Funny little thing isn’t it? Funny that we base most of our lives around something that we’ve never actually experienced (the past).

I feel like that’s worth pointing out one more time- you’ve NEVER experienced the past. Ever. You never even experienced the beginning of this article, the beginning of this article is simply no longer happening right NOW. Past-tense exists in word only.

This is not some attempt to mess with your mind or deny the experiences of life, it’s just a fact- everything you’ve ever experienced and will ever experience will only ever be experienced right now- in this singular eternal moment of now. Time is an appearance only. Yes, you can look back at the words in this article, but you’ll only do so right now. Your brain catalogues experience as memory, but memory is not proof of the past; it’s just proof that you can remember now, right now. In a nutshell, the past is only as real as you make it.

If you allow this truth to really sink in, and don’t dismiss this as some silly mind game- then the truth of this can be life-changing. But of course, you first have to be ready to acknowledge that most of who you think you are is held together by memory- by an elaborate mind-generated illusion.

How much of you would be left if all you had to work with is what’s showing up right now? What if you couldn’t draw from your memory AT ALL to define yourself? Wouldn’t things like your name, your family history, your job title, your social status, your spiritual status (or ANY status for that matter) become irrelevant and meaningless?

So becoming free of the past is not so complicated after all, so long as we’re willing to die to the image of ourselves… completely. To offer up our own consciousness you could say, to the mystery of this ever-present reality by no longer leaving it (mentally).

Of course, that’s the catch isn’t it? We don’t just wear our past-based identity because we think it’s a fun thing to do, we wear it out of necessity (out of what we think is necessity). This identity that we’ve been crafting and trying to perfect since we came into this world (which ‘happened’ right now of course), is a project that we only took on because we determined that the identity-less-ness that we are was not enough. And, understandably, in a world full of somebodies, who wants to be nobody? But how has being somebody been working out for you? Has living with an identity-story allowed you to achieve the state of lasting peace and contentment that was promised to you when you first took the story on? How have your attempts to fill the void been panning out?

Perhaps it’s a matter of believing that there’s not really any alternative. You’ve believed you have to be who you think you are because you can’t think of being anything else. That’s the key though, isn’t it? To no longer think yourself into being. To no longer think ourselves into existence when we’re already here. Obviously, when you stop thinking, you don’t go anywhere; so why all the fuss? Ah yes, that sticky issue of nobodyness being a bad thing.

You can’t become free of the past unless you become free of yourself; unless you come home to the fact that you have no inherent identity and make peace with that. If you can’t, then the past will continue to haunt you. There’s no situation where you get to keep yourself but lose your past. Having your cake and eating it too is still not a thing.

This makes sense, so why does letting go of my identity still feel so terrifying?

Because you’ve taken yourself to be a performance for a long time (a lot of nows).

Hold an image of a newborn baby in your mind for a moment. Aside from a consistent routine of eating, pooping, and crying- this newborn has zero problems with the fact that it has no identity. How is that possible? Because it hasn’t learned from the world just yet that it’s supposed to know what it is. It hasn’t learned that separating oneself from the rest of life by pretending to be somebody is just how things are done. It hasn’t learned that it should fear rejection if it doesn’t prove its worthiness to exist.

To know this is a blessing of course- it means that ALL of your fears have been learned. ALL of your moments of existential crisis can evaporate now because you no longer need to exist in any way the mind can think of.

It’s time to be nothing again.

Sweet sweet nothing.

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