Letting go of the past

Our lives are weighed down with past memories and expectations from the future. How can we let go of all that clutter and live life spontaneously? We feel burdened not because of our present but because of the past hanging around our neck like a heavy stone.

Osho gives some useful tips for separating psychological memories from the factual ones. It is good to remember that mere facts never burden us. The memory of our name or phone number is not a burden but a psychological memory of an insult or even a felicitation can become a hang up.

Interestingly, many of us tend to forget facts but we tend to remember and dwell upon psychological memories.

Osho points out, "Memory has technical uses. You have to know how to drive, you have to know where your home is, and you have to recognise your wife and your children. But those are not psychological hang-ups. Factual memory is useful. It enhances life, facilitates it. But if you come home and you look at your wife and think of all your past experiences with her then that is a psychological hang-up. If she was angry with you in the recent past, then that memory can cloud your eyes. If she was nasty or sad, then it too can colour your perception. Psychological impressions change your way of looking and perceiving her as she is standing in front of you at this moment. You are no longer looking at her but at someone who doesn't exist. You are looking at a ghost, not at your wife. And she may also be looking at you in the same way. Drop the past each moment. Just as you clean your house, clean your inner house of the past. All psychological memories have to be dropped. Just keep factual things and your mind will be very clean and clear."

Soon you will find that there is a new light in your life - the light of here-now, the Present.