A Course in Miracles Lesson 7: I see only the past.
This lesson introduces the topic of time into the Course workbook. And it is teaching us that everything we believe is rooted in time.
In A Course in Miracles Lesson 6, we learned that anytime we’re upset, it has nothing to do with what’s going on in our world. Building on that concept is A Course in Miracles Lesson 7 where we get an even more profound exposition of reality.
We see only the past.
When we look at a cup, for instance, we aren’t seeing the cup as it is in the instant we call “now”. Instead we are mentally reviewing what has already gone by.
When we pick up the cup, we know how it will behave based on our past experiences. We know if we tilt it a certain way, it will pour liquid into our mouth. We know that if we drop the cup, it will likely break.
We’ve learned through experience how the cup will behave, so that anytime we see a cup, we see it based on our past experience. So are we really “seeing” the cup as it is, or simply projecting past experiences into this present moment?
But this lessons goes much deeper than that.
We never see things as they are. Not just temporally. We see only through the lens of judgment. As we learned in A Course in Miracles Lesson 2, we give everything we see all the meaning it has for us.
Everything on its own – without judgment – is totally without meaning. Like a blank slate. Everything!
So the reason we see only the past is because we are looking with judgment. And judgment always invokes and perpetuates the past.
The only way to “see” the present instant we call “now” is by letting go of judgment. And the first step toward achieving that goals is recognizing that we see only the past in everything. This begins the process of learning how to step out of time and into the blissful state of now.
