I have just come back from spending a few days in Paris. Everything is different from the memories I have of the years of my youth spent in that beautiful city. It’s funny, because I’ve been to Paris other times between those youthful years and now; but on this trip the changes were in front of me and I could not ignore them. They were screaming in my ears. My mind was comparing: images from the past were overwhelmed by those of the present. Memories of the streets and squares seemed to have changed. The people, the environment, the air I breathed, the thousands of restaurants and cafes, the museums, the River Seine, everything spoke to me. Everything seemed to be complaining and laughing at the same time. They were two separate times in my life. However, observing them then was a follow-up, a somewhat uncontrolled evolution. There is so much to look at and, oh wow, so much to tell! But this is not the place.
The book “A la Recherche du Temps Perdu” by Marcel Proust did not stop going through my mind. I said to myself: “Now I understand. Before, I thought I understood, but it’s not the same.” This reaffirms my belief that wisdom comes to us through the experiences of life.
Those two sides of the coin that I could see in Paris exist in our day today in this present of ours. Planet Earth advances with gigantic steps making us see that we must do the same. But with all the burden of the past we are very stuck, and to follow it we must pick up speed, leaving behind what we can no longer use in the place we are going. What load are we referring to? To the past, to memories, to habits, to traditions, to customs, to people and places: to everything that will not serve us in the very near future: regrets, fears, guilt, judgments, criticism, and all kinds of negative thinking to say the least. This is very heavy.
However, what we can take with us are those magical moments when love spoke to us, joy smiled at us, madness surprised us and our expansion had no limits. All that from the past and from all times gives us wings to fly and be able to keep up and reach a new, surprising and enriching future.
At what level of the path are you? How much have you left behind without regrets? How do you feel the weight? Do you have help or someone to support you? Haven’t you started yet? Each in their own time. We are in a very propitious moment to get rid of everything.
I Am the force of life and so are you.