Is the Past Real or Just a Concept? 

what if you wear a VR headset that makes orange tinted glasses appear as white snow

The past is very real. It is memory, memory stored in the brain. It is the memory that we use to greet life everyday. It is the thought that causes so much conflict in the world. Tath is real so therefore so to is the past.

L2²0

Most people are not at a stage where they can "let the past go" because they first need to Validate that what they experienced really traumatised them. Real Forgiveness is a by product of healing.

@@lextisswould you say that real forgiveness is the realisation that nobody did anything to anybody? There were no people present. Stuff is just arising/dancing.

Not sure how familiar you're with Rupert's model of Reality. Not sure how closely you have examined this model of Reality and the way it's presented. This may sound harsh to some, but, nonetheless, allow me say few things here. Rupert's understandings of Reality are based on Self deception. It's another copy, a spinoff of the old religious ideology under a different label. I'm assuming your sincere aim is to further understand Reality or Existence as IT IS in ITSELF. Rupert has repeatedly claimed time after time, that, ALL activities are activities of none other than Consciousness and Consciousness alone. But, when it comes to sufferings, he completely denies by claiming that Consciousness is not the one causing any suffering. So he creates something called " finite mind, separate self, beliefs in separate self...etc, that get all the blames. This is not only dishonesty, but it's a form of Self deception. This comes from the old religious ideology of God and the Devil story. By defining God as All good and All loving, and as a result of this ,all the bad and the ugly had to go to something else other than God, thus the creation and belief in the illusory entity called the Devil. It's a form of Self deception. Consciousness deceiving Itself by splitting its own Psyche. What this old religious ideology has really done in its Self deceiving blind ignorance was denying God as being the totality of all experience. Rupert defining Consciousness as All peace and All happiness meets the same fate. He also claimed that Consciousness is not the one causing sufferings in life, but, rather, it's the finite mind, separate self, or the belief in separate self to which all blames go to. Blame the costume but not the man. Blame the automobile, but, not the manufacturer. It's Consciousness deceiving Itself. These are all forms of Self deception to create, maintain and perpetuate illusory existence rather than understanding what Existence Is in Itself. No model of Reality is perfect, but, once a model of Reality gets rooted in dishonesty and Self deception, everything that follows is bound to leave a trail of confusion and dishonesty, becoming its own trap. I just heard many have died a horrible death from an earthquake. All performed and carried out by none other than Consciousness and Consciousness alone, Not the Devil, Not the finite mind, Not the ego, not the belief in separate self. All praises and All blames can only belong to Consciousness and Consciousness alone. None Other. Countless life forms are being eaten alive at this moment, some barely days old, screaming in pain from the top of their lungs to no avail, All performed and directed by none other than Consciousness and Consciousness alone. Creating, maintaining and perpetuating form of Self deception cannot and will not do any genuine service in the Psyche of Consciousness but only add more insults to the sufferings. We can never be too careful when it concerns the Absolute True Nature of ourselves ,not just for our own sakes, but, also for the sakes of all life forms and beyond .

@@joajoajb Thank you for taking the time to share your insights.

@@I-Am-Aware Thank you for your open, mature, and sincere responce!

@@joajoajb You're very welcome! 🙏🏻

You really cleaned his clock with that pun! 😀

The past doesn't determine the present, the past trails out of the present like the wake of a ship. In other words, the present creates the past. The cause and effect of history on the present moment is largely interpretation eg. what was the cause of the 911 attacks? the birth of Osama Bin Laden, the invention of the aeroplane, the dawn of man etc...But it is all conceptual, the past cannot influence the future because all that exists is the present moment. Memory and imagination are the tools the brain uses to create a sense of time.

Whatever we miss in the past we aim for in future and the cycle continues

Even an "eye witness" to an event or crime is notoriously unreliable.

I try to get my head around this for instance I made a cup of tea so I must have boiled the kettle in the past .sorry I don't mean to sound stupid hope u understand lol.

@@darranthompson8202 You don't sound even remotely stupid. You sound like all of us! lol! I think it has something to do with the idea of "be here now" and how the "just awareness" Rupert is so good at pointing to is kind of an infinite, quiet, silent, expansive, unchanging... "thing". Only the objects of awareness change, and give the experience of time flowing.

@nsbd90now yeah thanks lol I sometimes think everything is in the mind.

@@darranthompson8202 Existence and conscious awareness of it is just. so. weird.

It is still possible it just normally requires a specific approach. Having gone through trauma and ptsd I would have flashbacks during meditation to those experiences. All I had to realise is that even the re-emerging feelings and memories only happen in the now 🙏 It is possible for all

My man you nailed it. I’m doing trauma therapy as well and this always got me. You are right. It’s an arising happening now. I’m still going to continue with therapy though.Thanks mate.

Understanding that we experience everything now and never in the past is not a difficult concept to understand even for those with serious trauma. The problem is they continue to relive the past trauma in the present.

We all do that to some greater or lesser degree for instance when we see a spider for example it takes us right back to childhood and how we were conditioned to be afraid of it probably by our parents..These are all triggers of stored experiences in the sub conscious as Rupert says, experiencing a traumatic experience in the present moment.. a vivid memory.

That's because the past was real for them and they're having real memories in the present of a past that really existed. A memory isn't a concept; it's a recording or representation of something that really happened, hence the past was real and has shaped the present. This is absolutely true by all conscious experience and is A Properly Basic Belief. No one experiences times as not being a real continuum of change and cause and effect. To believe that is blind faith.

I think intellectualizing on this idea of timelessness is a waste of time, its better to experience timelessness in your immediate experience, be it with meditation, self-enquiry, psychedelics or others

Of* late

or maybe that is just what it appear like from the limited mind and experience is causeless

@@lfm3585 Set fire to your house today, and see if it affects you tomorrow, or does it just appear to affect your limited mind.

​@@downswingplayer9712 that type of argument which is common and funny is a fallacy. It is called begging the question or assuming the conclusion, i.e, I have to first assume the premise that cause and effect exists then I can burn my house down.

@@lfm3585 If you burn your house down that is the cause. The affect will be that you will no longer be able to live in that house. It won't be an illusion and it will directly affect your experience, and probably not for the better.

@@downswingplayer9712 Saying "if you burn your house down" has all the baked in assumptions of what I am disagreeing with. I.e, I am an entity that creates events and those events trigger another events. Are you capable of imaging that isn't the case and make an argument of why that is the case.

Look for his meditation called "The Now is I AM". Being, and Now, are the same eternal and ever present reality. Past and future only "exist" in thought. In the absence or cessation of thought/thinking, there is no experience of time. What you experienced was a glimpse of your true and eternal nature. Hope this helps.

Hi Holly, I agree that it doesn't really matter, but just for fun we can talk about this it's as good a reason as any other :-) So the way I see it, you are using the cup of tea as proof of a past. This seems to be irrefutable evidence. So now just see it as what it is without the names and knowing what it is. Images, sensations, perceptions etc. Take away the story and there is no evidence at all of a past. But a very convincing experience of one.

We are also animals and we live in a state of now. And animals have the same emotion as we have fear, hate, love, sadness, depression. It is no difference being a human or an animal regarding the feelings , they have too, a past and a future, but less future because of us.They have anxiety about the future but they do not have the power to do anything about that . They are only spectators

You are not an animal, but you are welcome to be one, or a zombie. Lol

I think the concept of future is extremely important for survival and it applies to all living creatures. I don't think anxiety and depression are something unique to human beings either, although Idk how much scientific experiments agree with this. A cat or a dog who has been taken to the vet before and has had some bad experiences in the past will remember it on some level. And being subjected to the same pattern of events (like being taken in a car to a place with distinct smells and so on) will trigger anxiety in them, because their body automatically generates a sense of impending doom. Why do birds migrate when they get a sense of forthcoming natural disasters or calamitous events? Past and future are absolutely essential sensibilities for life, and nature has somehow ingrained that information within us because it wants itself (in its living manifestation in the biosphere) to survive and endure the conditions that are constantly threatening its existence

That is still being immersed in the illusion that time flows. It doesn't in reality. Our actual, direct experience of "the future" is still always right now... yes it changes moment to moment because that is the "monkey mind" chattering away and various "objects of awareness" coming into our awareness... including concepts, thoughts, feelings, imaginings about "the future". But the "just awareness" doesn't change through time.

@@nsbd90now Awareness doesn't change through time, but time time changes through awareness.

@@monsterhuntervideos4446 But that's just it. Time doesn't change.

@@nsbd90now Well that's the paradox. That time is always in a process of change and cause and effect, and that doesn't change. If that did change everything would be paused like a movie on a TV. The only thing that doesn't change about the universe is that it's always changing. If you respond to my comment that creates a change where you have added dialog in this conversation and where I will have an opportunity to respond. This is just undeniable. Only belief and strange philosophy could cause one to think otherwise.

@@nsbd90now You believe that time doesn't flow and that's perfectly OK, but I'm going to trust my God given instinct, intuition, logic, reason and experience that it's a very real thing. I mean at least I can say with confidence that the universe is undergoing a process of change and cause and effect, and I'm going to call that time. It is without a doubt A Properly Basic Belief, and unless you can prove otherwise I have absolutely no reason to doubt it. I just cannot adopt the B theory of time. if time is a fixed object that opens up a whole can of worms and philosophical problems I don't even want to go into.

True.

I've just only recently got a deeper understanding of time. I think what would have been really helpful here is to point out that all possible reality exists (now). If there is anything that will exist that doesn't exist now that means that God is less than all there is. Future God would be more than earlier God. Given the truth that all possible reality exists now we begin to get an understanding of how the past and future are just a perspective. It seems to be the future. It seems to be the past. What really took me to a greater understanding and what I think gets people stuck is the idea of continuity. "I broke my arm yesterday and now I have a cast today. Clearly the past exists." This false thinking can be clearly seen through when we realize that each slice of reality, each moment in time is a whole, complete universe in itself. Each slice of reality already exists because God is all that is or ever could be. It is our minds that create the illusion of continuity. We project/manifest a specific reality moment to moment. It is our mind that is changing our perception creating the sense of time. Reality itself is never changing. When we follow a thread of reality is the thread that our mind chose to follow. This is how and why we have what is perceived as free will. We can see a different set of slices of reality if we set our perception on those different slices of reality. (This is also why not invalidating any reality is important when trying to manifest a preferred reality. What we resist persists and you're not actually creating a new reality. You are just perceiving a new set of slices of reality.)

@@davidalbro2009 great reply, it should be a comment though since it’s very helpful!

Ok nvm I just saw what you did sir 🎉

Yes, the past was real at some point and it was present. Right now the past is just memory, if you erase your memory there is no past . Why is there no past or future? Because then we could leave the present and live in the past or the future. it is not possible because the two do not exist . We can predict the future but not experience it. You will say nonsense, of course I can experience the future. An example: you hear on the radio that it will rain tomorrow. and you say tomorrow i will experience rain . And so will you, but when you experience the rain it is no longer the future but the present

if the Past is Not Real Then Ur Always Paying Bills 4 Services U Don't Have Yet 🤔🎯👌💯

if the Past were Not Real We Would Never Need 2Take a Shit🤔🎯👌We Didn't Really Eat AnyThing💯

"If you ate a bowl of oatmeal this morning, it was reality then. Now, it's a thought. The memory is a (real) mental construct. But it's not the same kind of real as the bowl of oatmeal was when it was being eaten." - Jan Frazier

@@bam2385 Sooo 🤔🎯👌When U Shit Out That Oatmeal is That SumThing Like Returning 2the Moment When it was Reality Eating it???

and Ur Actually Returning the Oatmeal 2 a Bowl 🤔🖕🤡🎯👌💯

Yes. But only in your thoughts, isn't it?

Ah, and even this thought about something in an imagined past takes place in this moment, isn't it?

I agree. Arguing it's only real in your thoughts is silly. Your memories are an experience of real event that took place. Yes your experience is reality going through the 5 senses and being filtered into the brain into conscious experience, but there's know reason to believe it's not interpreting a real process of change and cause and effect. If one believes everything is only in the mind then one has to argue that no one and nothing objective is real and that they're just having a conscious dream. They could even reason they're the only reality and only consciousness, and therefore they are the absolute reality, LOL!

@@oneplusfunf2000 try shit in the morning without flushing and go to work. You see how real past is if you come home in the evening.

@@gunfugames7430 energy in another form. Food energy, body energy.....excrement energy. All forms of energy. Vibrations...

But it being previous implies a linear progression, doesn’t it?

@@jugganaut26 circular...i think...but then yoy know how they can be...