From new perception of the world there comes a future very different from the past. The future now is recognized as but extension of the present. Past mistakes can cast no shadows on it, so that fear has lost its idols and its images, and being formless, it has no effects. Death will not claim the future now, for life is now its goal, and all the needed means are happily provided. Who can grieve or suffer when the present has been freed, extending its security and peace into a quiet future filled with joy?
ACIM-W-314:1:1-5
A little more on transcending unhappiness from A Course in Miracles
I read that this morning and was swept up by that wisdom. It relates to what we were talking about yesterday(well what I was writing about lol...sometimes I forget I am no longer standing in front of a classroom...my apologies): the happiness/unhappiness conundrum as well as previous discussions on time and presence. Let's look at what is so wise about this lesson. We will take it a part bit by bit.
From new perception of the world
Ahhh! That's the key, right? To create a new perception...a new way of looking at the world. How we perceive will determine everything we look upon.
there comes a future very different from the past
When we change the way we perceive the world, we change the way we see time. Our view of the future now is going to change. It is going to be different than the way we viewed it in the past and therefore different than the past itself.
Previous to this new perception, we may have seen the future as an extension of the past. We expect, anticipate, hope for and worry over the likelihood of things happening based on how we have come to understand life from our past experience.
For example, say in the 'past' I had a lot of issues with authority figures, felt shamed or diminished around them and I came to believe that authority figures were people who shamed and caused fear. My boss calls and tells me to meet him in his office at the end of the day. He doesn't sound happy. What are the next few hours of my day going to be like, I wonder? I will be worried and anxious over what will happen in the future. My mind will be full of future thoughts rather than present moment awareness and it will also be full of the past because I am anticipating a repeat of the past in the future.
Well this portion of the lesson is telling us that with a new perception the future will be different than the past. We won't make that link.
The future now is recognized as an extension of the present.
Instead of connecting the future with the past we will connect it with the present. In fact, the present moment, all there is really in reference to time, will simply be extended. Instead of having this moment and then the next moment and then the next moment after that...we just have one big long continuous moment. So when we think of the future we think of it in terms of 'now".
Past mistakes can cast no shadows on it
If we perceive this way the future, which is the now, cannot be contaminated by any mistakes we or the world made in the past. It begins now...clean slate. Past is dead and buried, no where to be found. We don't drag all those thoughts of our sins, reasons for unworthiness, our stories, our conditioned judgments or the sins of others into this present moment.
We do not have the shadow of those past memories with other authority figures hanging over us all day as we anticipate the upcoming meeting.
so that fear has lost its idols and its images
Fear manifests in our stories, attachment to ideas and beliefs, identities and the mental pictures we create in our heads. Our thoughts about the past create fear for the future...without that past thinking...fear has nothing to hold onto.
Our memories of past experiences with authority figures are the idols and images that create this anxiety in us about the upcoming meeting with our boss. But fear will lose these once we accept the present moment as all there is to time.
and being formless it has no effects
When we are truly present in the here and now instead of ruminating over what happened yesterday or ten years ago, not projecting those awful memories into the future creating worry, anxiety and fear that they will happen again...we see that fear has no form. We become aware that it has nothing of substance. It cannot effect us. It cannot hurt us
Death will not claim the future now,
The fear of death is said to be the mother fear of all fears because it manifests in several forms...the fear of loss, the fear of isolation, the fear of the unknown. Most of our thinking moments before we awaken are consumed in one way or another by the fear of death, in any of its forms. This fear grows when we see ourselves the way ego wants us to. We do not know who we are; we over identify with mind and body, believing that once the body ceases to be so do we. The so called 'future' is an unpredictable and scary place when we think like this, offering little safety and security. It is always dominated by death.
This ending of 'self' does not mean the ending of "Self". We realize that with this new perception. When we slip into presence we see that death has no place in the present moment. Fear has no power, death has no power.
I don't believe it means, that our bodies will never die. They will but just because they do doesn't mean we do. All things in this world of form, including our bodies, will come and go. When we truly get that... we don't waste the sacredness of each moment with obsession over the eventuality of death in any of its forms.
for life is now its goal
The only goal for the future, which is just an extension of this moment, is life. I don't think most of us truly know what it means to 'experience' life....to simply me wholly present in the here and now. We are so contracted with fear, we tend to avoid it. Without fear we would surely live , wouldn't we? That should be our future goal...to live fearlessly.
and all the needed means are happily provided
Life provides what we need to live fully. Our minds tend to be everywhere but on this realization. When we are ego based/fear based we tend to think in terms of scarcity and a need to struggle to survive. We cling, we strive, we seek endlessly, we defend and attack to get what we need. When we no longer fear we become aware that Life has our back and we are being provided for. Though these provisions may not always come in the way we expect them to or think they should...Life is happily providing for us each and every moment.
Who can grieve and suffer when the present has been freed
We free the moment from mental bondage when we put aside our notions of past and future. When we are present moment focused there is no sense of having lost or no fear of losing...so there is no grief. When we are freed from past and future focus...meaning when we are no longer so much consumed by our thinking...we do not suffer. We become 'present' and we and the moment become free.
extending its security and peace into a quiet future filled with joy?
We find security and peace in presence, in going beyond thinking to awareness. We are perfectly safe there. It is perfectly peaceful there. And from there we extend this security and presence into a never ending moment. No big bangs or whistles, maybe, but joy. True happiness!
In a Nutshell
We will experience true happiness: a sense of peace filled security in presence and awareness when we perceive differently, extending the moment into the future. Awareness and presence exist as they always will beyond the clouds of fear and time. We can be nothing but happy when we truly realize this truth: All there is is now....one long continuous now.
All is well
Sources
Foundation for Inner Peace. (2007) Work Book. A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume. Third Edition. Mill Valley: Foundation for Inner Peace
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