Lesson 8: “My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.”

This lesson says, “The mind is actually blank when it does this, because it is not really thinking about anything.”

The Course teaches us to be in the present.

Being in the present is the only place where we can truly experience the Love of God and it is the only place to feel the delight of experiencing our authentic nature and self. 

Thus, it is worth doing the mind work and the choosing in order to get ourselves to that place where we choose to be in the present.  

The Course reminds us that we are preoccupied with the past and when we do this, the present is too far to be found.  We are highly focused on the past and the stories and drama we find there.

It then takes us out of the present- because the past feels like too strong a pull and we can’t resist  obsessing on our suffering in the past.

The Course provides us here with instructions about how to get out of that hell.

We must simply stay committed to feeling ourselves in the present.  Jesus says that it turns out that we are actually not thinking at all when we think about the past.  This helps us dramatically to let go of our focus on the past.

When we accept it isn’t happening, then we release some of the ego’s weighty attachment to the past.  

We must simply remember that the reality is we are thinking of nothing when we focus on the past.

This helps us to simply loosen that ego’s fierce grip. 

It gives God’s Will and energy a way into our minds; when we are thinking of nothing, then we are not invested in the ego’s version of the past.

Our emptying our minds of the story the ego tells us about the past allows us to remember our minds are actually blank. 

Then the blankness is actually an empty space- where we can then allow God’s energy and Love to fill the space instead.

Just remind ourselves that our inner replaying of the ego’s story is simply a trap that leads us down the path of destruction and despair. 

But when we then tell ourselves this is not real- where the stories we perceive are voices that get eliminated when we remember nothing is actually happening in our minds, this shifts our minds.