I awoke this morning with a very clear understanding of how the ego uses our past (stories) to perpetuate the future. I saw more clearly than ever that in fact THERE IS NO PAST and that the ego never wants us to own that statement. I saw how the ego needs to make the past 'real' so that it can make the future the same as the past. I saw that the ego's purpose of making the past real is to make us feel guilty so that we have a justification to suffer now and into the future.

What would happen if there was no past? Where would our justification for suffering be then? What excuse do we have for not living a life of Love if our stories were simply made up? How easily and freely would healing come into our awareness if we could undo the past by simply saying NO to its call to inflict 'justifiable pain and suffering' on us now and into the future? No need for ANALizing it, justifiying it, feeling sorrow for it...just let it go.

Here's what Jesus had to say about the past -

ACIM T-5.VI.1 "God in His knowledge is not waiting, but His Kingdom is bereft while [you] wait. 2 All the Sons of God are waiting for your return, just as you are waiting for theirs. 3 Delay does not matter in eternity, but it is tragic in time. 4 You have elected to be in time rather than eternity, and therefore believe you [are] in time. 5 Yet your election is both free and alterable. 6 You do not belong in time. 7 Your place is only in eternity, where God Himself placed you forever."

Furthermore in ACIM T-5.VI.2. "Guilt feelings are the preservers of time. 2 They induce fears of retaliation or abandonment, and thus ensure that the future will be like the past. 3 This is the ego's continuity. 4 It gives the ego a false sense of security by believing that you cannot escape from it. 5 But you can and must. 6 God offers you the continuity of eternity in exchange. 7 When you choose to make this exchange, you will simultaneously exchange guilt for joy, viciousness for love, and pain for peace. 8 My role is only to unchain your will and set it free. 9 Your ego cannot accept this freedom, and will oppose it at every possible moment and in every possible way. 10 And as its maker, you recognize what it can do because you gave it the power to do it."

And finally, here is an explantion of how the ego tries to trap you -

ACIM T-13.IV.4 "The ego has a strange notion of time, and it is with this notion that your questioning might well begin. 2 The ego invests heavily in the past, and in the end believes that the past is the only aspect of time that is meaningful. 3 Remember that its emphasis on guilt enables it to ensure its continuity by making the future like the past, and thus avoiding the present. 4 By the notion of paying for the past in the future, the past becomes the determiner of the future, making them continuous without an intervening present. 5 For the ego regards the present only as a brief transition to the future, in which it brings the past to the future by interpreting the present in past terms."

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