When I was younger, I read this book called “Journey to Ixtlan” by Carlos Castaneda. It is a story of his journey through an apprenticeship by a teacher known as Don Juan. I do not remember much about this book. There was a lot about the hunter/warrior/sorcerer of a mystical viewpoint originating from ancient Native American tradition. There was a fair share of experimentation with the psychotropic, naturally occurring poison called mescaline. For some reason, ingesting this, puking your guts out and laying in a half comatose state in the middle of the Mojave desert is somehow supposed to help you find your path. There is a lot about seeing lines of connection in space, identifying your spirit familiar and identifying true purpose. I will save you the read, save you from wandering the scorpion riddled desert at night barefoot, and cut to the chase here.
The one thing I learned from this book was the concept of erasing personal past. Now this concept, when I first read it, made me hate the author. In fact, I threw the book in the trash when I read this concept. I am someone who values history and the recounting of it above most anything. I have a bookshelf behind me with journals that I have kept since I was 18, they are my most precious possession. If the house caught on fire, I would grab my kids, wife and my journals in that order. Erase personal past? What a complete and total attack on everything important to me. I was hoping that Don Juan got bit by a rattler and the carrion birds would finish him off in the hot dry sunbaked desert floor.
Ok, that was a bit dramatic. Needless to say, I did not like that concept at all. However, 30 years later I am sitting here remembering that once concept and I am now writing this, in total humility, acknowledging that Castaneda was right. The problem is that I did not get it. I did not understand what was meant by erasing personal past. This does not mean erasing who you have been, where you came from, your ancestry and all that. You are not removing any legacy, or important lessons that you have gained over the years. Erasing personal past is a concept that refers to the now. When you woke up this morning, the personal past that got you to the state you were in this morning, no longer matters. It is all gone, done, expired, over. Every morning when you wake up, everything that happened in the past is gone. It no longer matters. All you have to deal with is what you are right now, what your circumstance is at this particular moment.
It does not matter what failures you have had, what success you might have once experienced. Every morning when you wake up, the only thing you have is what is currently before you. Everyday is a new day and you must, because that is all you have, to deal with what you have right now. Emphasis on regret is meaningless. Emphasis on the glory of yesterday is worthless. Emphasis on failures, or something missing, or gone is a waste of time. All you have is what you are right now, standing in front of the mirror staring yourself down. All you have is now, what you have today. When you erase personal past, you are acknowledging that you can only deal with today with what you have now, what your current state is. What got you here does not matter. Today does not acknowledge what was, or what it could be, it is only about what you can do now with what you have.
Erasing personal past is not burning down who you are and how you got here, it is a mentality of the here and now. You can no longer influence all the events, interactions, and conversations that got you to this morning. That is all done, gone, and never going to happen again. All you have is now, so what are you going to do about it?
Guy Reams
