Time's Up

Time.

What is it, exactly? Is it the number of seconds that it takes to read this sentence? The scratches on a prison wall that mark the passing of days? Or is it the number of wrinkles that show up on your skin? Is it a measure of your descent into cynicism? All of the above?

A lot of metaphors describe time. Time is gold. Time flies. River of time. Sands of time. Make the time. All refer to movement and something that is easily lost once past. Or perhaps time is simply an arrangement the mind makes in order to make sense of the progression of events in our lives. Is this why the sages of old exhort us to live in the NOW, because every second that passes contains crucial events that we need to be aware of as they happen? But time isn't simply a series of events strung up in a line.

Time is a paradox. It can be subjective and objective at the same time. Imagine if you were immortal. You don't age, you don't get sick. Time seemingly stops for you. And yet, you watch your friends and loved ones get sick and die. Time still passes, and you are in the middle of it, subject to the emotional highs and lows that come with the experience.

It seems then that anything subjected to time is impermanent. You can even find it in the play of words. Temporary = temporal = time. And if you really think about it, every second that passes means the previous second was already lost. Even doing nothing, you are already losing something. If only the same could be said about losing excess body fat, eh?

What then does it mean to work towards the permanent, the eternal, the everlasting? Aha. It seems we've strayed into "religious" territory.

If time relates to loss and impermanence, then it seems that for something to be eternal it shouldn't be bound by time. If there is no time, then there is no beginning and no ending. Not a nihilistic event, but just one big NOW. So when the ancient sages said to live in the NOW, perhaps what they are referring to is to live towards what is permanent and eternal. It is like the Ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail. It is the circle that is never ending, it just IS.

If you've spent enough time researching the esoteric, you would have encountered descriptions of the supernal realms being timeless and spaceless. Unfortunately, without having experienced it, it's hard to imagine what it would be like to live in a realm with no time, and no space.

Perhaps physics can help give a clue. Let's take a closer look at Einstein's theory of relativity. I won't discuss the history or technical aspects of it and just say that as one approaches the speed of light, time slows down relative to everything else. An astronaut in a spaceship that's traveling close to the speed of light might only experience the passing of a few months in deep space when on Earth many years could have already passed.

As one reaches the speed of light, it is theoretically possible to go back in time. In this case, at the speed of light you may say that one is existing beyond time because one is not bound by its progression. This ties in with the accounts of the so-called akashic records, where one may view scenes from the past and if one were advanced enough, scenes of possible futures.

But here's where it gets interesting. From what I understand of the theory of relativity, as long as you have mass, you cannot really hit the speed of light. You can approximate it, but not get to the speed of light itself. It's interesting, because that essentially means that you should be beyond space as well in order to get to the speed of light itself. How then can you shed mass in order to get to the speed of light?

The potential is actually in all of us, again as described in Einstein's formula E=mc2. This formula is frequently associated with the atomic bomb, but I got insight into its deeper meaning by watching an episode of History Channel's Ancient Aliens. One scientist explained the formula as follows:

"When you have atoms break apart or come together, you lose a small amount of mass. It turns out that the amount of energy in mass is related to the mass times the speed of light squared (E=mc2). And the speed of light is such a huge number, and that's what converts the small amount of mass into a huge amount of energy."

So within each particle of the universe there exists a huge amount of energy, but most of it in the form of mass. But the potential is there. Shed the mass, and you release the energy. Sounds almost like a description of the soul, doesn't it? At death, we shed the physical body and we enter into the supernal realms.

It's interesting that in Master Choa Kok Sui's book Achieving Oneness with the Higher Soul, he describes the soul as "spiritual energy with consciousness." So one is a being of light, with consciousness. One doesn't need to experience death in order to get into this state and this actually forms the basis of practice for many yogic traditions.

As the world enters a phase when a lot of people are thinking of the "End Times" (not the same as the end of time, mind you) coupled with fears of a global recession and a lot of uncertainty about the future, it would do well to think about working towards the permanent rather than on things that will fade with time. I'm not saying one should renounce the world, but rather to know how to discern between the permanent and the impermanent, so that one knows how to manage priorities. This allows us to live and thrive in the world without being attached to it.

But time need not sound so negative. According to Kabbalah, time is also equated with mercy because it is the interval between cause and effect. This gives one the opportunities to make up for any negative actions one might have done in the past, or to reinforce and affirm positive actions. But this only works if one believes in the Law of Cause and Effect (also known as karma).

Time is either a glass half-full or half-empty, depending on your disposition. But I did say it was a paradox, didn't I?