What is it meant by saying that the past has never occurred?

[Holygrail]

I dont really understand what is meant by the past never having occurred.  Did I not type this question in order to ask it? I can see how the past only exists in our minds and never in the present moment, but aren't we still experiencing and creating stuff in the present moment which is actually happening?

Edited April 10, 2021 by Holygrail

[Holygrail]

17 hours ago, NondualesStudium said:

How do you know that now, i.e. "after" you have typed that question? Only, strictly use direct experience!

You know that because you "remember" it, right? See for yourself: Remembering = a process of Imagining something in the present moment that supposedly happened in the past.

You are thereby creating and projecting a fictitious past onto where there is no past, like superimposing it onto nothingness and then believing it (the supposed past) is there.

But it's just soo convincing, right? It just soo feels like there really, really is a past and time and it all really happened, right? And anyone you see on the streets, your family, your friends, everybody would totally confirm that! See how marvellous and genius it is? How cunning, deceiving, yet perfectly beautifully "engineered"?

It's all pure imagination.

Thanks, I am starting to see this now... But there is still a structure and intelligence of what " happened" and can see it fundamentally as an interplay of unity and division, fear and love... Which is still marvelous to see even in our imagination..

[Carl-Richard]

The past and future is a thought happening in the present moment.

[Holygrail]

15 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

The past and future is a thought happening in the present moment

I think the relevance of my question has more to do with whether the past should affect us at all. Knowing that it's all just a divine interplay between unity and division, love and fear, ultimately leading towards unity, nothing of which you have to take personally at all. Just become the observer and all the things which are being observed.

Edited April 11, 2021 by Holygrail

[Holygrail]

1 hour ago, dflores321 said:

The past has literally never occurred, see for yourself, do you see any past occurring ?

Even though it feels that simple on the surface, it's still so hard to fully understand it. Maybe I'm just overthinking it ?

[Willie]

It depends which perspective you are seeing with. The past is relatively true and useful to the present self in the egoic perspective. That’s because the ego needs the events of the past to relate to the surrounding people and environment and to know what led up to the present moment. It’s not absolutely true, though. 

[LastThursday]

The past occurred and it exists, you can even relive it and make stories up about it. But don't get confused. The past is indistiguishable from now.

Even if you could build a time machine and fully relive a past experience, it would still be just the present moment. The past and the present are not separated by a wall, they are the same thing.

[Tim R]

"The past" is completely illusory. It doesn't exist now and it never existed at any other point. All there is, is memory. And even memory is not something "left over", i.e. something which comes from a point "in the past" and has now left an impression/imprint on your mind, memory comes out of now. 

What you call "something is happening" is an illusion created by memory.

 When for example you see something moving, the only reason you know it to be "moving" is because you create images/memories about a certain "state in which something once was" and in contrast to "what you see now", the image has changed. That way, your mind "fills the gaps" and thereby creates the illusion of a connected, developmental process which you call "time". 

So we got it backwards. We think that the present comes as a result of the past. Which is the exact same thing as saying "the present is a result of memory". But it isn't! It's the other way round! Memory is a "result" of the present. I say "result" because that's not at all an appropriate word; "result" implies "time". But the present has/creates no results, because there is only the present. Nothing "results" from the present. 

Put your hand in front of your face and move it slowly from left to right.  Watch it "moving". And try if you can see this. Try to see how your memory isn't the result of something that happened but how there's just the present and that all memory comes out of now. 

"Something that happened " is memory!! But you think your memory is the result of something that happened! And it isn't!!

@Holygrail That's what is meant. If you can see this, you will suddenly realize that nothing ever happened, aka "the past has never occurred".

You think this is scary? Then you're looking at it the wrong way - it's liberating! It liberates you from "you". Because the largest part of what you call "you" is memory. This is a part of what is meant by "Samsara", the cycle of rebirth. "Rebirth" is basically just another word for "time". Because if you think that "you" are someone who goes on in time, someone who has once been born and will at some point die, "you" are being reborn. 

And to liberate yourself from time and Samsara is the same as entering and residing in eternity. "Eternity" doesn't mean "going on within time forever". It means "going on outside time forever".

 

You get a glimpse of this when you sleep. In deep sleep, you're literally outside of time. And this state lasts forever. 

Can you see that nothing happens? Between going to sleep and waking up, nothing happened! Because it's eternity, aka. outside of time. Outside of memory. Same with death. When you die, all that happens is that "you" as a collection of memories simply seize to exist.

Death = Cessation/Absence of memory

Absence of memories = absence of time = Eternity

 

Imagine a person who had no memories, of anything, ever. And he couldn't produce memories either. His mind would simply be completely and utterly devoid of any memory whatsoever. 

Here's my question for you: from his point of view, is there anything happening? 

 

So... if we want to liberate ourselves from time (memory), do we have to become like this guy? And what would that entail for us? We wouldn't recognize anybody or anything anymore, that would be horrible!

See, the point is not to get rid of memory. The point is to not let your mind be fooled by memory. Because then you can play the game of life, but knowing that it's Nirvana, pretending to be Samsara. 

And by the way; this is the other meaning of "Maya". "Maya" means both "illusion" as well as "creative/magical power". It's this illusion of memory, that creates the world/reality.

And without Maya, without the illusion, without memory, there would simply be... That which "was before birth" and "will be after death".

See? There's Samsara again

[Lyubov]

Stuff only occurs in the present moment that is simply just that, present moment, and no other way than that. Past or memory is a type of thought created from what you have experienced in the present moment. Paradoxically, with no relative reference points set, this recollection of memory occurred at the same as when the direct experience occurred. 

[Vittorio]

Ask yourself these three questions and you will get your answers:

1) In what time am I living right now?

2) 5 minutes ago, in what time was I living (past/present/future)?

3) In 5 minutes, in what time will I live (past/present/future)?

[snowyowl]

@Vittorio  this doesn't negate the mainstream view of 'now' being an instant in time moving from past -> present ->  future. Seen from the present, 5 minutes ago, 'now' was in the past. Same for 5 minutes in the future.

Change and events occur, not in time, but are time, how do we measure time apart from counting processes in physical existence. If there's no time apart from now, then everything happens at once. My life, birth, childhood, youth, adulthood, old age, death, do they happen: spread out in sequence; or all simultaneously; or not at all? 

[gettoefl]

4 hours ago, Tim R said:

...

See? There's Samsara again

thank you very much for this x

[Tim R]

@gettoefl ?❤

[Vittorio]

On 11.4.2021 at 3:26 PM, snowyowl said:

@Vittorio  this doesn't negate the mainstream view of 'now' being an instant in time moving from past -> present ->  future. Seen from the present, 5 minutes ago, 'now' was in the past. Same for 5 minutes in the future.

Change and events occur, not in time, but are time, how do we measure time apart from counting processes in physical existence. If there's no time apart from now, then everything happens at once. My life, birth, childhood, youth, adulthood, old age, death, do they happen: spread out in sequence; or all simultaneously; or not at all? 

No they never happened. Can you prove me that you were a child? 

If you show me a picture of "you" as a child, you're just showing me some pixels, forms and colors. 

Your mind creates a story and associates the picture with you.

The same would be the case, if I asked your parents to prove me you were a child. They would use their memories to prove it.

But hey, memories are not tangible. They are all made up to give a sense of existence and temporal progression, exactly as time does.

You can only prove me what's happening now. What's in your memories cannot be proved and thus it never happened (even if you remember so).

Time is there to delimitate your birth and death and thus your experience in this reality.

But actually there is no such thing as a time from a nondual perspective. 

Time can be perceived only by a dual perspective (e. G.,as a human being).

And yes, in the end they all are compressed in a single infinite present moment. Your mind spaces these events in past, present and future, but in the end your birth, life and future are all happening simultaneously in a single instant.

This is one of the many paradoxes of reality

Edited April 14, 2021 by Vittorio

[snowyowl]

@Vittorio thanks for this, I need to contemplate it for a while, watch this space ... 

[Nahm]

On 4/10/2021 at 3:12 AM, Holygrail said:

I dont really understand what is meant by the past never having occurred. 

‘Time’ and ‘motion’ are thoughts which people gave meaning to describing experience, to communicate about ‘It’, and you learned the words and meanings, and they became beliefs. The belief is that the thoughts label actual individual separate ‘things’. They’re for communication, they don’t literally label anything because ‘thing’ is another belief (in the sense the thought & meaning “thing” = a separation). Then add to that believing of thoughts as labels for individual things... ‘my’, which adds that one is an individual separate ‘thing’. ‘My’ is just another thought. Point to a ‘my’ in seeing, hearing, or feeling and it becomes clearer it’s a thought. 

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Did I not type this question in order to ask it?

Notice there is no actual separation between the space of the room you’re in, the outdoors, and outer space. Look up outside and see there is no actual end. Then consider this space which is without separation in your direct experience, is appearing as all the ‘stuff’...the space is “the stuff”. Then notice “space” is also a thought which is a belief, as a label, for a “separate thing”... as in ‘you’ and also ‘space’. 

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I can see how the past only exists in our minds and never in the present moment, but aren't we still experiencing and creating stuff in the present moment which is actually happening?

Then notice “I” is a thought, and consider what there is of “you” that is seen and heard is that “space” appearing as that “stuff”, and that there is not anything seen or heard of you which is not seen or heard by you. What you are not aware of is only the thought that there is that which you are not aware of.

“This moment” is a thought, which to believe meaning for requires assuming there is a “that moment”, but you never experience a ‘that moment’...which peels away any meaning of the term “this moment”. You experience a ‘now’... but the only experience of a past or future, is of the thought about. So now is not other than the past or future - it’s just other than the thought - ‘now’. Without a past or future there is no meaning for ‘now’... and the present, is really presence. 

What you are aware of, is not separate from the awareness. Whenever a separation is “found”, notice, it’s another thought arising, being believed. 

Replace the word / label “space”, with “awareness”. Then notice even the word awareness is a thought, a label, to communicate, as in point to, that which is present, or, that which is presence, or simply - that which Is. 

The common way is to think more, to ‘figure out’, to conceptualize... another ‘way’ is to peel away, to see through layers by inspecting direct experience. 

[snowyowl]

@Vittorio  

"You can only prove me what's happening now. What's in your memories cannot be proved and thus it never happened (even if you remember so)."

Yeah I come across this argument a lot in the nondual community. But what is proof? The usual idea of proof is some evidence, like photos, fingerprints, memories of witnesses, saved scientific data. All that is a record of an event which allegedly occurred previously. So proof of X is not X itself. By the time I've created a proof of anything, "now" has moved on to a different "now". Doesn't that also apply when proving something to myself - the proof is a layer of thought occurring after the fact.  I think your requirement of proof is impossible in the relative sense ... me proving X to you now ... however ... 

"But actually there is no such thing as a time from a nondual perspective. 
Time can be only perceived only by a dual perspective (e. G.,as a human being).
And yes, in the end they all are compressed in a single infinite present moment. Your mind space these events in past, present and future, but in the end your birth, life and future are all happening simultaneously in a single instant."

If direct experience is the proof you're after, here it is!  The snag is, you have to realise your divinity to see it, become omniscient and know everyone's past, present and future in the infinite singularity. "God knows" as they say  and if we are God forgetting itself temporarily, then that sounds like the past is real, even though we can't prove it. 

Edited April 13, 2021 by snowyowl