This idea is particularly difficult to believe at first. Yet it is the rationale for all of the preceding lessons. It is the reason why nothing you look upon means anything in Reality. It is the reason why you have given everything you look upon all the meaning that it has for you. It is the reason why you do not truly understand anything you look upon. It is the reason why your thoughts about the things you look upon do not mean anything in Reality, and why they are like the things you look upon. It is the reason why whenever you feel upset the cause is not what it appears to be. And it is the reason why whenever you feel upset it is because you are perceiving something that is not there.
Old ideas about time are very difficult to change, because everything you believe about the world is rooted in your current ideas about time, and depends on your not learning new ideas about it. Yet that is precisely why you need new, and true, ideas about time.
This first “time” idea, equating your normal way of perceiving the world with the past, is not really as strange as it may sound at first. Look at a cup, for example. Do you actually see the cup as it is in the present moment, clear of all past associations, or are you merely reviewing your past experiences of being thirsty, picking up a cup, drinking from it, feeling the rim of a cup against your lips, having breakfast with a cup of coffee or tea, and so on? Are not your aesthetic reactions to the cup, too, based on past experiences? How else would you know or have a sense of whether or not this kind of cup will break if you drop it? What do you know about a cup, this cup or any 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 perceive it anew, now?
Look around you. What applies to a cup is equally true of whatever you perceive in your normal way of looking upon the world. Acknowledge this by applying the idea for today indiscriminately to whatever catches your eye. For example:
“I look upon only the past in this pen.”
“I look upon only the past in this shoe.”
“I look upon only the past in this sink.”
“I look upon only the past in that face.”
“I look upon only the past in that door.”
Do not linger over any one thing in particular, but remember to omit nothing specifically. Glance briefly at each subject while applying today’s idea, and then move on to the next.
Three or four practice periods, each to last a minute or so, will be enough for practicing today’s idea.