To quote George Orwell's 1984

"he who controls the past controls the future, and he who controls the present controls the past"

Say you burned you hand in a fire and you looked back and remembered it and thought "Gee How stupid was I to get my hand in the fire like that."
Or !
"Well if I ever have to put my hand in fire again I will wear some protective gloves. Same past, same outcome (burned hand)but a different view on it.One that helps you and one that defeats you and this is done NOW. It's your choice. Look at the past as steps forward and steps toward your growth today! You change your past today!
peace

It's not about forgetting the past but more about forgiving the past. Each point of time will present us with situations, that when viewed through the lens of awareness, provides us with the opportunity for optimal growth.

All too often as humans we lament or regret some of those past situations and hold them in our present state of awareness thus preventing ourselves from fully enjoying and being in the only moment that matters which is right Now.

By making the decision to look at those perceived past mistakes Now and being willing to forgive( let go off) them (whether ourselves or others) we free ourselves to become full participants in the only moment that matters...Now. Thus setting into motion a creation of a future that we truly desire :)

I think we as a group have a tremendous opportunity to put our understanding of consciousness & reality to optimal use by deliberately applying the abilities within each of those components while still being realistic about the limitations of each.

Often the “realistic” crowd ridicules us because they think that our heads are in the cloud and that we are living a dream reality.

And you know what? For the most part, they are absolutely right!

On the other hand, we tend to look upon them as soul-less zombies of pure action where everything is accomplished with the absence of spirit, and they cannot figure out why and endless journey of material abundance does not really bring an inner completion to the soul.

We are fortunate to understand that there is a duality to even "action" because action must be done in harmony and in balance with "spirit"

We know this stuff.

However, we tend to get too lost is trying to substitute spirit in places where action must be taken and then we wonder why our attempt to "spiritualize" our lives does not bring the inner and outer results we desire.

Everything is a balance of "spirit" and "action"

Or you can say "consciousness" & "reality"

Reality is that we all have a past that is not where we want to remain for the rest of our lives.

Everybody's life is that.

It is a life-long journey to start somewhere called the "past" and end up somewhere else called the "future"

Hopefully the past and the future are different from each other.

How you get there is a product of your "NOW"

Let us look at this as a trip to the grocery store.

You are now at you house and you want to buy some milk at the grocery store.

Your state of mind is "NOW" and you are in the house.

But you want a litre of milk.

Therefore, you shift you "NOW" to having a litre of milk in your hand.

Your consciousness tells you "In order for you to have this new NOW you have to open the door and go to the store and by a litre of milk"

So you start walking out the front door - down the street - to the store.

While you are in the middle of this action, in your mind you see yourself having a litre of milk in your hand.

This is what facilitates you to keep walking towards the grocery store.

If your mind was still back in the house in the moment when you did not have, a carton of milk that "memory" is not going to help you to know what to do regarding your "journey" right now.

IF a friend suddenly jumps out of the bushes and asks you to help them paint their bedroom, your current state of mind is important for you to know how to process that distraction.

If your mind is still back where you were at home, you may say, "Hey why not, it’s not like I was doing something anyway".

However, if your mind was in the "future" where you already have a carton of milk in your hand, you could say to your bush-jumping friend, "I'm sorry, I am on a journey of purpose and my schedule doesn't have enough room to fit you in right now. However, once reality catches up to the vision in my mind, if you haven't frightened any other friends into helping you, I will consider coming over.

So you walk and walk and go to the store, buy your milk, walk and walk all the way back, all the while maintaining your vision of drinking a fresh glass of deliciously cold milk.

Now you could have kept your mind on the moment when you were home without any milk while you went to the store, but you would have not had a sense of purpose during your journey.

By keeping your mind on the result, you begin to have a sense of purpose to your journey, and that sense of purpose, guides you through all the distractions that may discourage your journey.

However, you have to be on a journey and not on your couch, contemplating about your litre of milk.

Until we get out of the house, we are all in the house within our "NOW"

Every one of us can suffer in the memory of our past because we all have a past.

Your past does not hold you back, in a way that it is essential for you to erase the memory of your past to be "free" in the moment of NOW.

It does not even affect you if you choose to sit down and "think" of all that has happened to you in the past.

It only affects you if you use your memory of your past as a justification for not being able to take steps towards your future desires that exists within "NOW" in your consciousness.

When you are walking towards to grocery store to buy the milk, remembering that earlier you didn't have any milk doesn't really affect you unless you somehow say "because I didn't have any milk moments ago, I am not entitled to imagine having some right now" and you use that excuse to turn back and go home without your milk.

You need to imagine yourself in the future so that you can decide how you spend your NOW in a meaningful way that will result in a destination of your desire.

All your "Manifestation" exercises are there to request the universe to send you opportunities to "act" upon in the NOW moment.

Remembering your past does not affect these opportunities.

Only choosing to "exist" in the past, as an explanation for your current existence that is not reflective of your "desired vision" will continue to attract opportunities that will allow you to remain in your past.

Since you always, desire a "different" future from where ever you are "at" you will always have a past within which you no longer desire to exist in.

This is a fact, and you cannot lament the existence of its memory in your mind.

You just have to "choose" the memory of your desired future because that is where you "choose" to exist.

It is the dissatisfaction of where we are that leads to the inspiration and drive to push us to change our futures. If we are comfortable with where we are there is no desire to change anything, everything is fine just as it is. But if we are not satisfied up to the point of, "This is ridiculous I need to change something here!"

In this way our past dissatisfaction fuels our desire to make our futures better.

This is similar to the adult that says I don't want my kids to have to grow up like I had to grow up. We are the parent of our future which is our children and our past is our childhood.

So we learn from the past child to be the parent of the future child to improve things. Our past is the parent to us, and we are the parent to our future. Just like everyone says how they want better for their kids than they had it, we need as well think of our futures as the same way.

I want better for my future than the past I have had to deal with. This way the past is a catalyst for our future and to be learned from to improve for us on what we had compared with what we will have.

Use the past instead of complain about the past, do not let it stop you from progress but fuel you ever onwards towards greater and greater futures always better than your ever growing past.

The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us how our end will be." Jesus said, "Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that you look for the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end and will not experience death."

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gthlamb.html

know your self and know other.

experience and enjoy.

What we know now because of the past is different than holding on to the past or dwelling in the past. If I had ever burnt myself with fire, I would right now know that fire burns. This would affect me now by me not holding my hand in fire. This is different than bringing up the memory of getting burned and feeling like a victim because I got burnt. So the key is to live in the now with the kNOWledge that you have NOW from your past experiences. The difference is if it empowers us or victimizes us.

It's not about forgetting your past. It's about forgetting your ATTITUDE about your past. For example... perhaps someone in the past said "You're a failure at (some skill)" a LOT and you really that took that person seriously. Therefore you never tried to ever attempt to do (some skill), no matter how other people tell you how easy it was.

Drop it.

That mean person from the past probably had a bad day and wanted to ruin your day. You know those days when things aren't going your way, you just get angry and whoever talks to you about WHATEVER next, you just scream back at them? Yeah those days.

That's probably what it means to dwell in the past.

If you can't drop your past, then your future is destroyed. Doesn't that make sense? You're just reliving the past, which will just become your future.