This idea
is particularly difficult to believe
at first. Yet it is the
rationale for all of the preceding
ones.
-It is the reason why nothing
that you see means anything.
-It is the reason why you have
given everything you
see all the
meaning that it has for you.
-It is the reason why you do not
understand anything
you see.
-It is the reason why your thoughts
do not mean anything, and why they
are like the things you see.
-It is the reason why you are never
upset for the
reason you think.
-It is the reason why you are upset
because you see something that is
not there.
Old ideas about
time are very difficult to change,
because everything you believe is
rooted in time,
and depends on your
not learning these new ideas about
it.
Yet that is precisely why you need new
ideas about time.
This first time idea is not really so
strange as it may sound at first.
Look at a cup, for example. Do
you see a cup, or are you merely
reviewing your past experiences of
picking up a cup,
being thirsty,
drinking from a cup,
feeling the rim of a cup against your
lips,
having breakfast and so on?
Are not your aesthetic reactions to
the cup, too, based on past
experiences?
How else would you know whether or not
this kind of cup will break if you
drop it?
What do you know about this cup except
what you learned in the past?
You would have no idea what this cup
is, except for your past learning. Do
you, then, really see it?
Look about you. This
is equally true of whatever you look
at.
Acknowledge this by
applying the idea for today
indiscriminately to whatever catches
your eye. For example:
I see only
the past in this pencil.
I see only the
past in this shoe.
I see only the
past in this hand.
I see only the
past in that body.
I see only the
past in that face.
Do not linger over any one
thing in particular, but remember to
omit nothing specifically.
Glance
briefly at each subject, and then move
on to the next. Three or four
practice periods, each to last a
minute or so, will be enough. |