To keep the past real is to carry a heavy load. As we go through life, we experience many challenges, we see unimaginable injustice, and we blame others for our suffering just as we hold ourselves guilty for so much.

To hold a grievance is to cling to painful memories. The more they accumulate, the more challenging it becomes for your mind to carry. At some point, non-forgiveness becomes the mind’s full-time job, robbing you of joy because endless attention and energy is diverted toward the telling of so many painful and inter-connected stories.

The mind convinces us that replaying grievances, understanding them, dissecting them, and making them real or fighting back is the way out from this hell. You feel as though you cannot just let it go; otherwise nothing will be resolved, and everyone will be let off the hook. In truth, the only one on the hook here is the one doing the carrying.

Error brings its own punishment, or it wouldn’t be error. The punishment always comes in the form of ongoing suffering and ultimately crisis. Isn’t it also an error to hold guilt over someone who has fixed the problem or is no longer causing it? By doing so, isn’t the non-forgiveness causing the problem now rather than the errors of the past?

If someone attacks or makes us suffer in some way, it is enough to respond naturally. We can point it out or even explain the problem lovingly. We can express ourselves fully, going into the emotions if needed, then we can let it go completely. We can forgive immediately and move on.

The past is not real because it is not here. To hold onto the past is to pull ourselves away from all that is here: life itself, in this eternal present moment. What problem is there here, now? Now we can move through life as guiltless as children because the baggage has been put aside.