"There Is No Future"

[Blessed2]

The age old (pun intended) non-dual answer: There is no time, no past, no future. They're thoughts.

 

Yeah, I cannot go to a future. Can't take a step to a future. I'd still be here and now.

 

I am here and now. Now is what is. Future isn't experienced.

 

So yeah it makes sense that future is a thought. In direct experience (now) future is a thought, no doubt about that.

 

But there's the sticky "but what if..."

 

Why is it sticky? Why does it seem to be so hard to let go the belief that there is future?

 

The interpretation that so easily seems to appear is that letting go the belief of future requires some kind of accepting or surrendering. Accepting that something unwanted might happen in the future. Surrendering to whatever might come.

 

But keeping in mind that that doesn't make any sense, and that letting a thought go has nothing to do accepting or surrendering, then how to go about this letting go of the belief of future?

 

Why is it sticky? Why is it hard? If it's not that I'm not accepting or surrendering something, then what is it really that's keeping the belief in place?

 

[Phil]

Nothing is keeping the belief in place - the belief is that something or someone is keeping it in place.  

 

It’s the mind’s subtle way of clinging to a sense of continuity & control as “the future” is seen clearly, by imposing there’s ’someone or something behind it holding it in place’. It may be aversion to feeling fear of the reality of groundless-ness, like a last ditch effort to get a foothold in a reality that doesn’t actually exist. 

 

Seeing the mind’s shenanigans clearly is simply being aware - recognizing this doesn’t require effort, surrender or accepting anything or any outcome at all, just seeing the belief for what it is: a thought, nothing more, without any power to define what’s real.