There is nothing new under the sun, and everything is new under the sun. In one sense Eternity and Infinity are an even plain, the same reverberation of life in an instant of itself, and yet Eternity and Infinity are ever new, like the Ocean that folds and unfolds itself, reveals itsellf, dances as it were. Steady steady is the Ocean, and yet its movement is great.
And so you are extolled to recognize that you are newly born and never were in the past. The glorified Almighty Past you cling to was a still shot and reveals nothing more than something supposed, a thought crystallized for a moment referred to in past tense as The Past, as if the past were a holy thing. The shutter of the camera stopped in mid-stream, and this you call the recollected past, as if it had an identify of its own. How well you recall the past and call it to you when, all the while, it was nothing more than a snapshot taken that you somehow immortalized!
Of necessity, the past is a stopper. It was an inn by the wayside where you slept one night. You had dreams and named them The Past. You think you are not to be forgetful. You think you are to carry the past with you like so much baggage, as if the more you've accumulated the past, the more accessible it is, and the more valuable, or perhaps the longer ago, the more dynamic. You have such a resistance to outdistancing the past as if the past were something to outdistance. You find it hard to believe that the past did not exist, and yet you know that every moment is a passing moment. Beloveds, how can the past be when it changes before your very eyes? What makes the past so prominent that you must make it permanent?
In the relative world, there is no permanence. Have you not discovered that already, beloveds?
So, My dear ones, why do you think you must catch up to the past as though it were in front of you and you were running toward it? You know better than to walk backwards. You often present the past to yourself and an inverted version of the future as well. You look behind every tree. You imagine what the forest ahead of you looks like, and you count the future horizon's trees.
The only thing that is true is Eternity and its partner Infinity, for they are the setting for this that you call life. It is like you have a beautiful diamond ring. It is on your finger. Yet you research the metal casing the diamond is in. You investigate and investigate that which surrounds the diamond. You forgot about the diamond's luminescence, so enrapt are you in twisting the ring on your finger. Where is the past located? It is located nowhere, yet you hold it in your mind and beleaguer your heart with it.
Too often the recollected made-up past becomes a knife in your heart. The past is fictional, beloveds. The past is not an ogre, nor is it your sainted mother. The past is something you must step away from. It is not to be revered, doted on, gone over every which way and that as if you were considering purchasing it.
The Ocean counts not its waves. It does not keep a record of what a wave looked like a moment ago. You could say that the Ocean is the sum of its parts, yet I am telling you there are no parts. There is only the Wholeness of the Ocean.
In your affair with the past, it is like you take a deck of cards and flip each card over, and you have one of those minds that can remember the illusory play of the hand, as if it were meant to be locked in a vapor you call time.