IV. the Function of Time, P 5
5 “Now” has no meaning to the ego. The present merely reminds it of past hurts, and it reacts to the present as if it were the past. The ego cannot tolerate release from the past, and although the past is over, the ego tries to preserve its image by responding as if it were present. It dictates your reactions to those you meet in the present from a past reference point, obscuring their present reality. In effect, if you follow the ego’s dictates you will react to your brother as though he were someone else, and this will surely prevent you from recognizing him as he is. And you will receive messages from him out of your own past because, by making it real in the present, you are forbidding yourself to let it go. You thus deny yourself the message of release that every brother offers you now.
Journal
I have looked at this idea before. I think of my nephew and I have certain ideas about him. One time he asked me to give him some time to talk to me. I looked at my schedule and saw that I only had free time early in the morning. I thought about how he hates to get up early and so would not like this time slot. I mentioned that to him and he was surprised I still believed that about him. He reminded me he is no longer that teenager who stayed up all night and slept in. I had a picture of him in my mind based on past behavior and was bringing that picture into the present. I cannot know who he is if I am looking at who he was.
Another example I can think of is that I have an on again, off again student. When we first started talking, and for a long time, he was a beginning student. He got the concepts, but without practice of those concepts, he still acted as he had before he read the Course. One time later he called to talk to me about something particular and I started answering his questions based on my past knowledge of him.
Then Holy Spirit woke me up to his responses. He was not the same person he used to be. I was stuck in the past, and was missing the beauty of the present. I was speaking to who he used to be, not who he became, and so I wasn’t really talking to him at all, nor was I hearing all he had to teach me. It was a good lesson I did not forget.
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