Freedom from the Past

Long Quotes

Along the way, many things will be unlearned, and this frees you from the past. What have you learned but your past? Your past represents your learning--all of your evaluations, your beliefs, your ideals, your fears, your compulsions and your patterns of behavior. However, every moment and every second that your are engaged with Knowledge frees you a little bit more from the shadow of your past and from the binding ideas and constraints of your past.... [I]n almost all case, you misinterpreted the past and used it to reinforce existing ideas. Therefore, your memory of your past is more a memory of your evaluations than an accurate memory of events.

You must be free from your past sufficiently to be able to move forward in a new direction and to establish a new and greater life than the life you had known before. To do this, you cannot take everything with you. You cannot carry all of your memories like a great store of luggage. The vehicle that will take you into the present and future will not accommodate all of this. Likewise, you cannot carry all of your relationships with you--all of your past loves, all of your friendships, all of your family, everyone that you like, everyone that you dislike, all the people and your memories of them that clutter your mind and keep you emotionally frozen in the past. Knowledge will free you, and it will unburden you so that you can be available to it and open to life as it is now.

• Greater Community Spirituality, chap. 13, pp. 154, 155