By Gonny 
Most of us walk through life with a silent companion.
Not a person, not even a thought….but ‘a past.’
It sits quietly in the background and whispers who we are, what usually happens to us, and what we should be careful about. We rarely question it. We assume the past is ‘ours’….it is ‘true’… it ‘defines’ us.
And yet, A Course in Miracles suggests something quite radical: we are hardly ever in the present, we are replaying the past.
Which naturally leads to a very simple, but very deep question:
where did that past even come from?
If we go back to the beginning, something striking becomes clear.
A newborn baby does not arrive with a biography. There is no emotional résumé, no identity, no personal history. A baby does not think in terms of being sensitive, unwanted, not enough, or too much. A baby simply is. Seeing, hearing, feeling, being held, being fed, crying, laughing.
In the language of the Course, there is no self-concept yet, no sense of time, no ego story. Just presence. You could say the baby is a clean slate, or perhaps more accurately, a clear mind. Very close to the Holy Instant, without knowing it.
So far, so good.
And then… very innocently… something begins.
The past does not start dramatically. It does not announce itself. It slips in quietly…and thr most important thing: a pattern is noticed…a reaction is remembered…a feeling is linked to an event.
Then language appears. “This is mommy.” “That is no.” “Good girl.” “Don’t do that.” And very subtly, something new is born. An “I” who experiences things. Not the true Self. Not the Christ. But the story-self. The beginning of identity.
From that moment on, the world is no longer just experienced. It is interpreted.
The ego is not created in one big moment. It is built through repetition combined with meaning, and like I said slowly it becomes a pattern.
One time being ignored becomes “people don’t see me.”
One time being corrected becomes “I do things wrong.”
One time being laughed at becomes “I am embarrassing.”
The mind quietly says: important… remember this.
A little file is created. Then another. Then another. Before we know it, there is an archive. The Course calls this past learning. And the ego gently, but firmly, concludes: “Ah… now I know who I am.”
This is the moment the present begins to fade.
From now on, every new experience is filtered through old ones. Instead of “what is happening now,” the mind says, “this is just like before,” “I know how this ends,” “this always happens.” Without noticing, we stop seeing and start recognizing. We are no longer in the present, we are in memory.
This is why the Course can say so simply and so uncompromisingly:
you see only the past.
Without past, it has no story.
Without story, it has no identity.
Without identity, it disappears.
So it keeps the past alive. Like a very dedicated archivist.
The tiny mad idea was taken seriously, the Course tells us. And once it was taken seriously, something had to be built around it. A personality. A history. A character. A narrative. Not to punish you, not to hurt you, but simply to exist. The ego is a story that needs chapters. And those chapters are called “my past.”
And now… the gentle miracle.
The past is not who you are……It is what you learned.
It is not your Self……It is your conditioning.
It is not truth…..It is memory with meaning attached.
Which means it can be questioned. It can be reinterpreted. It can be undone.
That is exactly what the Holy Spirit offers. Not by erasing memories and not by denying experiences, but by removing the identity you gave them. He does not say, “Nothing happened.” He gently says, “This is not who you are.”
One of the most liberating ideas in A Course in Miracles is that God does not remember your past. God does not track your mistakes, does not catalogue your traumas, does not define you by your history. Why? Because God only knows you as you truly are….Timeless. Innocent. Whole.
The past is not in Heaven. So it is not in God. And therefore it is not in Truth. It exists only in the ego’s memory, which means it exists only as long as you believe in it.
So yes, what we intuitively feel is absolutely right: we start as a clean slate, and then we build a past. And you do not have to carry it.
You are not your childhood, your experiences or your story.
You are the one watching the story.
And that one… has never been hurt.
You could say the ego is very busy keeping records, the Holy Spirit is very busy inviting you to let them go, and God has absolutely no idea what you are talking about. He just sees YOU. (Whole, now and at Home).
With love and light
G.