different aspects of it.
We have been thinking that when we strive to be in present moment awareness that the past must be neglected. We put the past away because we want to stay fully in the present. We know that we live with the past every day and the past in subtle and direct ways influences our lives. The past is memory and we use memory every day; we need to remember things, we need to use the memory in reasoning out things.
Dealing with the past in the present moment
Today, I want to explore how to see the past in the context of the present. Beautiful things can come out of this exploration. There are beautiful experiences in the past that inspire us in the present and we try to recall them. Even in meditation we try to go back in experiences of the past that inspire us. For example, I may say to you, ‘Think of a loved one and allow it to open your heart’; that is the past.
I want to bring to your attention that we can go back into the past and bring back experiences that may need healing. Even though you cannot change the original experiences, you can create new ways of looking at it that can be healing. So, when that past comes back to you, you can see it in different ways. In therapy this is done. In psychotherapy you are taken back to the past, and in hypnosis you may go back to the experience of conflict or disturbance and then you are asked to see it in a different way; a way that brings about healing or resolution.
Viewing past events from different angles
You can also use the present moment very powerfully in recalling the past and looking at things from different angles to see how you can bring healing to the situation. The beauty of this is you can manage the situation in the present. If you are fully in the present, then you can think, ‘How do I look at this in a more expansive way?’ And as you hold yourself in the present, ‘How can I explore bringing it into a spiritual space where I can see it in a more forgiving way, a more accepting way, a more compassionate way, and a more understanding way?’ When you begin to explore that in the present, you can shift looking at it from a different perspective: ‘Can I go back and think of the person and how they would have been looking at it in their level of consciousness?’
The past in meditation
Sometimes you sit to meditate or you have quiet moments and immediately your mind is drawn back to situations that are unresolved. Because, in our normal human living we want to resolve situations, we want to be happy. It is the natural tendency of our being to want to be in harmony within and without. So, we go back into conflict. It is easy to come back into the mind because we feel unsettled. Here is a chance to deal with it.
In meditation I will say to you, ‘Observe what comes up from inside of you,’ and it gives you a chance to see what is disturbing your present moment awareness. Deal with it, try to reason it out and then put it away; don’t suppress it because if you suppress it, it is going to come up again and again. If you do not deal with things that come up into your daily thinking or daily consciousness, they are going to come up again and again or remain under the surface unresolved. When you are fully in the moment, you can be fully in the moment with a past situation and be fully in charge of it and explore how you can bring healing from a more spiritual perspective.
From time to time we introspect; we go back to the activities of a past day or past event because we want to look at it again. I also told you that you should introspect, you should look back at the way you handled the event and look at the process or how you spent a day. And I also told you to do it with others as well, as you talk about it and as you explore it, you see more. Introspection is also a way of bringing the past into the present in a manageable way and a way of looking at progress.
It is extremely important to look at the past in present moment awareness and to be able to manage the experiences of the past and to bring healing. In your meditation when you think that you need to stay completely in present moment awareness, yes, do it if you can but when thoughts and issues are coming up again and again, don’t suppress it. Bring it up for resolution, look at it and see if you can find a different perspective to it so you can resolve it. If that is possible, then your mind will become quiet again. And, if it is not possible, then you need to learn how to put it away without suppressing it with the intention of bringing it up again so you can continue to deal with it. In that way you can deal with many things, even including your own spiritual process.
Observing your spiritual process
You begin to observe, ‘How am I spiritually? How did I spend my day yesterday? Did I observe the discipline that I wanted to? Did I communicate with the awareness that I wanted to? Was I in the present moment as I wanted to yesterday?’ When you are constantly alert and in the present moment, you can explore the process of how present you are in the moment. ‘How present was I yesterday? What did I tell myself I would practice today? Did I do it? Am I doing it now? Did I tell myself I will be more forgiving, more understanding, more compassionate and more loving? Am I doing it? Am I doing it now?’
There is a wonderful relationship between past and present that needs to be used. It is lovely that we can go back to the past and we can relive an event. When we relive inspiring moments, we can go back and be inspired. It is also important to see how incidents of the past can live with us, taking our energy away every day and we do not see it. We need to be able to see that. We can live with worrying situations. You have a disturbing relationship and every day it affects you even though you try to put it away. The more you bring it into your present moment and manage it in a proper way, the better you feel at the end of the day. Not pushing it away but actually dealing with it.
Externalize:
This calls for managing the past when you bring it and if you find it is difficult for you to manage the past when you bring it up, then you need to externalize, you need to find someone whom you can speak with and bring into the present, a more expansive present where there are others whom you trust. The more you deal with these underlying things, the more peaceful your present moment will be. You should find a harmonious relationship with past and present and be able to use this relationship very effectively.
Of course, it is not only to bring healing by looking at the past problems but also to bring healing by looking at past inspirations, powerful relationships, powerful messages that you have learned and powerful spiritual experiences that you have had. Recall them and see how they energize you. It is a joy for me to do this.
Recall powerful energizing images:
In very powerful ways we can recall people and the experiences of their present. When we do that, we are actually linking with them in the present in a very powerful way wherever they are. When you bring a person’s image into your mind, you are actually bringing a tool of communication with that person. No matter where in the world this person is, in that moment you can actually touch the person’s being in your contemplation in real time. You can send the energy through that or you can be inspired. If you are thinking of someone who is in a higher state of consciousness, you can be inspired and you can draw energy from that person. If it is a person who is ill, when you remember them, you bring them to mind, praying for them and extending energy to them; you extend healing energy to them. Even human communication can become powerful when we bring the powerful images of the past into the present.
Be in the ‘Now’:
When we think of present moment awareness, it is not that the past is forgotten, the past needs to be looked at or remembered but always in the manageability of the present. That is the power of Present Moment Awareness, staying in the present, not being controlled by the past but being able to hold it in the Now where all possibilities of change and transformation exist. That is the power of Now. Now is the moment of possibilities. Now is the moment of transformation. Now is the moment of action - ‘The Now’.
