The Direction in Viewing the Past

To which destination are you moving in your personal history? If your direction is wrong, you will multiply the burden of the past. If it is right, you will decode, become free by transcending the past and become lighter.

Moving forward back in our advanced ages is straightforward. We can easily break away from the moment and slip into the past. We distance ourselves from the future and become past-oriented, for we are nearing the end, and whatever we are going to do, we have done so far. But those at an early age are more future-oriented. But these young people, too, do and should look to the past. Our article is about journeys to the past.

When we dive into the past, there are positive, negative, and neutral memories. Right decisions, successes we show, loving friendships, situations where the ego is stroked, etc., are some of our positive memories. Wrong decisions, defeats, humiliations where the ego is battered, etc., are our negative memories.

Thinking and evaluating the past life will bring a healthier mood, peace, and joy, allowing you to evolve and change. But on one condition: Choose the right direction. The retrospective view (regression) should not be from the moment of the event to the present but backward from the present, step by step, towards the moment of the event, and even back from the moment of the event. Try it; feel what's going on.

Let me repeat. You will watch your past as you rewind it frame by frame. Think of it as a movie. The beginning is now, and the end is as far back as you can remember.

If your direction is forward from a particular situation in the past, that is, towards the present, you will have watched the same movie again. You cannot distance yourself from events and conditions and evaluate them objectively. You can't get out of them because you're always stuck. It will not contribute to your development because long-term cause-and-effect relationships remain hazy. You can't feel the big picture.

The big picture becomes clear if your direction is from the end of the movie, starting from the now, back to the events or situations, and then as far back as you can remember. Because it is easier to take yourself away and look objectively, in this way, you will be free from fragmentation and achieve wholeness. Even just clear awareness is therapeutic for many afflictions. Eventually, you accept yourself as you are and make peace with yourself. Acceptance and reconciliation are the first conditions of change. Clear awareness makes you reconcile with yourself, change, and improve. It increases your self-confidence and peace of mind. 

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When you put your head on the pillow in the evening, you can develop this habit by thinking about the situations and events that have occurred since the morning. Just be careful; you will not start from your morning. If you do so, you will bear the whole day's load again, and if you can sleep, you will sleep with that load. You will start from when you put your head on the pillow in the evening and go through backward towards noon and morning without breaking the line. If you do this, you will reach the serenity and pleasantness of the morning of that day. You will have unloaded the entire load of the day. You will quickly fall into a comfortable sleep.

As you practice the habit, you will begin to evaluate your whole life in the proper direction, from now to the past. If you come from a bad memory to the present, the bad memory will continue to bother you. If you move from today to the bad memory, step by step, you will see that everything will take on a different meaning. You will relax.

The same direction is also suitable for positive memories. Being stuck on specific achievements can sometimes lead to ego swelling, pride, and arrogance, which can break your psychology. You may also ignore your actual accomplishments. You may be stuck with distorted self-images that are sometimes exaggerated and sometimes condescending. View your past achievements by beginning from here-and-now step by step toward your yesterdays in order. In that case, you will evaluate your positive memories more realistically and objectively.

The direction should be from "what I am" to "what was I" towards the source. You will regain your forgotten childhood at the end of your journey back. And then everything will change color.

Gurdjieff says, "the greatest sin is to identify." That's why watching yourself as an extrajudicial witness in thinking about your past is essential—not identifying with anything. So, you see purer; you become more aware, that's all. When you realize that the past is a dream made up of roles, you begin to feel that today is also a dream of tomorrow. The core self/transcendent self starts to make itself feel better. It is pure consciousness, Nirvana.