Time
We perceive time only by perceiving change. In fact, time is a measurement of change. When there is no change whatsoever, and no movement, time is at a standstill. In fact, it is easy to see that time is the flow of successive differentiations in manifestation. Therefore, since all differentiations are within the boundless experience of true nature, time occurs in pure presence. All time -- past, present, and future -- happens within the expanse of pure presence. And since we experience presence only in the present, presence is the present of all time, including past and future.
Inner Journey Home, p. 302 • discuss »
Inner Journey Home, p. 302 • discuss »
Time is the concept we develop to account for the fact that we observe changes and movements. If there were no such thing as change or movement we would not need the notion of time. In other words, we need time to explain processes, the fact that phenomena progress from one form to another. We invent the dimension of time to account for this prolongation of phenomena, for it is not in space. However, we have seen that change is not from the past to the present, but rather from nonmanifestation to manifestation. Each stage of the progress of phenomena simply means that new creations have emerged. We need time, and feel the passage of time, only when we are in the midst of the changing phenomena. But when we are outside of all phenomena, and are experiencing ourselves from the vantage point of the logos, we directly perceive how all phenomena arise, and that nothing moves from past to future. It simply flows out, always in a new condition. We recognize that no time ever passes on anything, for all forms and objects are eternally new.
Inner Journey Home, p. 375 • discuss »
Inner Journey Home, p. 375 • discuss »
What are the implications of this for understanding what it means to be ourselves? If we apply it to our internal life, we can see that the more we are present and the more fully we are experiencing and being our essential presence, the more we will experience things slowing down. This seems to be a law of time—not that linear time is being altered, but more time becomes experientially “available” to us. Thus, the slowing down of our experience of time will place us more and more in the present. The more we are the presence, the more we are in the present. So, the slowness of time has a lot to do with being in the present.
The Unfolding Now, p. 154 • discuss »
The Unfolding Now, p. 154 • discuss »
What is useful to recognize, then, is that our time orientation will disconnect us from our True Nature because it contradicts the now-ness, the timelessness, of our True Nature. It is paradoxical, of course, to think about things that way because we are always thinking in terms of time. The time axis is very important for the mind. The mind is always thinking of things in the past and of what it is going to do in the future. It rarely settles in the moment. If it did, it would become quiet. When you settle into the moment, you realize that there is not much happening—a few things here and there. The primary awareness is of the immediacy of the moment. This is because presence—being in the now—is characterized by beingness, simply being here now. In contrast, our familiar self is based on doing, going, making things happen. We do not trust that action can arise and proceed from inner stillness; we do not recognize that Being is the ground of everything. To be in the now connects you with that quiet beingness that underlies all changes, all activity—the simple hereness where what is most basic is not activity but presence.
The Unfolding Now, p. 160 • discuss »
The Unfolding Now, p. 160 • discuss »
We come to realize that the totality, what we call God or the cosmic individual, is not only a oneness of space but also a oneness of time. The cosmic amoeba is all time. So we have a four dimensional space here. This is called Einsteinian space. The cosmic individual is neither in space nor in time. You are eternal presence, in the sense that you are now, in this very moment, all times, all places. Realizing the state of God, or the cosmic existence, is realizing that eternity. There is a sense that you are seeing time passing, but time passes within the totality, within God. In the totality, it is all now, and time and space pass within you.
Diamond Heart Book V, p. 114 • discuss »
Diamond Heart Book V, p. 114 • discuss »
Yes, that’s definitely the case, your body and my body are aging. That’s a valid way of viewing time. But there is another point of view. You could see that your body at this moment is not in a continuum with your body from ten years ago. Your body at this moment appears right now, and your body from fifteen years ago doesn't exist here and now. How can something that doesn't exist produce something that is here right now? That's actually the less logical perspective. We skim over that illogic because we believe the concept of time and, hence, of causality. If you apply logic completely, you have to question how something that doesn't exist could produce something that exists right now. How could that be? Conventional thinking is far less logical than the point of view I'm presenting. I'm saying that there is something real, the ground of all that is here, that is at this very moment manifesting things spontaneously each instant.
Diamond Heart Book V, p. 311 • discuss »
Diamond Heart Book V, p. 311 • discuss »
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