Wayne Dyer: “There is no past.”

Ray: If you’re raised with pessimistic, negative beliefs—those very excuses you’re talking about—that’s your world. That’s your understanding of reality. So, in a fundamental way, abandoning those unhealthy beliefs means abandoning your life. That requires a real leap of faith, doesn’t it?

Wayne: You’ve already abandoned everything you’ve ever known. All you have is now. That’s all there is. The whole idea that you’re tied to what you’ve been is nonsense.

I use the metaphor of a boat going down the river. When you’re standing at the back of the boat, looking at the water as you’re going along at 40 knots, what you see there is the wake. The wake is the trail that’s left behind.

You can ask the question, “What’s making the boat go forward?” It can’t be the wake. The wake can’t drive the boat. It’s just the trail left behind. It can’t make the boat go forward, any more than the trail that you’ve left behind in your life is responsible for where you’re going now in your life.

The belief that whatever you’ve been is what you have to be is a meme—a mind virus.

There is no past. That’s another illusion. Everything that’s ever happened to you, to me, to anyone in this world, happened in the present moment. That’s all there ever is.

So your relationship to life isn’t your relationship to your past, it’s your relationship to the present moment.

How good are you at being in the now? Most people tell themselves these excuses—I’ve always been this way, how can I possibly change, this is my nature, I can’t help it—that are just memes. They’re belief systems that keep you from being able to become all that you’re intended to become. They’re impediments to your reaching God-realization, or Tao-centeredness. People lose track of their purpose, because they are so back there—living in their past.

Byron Katie speaks about this: Where would you be without your story? Carlos Castaneda used to say if you don’t have a story, you don’t have to live up to it. So get rid of your story.

*Read a selection of interviews, including key excerpts from the full interview with Wayne, on my website, www.hemachandra.com, and read an earlier interview with Dr. Dyer on his site, www.drwaynedyer.com.