Recently, while spending time on Facebook, it occurred to me that there really is little or no reason to reach into the past.  Whatever relationships were there, no matter how cherished, despised or neutral, have no meaning now.  I give them all the meaning they have for me by believing in what is not here.  If I choose to think that the past is still a part of the present relationship I am fooling myself.  Unless I am holding onto a grudge against someone else or myself, there is nothing else to hold onto.

Past relationships are lost in the past because the past, undeniably, isn’t here anymore.  Where could I find the relationship but right now.  Sure, I can use the past to conjure up feelings, like watching a movie I have already seen.  Sure, I can change the memories around a bit to suit my current belief about what things ought to be like, editing here and there, enhancing, deleting and denying.  But all I am doing is trying to decide on my own what is going on right now by thinking about what is certainly not going on right now. 

Metaphors are like this too.  The one that comes to mind now is the idea of driving forward while looking in the rearview mirror.  Metaphors help to explain concepts, to create order.  They are easy to remember.  Yet, like memories, they are not the same as present perception.

Presently, what is the state of my relationships?  Who are my friends now and what is the nature of and the experience of those friendships?  They are those who I love and who love me, who I respect and who respect me…respect being a form of love not fear.  It goes both ways and it is happening now. 

Love is now.  Where does anger come from but fear? Fear of the future; which is often the fear that we’re going to get what we deserve for what we did in the past.  Neither the future nor the past is here now. So I ask again (from an earlier post), what is the compulsion to see something that is not here?  Isn’t this a form of idol worship, of placing our ideas before reality?  Isn’t this our sole way of changing reality...by denying reality our awareness?

If I dislike someone for what they did in the past, who do I really dislike?  Obviously myself, because in thinking about them judgmentally I am forcing myself to feel bad.  It works the other way too.  To consider someone in a good light is to allow myself to feel good.   Both of these thoughts are just jerking around the present, but only one of them gets close to what the present must really be. 

Consider this, if the past is not here it cannot touch you.  If the future is not here, at least in this moment, the one that is all the time, then it cannot reach you either.  If you are safe from the past and the future there is nothing to fear.  Hold that thought and find yourself in the present, where only peace can be since there is no threat, that is, unless we choose to replace this peace with our own imaginings.