Week 4. Spiritual Principle
Time
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Now considering we understand that the physical world (space) we perceive is an illusion, I’m sure the question you are now asking yourself is…
“For what is time? ... Who can even in thought comprehend it, so as to utter a word about it? ... If no one asks me, I know: If I wish to explain it to one that asked, I know not.”
— Saint Augustine
Well, I am going to try to explain “What is time?” via my enlightened masters.
“Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater obstacle to God than time: and not only time but temporalities, not only temporal things but temporal affections, not only temporal affections but the very taint and smell of time.”
— Meister Eckhart
“On the meridian of time, there is no injustice: there is only the poetry of motion creating the illusion of truth and drama.”
— Novelist Henry Miller
“I don’t think the human mind can comprehend the past and the future. They are both just illusions that can manipulate you into thinking there’s some kind of change.”
— Singer/Songwriter Bob Dylan
“In my mind I’m a blind man doin’ time.”
— Rapper Tupac Shakur
“Space and time are real for the man who is yet imperfect, and space is divided for him into dimensions; time, into past, present, and future.”
— Philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti
“We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time.”
— Author Alan Watts
Okay, scientific community, any thoughts on time?
“People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
— Physicist Albert Einstein
“For eternally and always there is only now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end.”
— Physicist Erwin Schrödinger
“Ultimately, all moments are really one, therefore now is an eternity.”
— Physicist David Bohm
“The moment has no time.”
— Leonardo da Vinci
“One must then go on to a consideration of time as a projection of multidimensional reality into a sequence of moments.”
— Physicist David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order
“If you can successfully embrace the Anti-Matter version of yourself, Time would cease to exist for You. You are God!”
— Vishwanath S.J.
“I think that the discovery of antimatter was perhaps the biggest jump of all the big jumps in physics in our century.”
— Physicist Werner Heisenberg
“Time is an illusion.”
— Physicist Albert Einstein
“I’m not afraid of death, I’m an old physicist. I’m afraid of time.”
— Professor Brand, Interstellar (Movie)
So, does anyone else want to add their thoughts on time?
“Time is just quantified eternity.”
— Author Deepak Chopra
“What we do in life ripples in eternity.”
— Philosopher Marcus Aurelius
“The ruins of time build mansions in eternity.”
— Poet William Blake
“Eternity is not future or past. Eternity is a dimension of now.”
— Author Joseph Campbell
“The soul is not ruled by time and space. The soul is infinite. It blends with the One in infinity.”
— Ram Dass
“Part of the human Self or Soul is not subject to laws of space and time.”
— Psychologist Carl Jung
“The soul is created in a place between Time and Eternity: with its highest powers it touches Eternity, with its lower Time.”
— Meister Eckhart
“Nirvana is this moment seen directly. There is no where else than here. The only gate is now.”
— Buddha
“To realize the unimportance of time is the gate to wisdom.”
— Philosopher Bertrand Russell
Furthermore, just like the illusion of space...
“Time is a learning device. It’s a screen onto which we see our thoughts projected. It’s actually an illusion of consciousness, real within the three-dimensional world but not within the ultimate reality of spirit.”
— Marianne Williamson, The Mystic Jesus (The Mind of Love)
“Come out of the circle of time and into the circle of love.”
― Poet Rumi
“God’s creation is for eternity and has no use for time.”
— Mari Perron, A Course of Love
“The trouble is you think you have time.”
— Buddha
As the experience of the world of form (matter) is an illusion, so too is the perception of time. This is also a principle that we, as members of this spiritual movement, must understand.
Time is a creation of the mind, which makes the perception of time an illusion existing exclusively in the world of form. And just as the illusion of separation has its purpose in creating Heaven on Earth, so does the perception of time.
The purpose of time is to appear linear and extremely limited, creating the concept of past and future existences. By appearing linear and limited, time distracts you from your true depth of being—your infinite, eternal, and divine nature.
By creating the concept of past and future experiences, time diverts your true existence from the present moment, where the infinite, eternal, and divine can be experienced.
Now, to create Heaven on Earth, we must have Earthly experiences that do take time. But we must not become spiritually blinded by time itself—by dwelling on the past or future, or by believing in its extreme limitations.
We can only experience Heaven on Earth in the moment. Yet it can coexist within the company of linear time, as long as the moment always prevails.
Our thoughts, which create our Earthly existence, can easily become lost in the illusion of time. And this is a principle we must all understand—not in time, but only in the present moment. Otherwise, we are merely blind men being punished by time.
Therefore, we, as a spiritual collective, will learn—through spiritual practices—how to stay present in the moment within the illusion of linear time. For it is here, in this moment, that Heaven on Earth exists and is already accomplished—outside the illusion of time.