This post is some of my ramblings/excursions/visions about the nature of time.
Please leave your thoughts in a comment if any of this sparked something in you.
Time is the creator and destroyer of all forms.
Time is the creator and dissolver of all worlds and all beings.
Time is like the great potters wheel,
From which multifarious forms/worlds emerge and dissolve.
Time is not a thing, or anything, it is a no-thing, because all things are transformed in time.
Time is change, and everything changes, so there are no real things in time except as passing phenomena.
Time is like the ultimate player of forms, time can make or dissolve any form as it pleases.
Time is like an LED screen, that can manifest or null anything it desires.
Time is not bound to linearity or process, it just chooses to appear as such.
Time is both continuity and discontinuity, and can abruptly change 100% of contents if it wills it so.
An example of that would be the way a dream spawns itself in experience.
In the dream at night, time makes a non-linear shift in experience and there is a distinct discontinuity.
Though, once the dream spawns it may appear to have somewhat of a linear fluid story,
But the stage and its starting contents emerge instantly.
One experiences a completely different time process when in the dream state vs the waking state, and both have their own sort of linear continuity, but emerge instantly when the shift happens.
All the laws of physics are like specific linear processes that time chooses to manifest itself as.
The appearance of time should not be mistaken as the essence of time anymore than the nature of the movie should be taken to be the nature of the LED screen that shows it.
Gravity bends the flow of time into cycles.
They say, gravity is the effect and not a cause.
Gravity is created by the dips in the space-time fabric.
Like the sun makes a massive dip in the fabric, and therefore creates a large cone of gravity causing all the 9 planets to revolve around itself as a result.
But what created the sun, and what placed the sun in that position, to create that kind of dip to make all the 9 planets orbit around it?
One can regress with a linear story about formation of stars etc.
But this would be an endless regression, a kind of endless backstory, and maybe in reality none of that actually happened.
Like if your long lost school friend suddenly appeared in your dream, and you go on questioning him about his back story, it may sound convincing in the dream, but all that time never happened, the dream simply emerged/spawned all at once with him suddenly instantly standing in front of you.
The deeper I think about it, I feel there is no causation in reality.
The causation back stories we make up are like a projection backwards or forwards from the mind stuff.
That is why stories often begin with “Once upon a time…”, and the elements are simply laid out as facts at that point.
That is the junction point where non-linear time suddenly took on a linear story appearance (like the dream example).
The idea of Agents, Agency, and the Exercise of Agency are all illusions/appearances.
The whole moves the whole, no part moves the whole.
All of these exist when not seeing the bigger picture.
We use these ideas for convenience because the bigger picture is too complex.
Initially there is no self in time, there is only the flow of time.
Then time hardens up its own section forming a Self (the formative years), and the later part of its own flow is experienced as the outside world wrt. that formed self.
So good times create a good self, bad times create a bad self.
Subsequent good times may dissolve the bad self etc.
In the larger picture, the self we think we are is the gathering of a certain time segment.
It is like how we go on trips and carry our video cam with us.
Once the trip is finished, our recorded footage + our own memories become the trip we carry with us in time.
Similarly the Self is the recorded memory of times.
Your gain or loss of anything is not personal, it is the time path that creates those things.
All will power is just movement upstream, and eventually all that is gained through upstream movement is nulled.
Of course even all that is gained through downstream movement is also nulled, but the consolation is at least you did not put any effort to get any of those things.
An agent feels a sense of defeat once the downstream of time starts to work against his dreams/goals/wishes etc.
Like say you admired your older cousin when you were 12 years of age and he was 25.
You wanted to become 25 and possess all that independence, freedom, knowledge, strength, power, pleasure possibilities etc.
Then as you grow to be 25, time may grant you the same stature, you are happy and you have become the self you desire.
But now if you want to endlessly keep growing that, then time will bring old age, infirmity, sickness, death, losses and make that same self suffer.
The same time bestowed those graces and that same time took all of it away too.
The ignorance here is that, the self is taken to be independent of time and subject to it,
While the knowledge is that, the self itself is nothing but a hardened version of a time segment itself.
Even ones becomings/gatherings of personality/memory/possessions/relations etc. also belong to the time path.
A good person is a gathering/aggregate of good times, a bad person is the gathering/aggregate of bad times.
Even ones potentials, proclivities, predelictions, tendencies, possibilities belong to time.
So the self we believe we are is time’s property.
We falsely believe we are that hardened piece of time.
Our true self is only the witness.
There is only the field
There is only the dream.
There is only the field.
Whatever suffering comes to you is only an appearance of/in the dream field.
The suffering does not come from any particular person, situation, or any thing/event or condition,
They are all only appearance and props of the will of the field itself.
The whole moves the whole, no part moves the whole.
One of the best analogies for this is the movie screen.
The whole movie is playing out in the screen,
And the pixels making the characters in the screen do not have any causal relationship with any of the other pixels, though they might appear to have it in a specific movie.
The whole movie is already there in the film roll,
And the pixels on the screen are not causing each other in any way.
They are all independently responding all at once.
However in our minds when we create meaning, we try to look for causal relations.
Even if causal relations appear to exist they are still only a persistent illusion.
For instance, say you are watching the movie ‘Groundhog day’,
And he keeps waking up everyday in the same bed with the same alarm clock and time,
Next time you see the bed, you’ll immediately predict correctly that the alarm will ring and wake him up.
But that kind of causal relationship is a feature of that particular movie,
And in reality all the pixels are independent of each other and only following the projector reel.
So it is a case of ‘the whole moves the whole’, no part moves the whole wrt. the screen.
Causation is an illusion.
There is only the field, and whatever plays within it is the play of the field itself.
Whatever world, condition, situation, circumstance, or relationship appears,
Is only an appearance that the field plays out just like a movie.Â
The power of the field generates “Experience”.
We have various gross-subtle bodies that relate to what is outside to create experience.
Even the transformation of those bodies (by the field itself or by the power of the higher bodies of your own), is also an appearance of the field.
The field is consciousness, only the field is.
All else is an appearance of the field.
The field is the substrate and all that appears are its modulations.
Depending upon what is awake in you,
i.e. the highest body awake in you and its vision/potential/power,
It will transform all of the lower bodies.
Paradoxically when it comes to our bodies, all of them are subservient to the field.
So all their power is only surrogate power, that is of surrendering to the field itself and thereby channeling more of it.
The more you yield to the higher, the greater the powers and vision you channel.
The field is our highest ultimate body technically speaking.
So ultimately if the field itself is awake in you, it will draw you back into itself by transforming the rest.
In a way, during the transformation, nothing fundamentally changed,
All that changed was that all the particles rearranged themselves by yielding to the higher frequency zone that was awake in you, and along with that, all the lesser powers played themselves out and completed themselves.
VR analogy for Turiya
In Vedanta,
There are the following different states of consciousness:
# Turiya
# Deep sleep = Turiya + Deep sleep
# Dreaming = Turiya + Deep sleep + Dreaming
# Waking = Turiya + Deep sleep + Dreaming + Waking
Turiya is not really a state,
But it is the transcendent reality,
That underlies all the 3 states,
Of waking, dreaming, sleeping.
A great way to experientially imagine this,
Is to take the analogy of a VR headset.
You are Turiya.
You first wear the VR headset ‘switched off’ on your head first = Deep sleep
Say the VR headset cycles through these 3 states of:
# Being switched off = Deep sleep
# Movie mode = Dream
# ‘First person’ avatar game mode = Waking
Let’s imagine there are 2 screens on the VR:
# The screen closer to your eye is the movie screen.
# The screen farther away from your eye is the game screen.
The 2 can play simultaneously also, but generally,
When the game screen is switched on,
The movie screen turns translucent,
And serves as a sort of AR (augmented reality) for the game screen.
Imagine you forgot you were wearing this headset,
And got immersed into the game screen appearance,
Then you will believe the game world shown on it is the ground reality.
Supposing you snapped out of the trance,
And realized you were wearing the headset,
This real you that woke up to this is ‘Turiya’.
The VR headset still cycles between being switched off, movie mode, and game mode.
However now the real you is awake behind all of these states.
Imagine trying to convince another avatar in the game mode,
That he is actually another person like you wearing the headset.
How would you go about it?
Whatever he points to in that VR game world,
And even his avatar body, would have nothing to do with what you are trying to point at.
Similarly the other implication of this analogy would be that:
If you went to deep sleep in the game mode for the other players,
It means your headset is in its turned off state.
The real you wearing the headset is still awake.
However, since your headset is switched off, you would receive no information from the VR game world.
Other players would find you motionless/asleep/dead.
And even if they waved at you from within the game,
You would not receive that.
But however the real you, is still awake,
Just observing the blankness of the switched off screen.
This real you that is transcendent of the VR headset and its simulated worlds = Turiya.
There are the following different states of consciousness:
# Turiya
# Deep sleep = Turiya + Deep sleep
# Dreaming = Turiya + Deep sleep + Dreaming
# Waking = Turiya + Deep sleep + Dreaming + Waking
Turiya is not really a state,
But it is the transcendent reality,
That underlies all the 3 states,
Of waking, dreaming, sleeping.
A great way to experientially imagine this,
Is to take the analogy of a VR headset.
You are Turiya.
You first wear the VR headset ‘switched off’ on your head first = Deep sleep
Say the VR headset cycles through these 3 states of:
# Being switched off = Deep sleep
# Movie mode = Dream
# ‘First person’ avatar game mode = Waking
Let’s imagine there are 2 screens on the VR:
# The screen closer to your eye is the movie screen.
# The screen farther away from your eye is the game screen.
The 2 can play simultaneously also, but generally,
When the game screen is switched on,
The movie screen turns translucent,
And serves as a sort of AR (augmented reality) for the game screen.
Imagine you forgot you were wearing this headset,
And got immersed into the game screen appearance,
Then you will believe the game world shown on it is the ground reality.
Supposing you snapped out of the trance,
And realized you were wearing the headset,
This real you that woke up to this is ‘Turiya’.
The VR headset still cycles between being switched off, movie mode, and game mode.
However now the real you is awake behind all of these states.
Imagine trying to convince another avatar in the game mode,
That he is actually another person like you wearing the headset.
How would you go about it?
Whatever he points to in that VR game world,
And even his avatar body, would have nothing to do with what you are trying to point at.
Similarly the other implication of this analogy would be that:
If you went to deep sleep in the game mode for the other players,
It means your headset is in its turned off state.
The real you wearing the headset is still awake.
However, since your headset is switched off, you would receive no information from the VR game world.
Other players would find you motionless/asleep/dead.
And even if they waved at you from within the game,
You would not receive that.
But however the real you, is still awake,
Just observing the blankness of the switched off screen.
This real you that is transcendent of the VR headset and its simulated worlds = Turiya.
What frequency space do you occupy?
All of the infinite frequency potentials are contained in us.
All essence potentials exist in and as us.
When it comes to the manifest frequencies however, the only variation is in degree.
It is like the pictures on your computer screen.
There are a series of RGB LEDs.
Each of these RGB LEDs could emit a color within the following ranges:
Red – 0 to 255
Green – 0 to 255
Blue – 0 to 255
And the picture on the screen is the gestalt holistic perception of the ‘relationship’ of the various LED emissions.
The nature of our experience of life is very similar.
We perceive a relationship between the various frequencies components in our space as ‘experience’ (from subtle to gross).
Frequency = Vibration = Sound.
The manifest universe is the spoken word of Brahman.
So all of experience is our perception/grasp of the picture/music of sound frequencies.
Experience grasped in a blink or moment (the immediate slice, apperception) can be seen as “a picture of frequencies” = Direct apperception without memory.
While experience that is in time is like “the music/movie of frequencies” = Perception that contains memory and projection = Referred to as ‘The Mind’.
(because if there is no memory, then there is no mind)
Now coming back to the question, what is the frequency space you occupy?
To answer this, look at your experience music right now?
We can look at different aspects such as:
What is its intensity, subtlety, fineness or coarseness?
What is your experience, when you drop all efforts and do nothing?
Simply be aware in non-doing and scan the frequencies in your experience.
That gives you an idea about your current basal frequency space and its frequency forms, the context of your space right now.
There is: state and station of experience.
State is what is reached by your efforts.
Station on the other hand is the condition that exists when you are not doing anything.
Now, just like how the measurements from an instrument depend on the subtlety of that instrument itself (like a volt-meter cannot measure millivolts), your perception is conditioned by the subtlety of the instrument itself that you occupy.
So say, you sit down in non-doing, initially, you experience a blank, this is because your perception has not sensitized itself yet.
Like how when you enter a dark room from bright sunlight, suddenly everything is pitch black.
Once perception acclimatizes, you start to see clearly in the dark room.
All essence potentials exist in and as us.
When it comes to the manifest frequencies however, the only variation is in degree.
It is like the pictures on your computer screen.
There are a series of RGB LEDs.
Each of these RGB LEDs could emit a color within the following ranges:
Red – 0 to 255
Green – 0 to 255
Blue – 0 to 255
And the picture on the screen is the gestalt holistic perception of the ‘relationship’ of the various LED emissions.
The nature of our experience of life is very similar.
We perceive a relationship between the various frequencies components in our space as ‘experience’ (from subtle to gross).
Frequency = Vibration = Sound.
The manifest universe is the spoken word of Brahman.
So all of experience is our perception/grasp of the picture/music of sound frequencies.
Experience grasped in a blink or moment (the immediate slice, apperception) can be seen as “a picture of frequencies” = Direct apperception without memory.
While experience that is in time is like “the music/movie of frequencies” = Perception that contains memory and projection = Referred to as ‘The Mind’.
(because if there is no memory, then there is no mind)
Now coming back to the question, what is the frequency space you occupy?
To answer this, look at your experience music right now?
We can look at different aspects such as:
What is its intensity, subtlety, fineness or coarseness?
What is your experience, when you drop all efforts and do nothing?
Simply be aware in non-doing and scan the frequencies in your experience.
That gives you an idea about your current basal frequency space and its frequency forms, the context of your space right now.
There is: state and station of experience.
State is what is reached by your efforts.
Station on the other hand is the condition that exists when you are not doing anything.
Now, just like how the measurements from an instrument depend on the subtlety of that instrument itself (like a volt-meter cannot measure millivolts), your perception is conditioned by the subtlety of the instrument itself that you occupy.
So say, you sit down in non-doing, initially, you experience a blank, this is because your perception has not sensitized itself yet.
Like how when you enter a dark room from bright sunlight, suddenly everything is pitch black.
Once perception acclimatizes, you start to see clearly in the dark room.
Notice that all change is causeless
Where is change coming from?
Feel your ‘consciousness’ and look/see where change is coming from?
From the point of view of ‘being consciousness’, what is changing the contents/scenery/appearances?
Isn’t it just causeless? All coming from nothing(no thing)?
I can even go one more level abstract.
That in truth, “nothing is changing”
The above statement can be seen in 2 ways:
1. ‘NOTHING’ as a noun/the all/the ONE/the whole field -> is -> changing
2. No-‘thing’ is changing, because all things are the same divine light
(like how the LEDs in your screen are always shining in essence and only dancing in degree of brightness causing the dance/music/play that you see on your screen as a video playing or movie.)
Also another fine differentiation I would like to make between ‘is’ and ‘IS’.
IS {The ONE is changing}
The capital ‘IS’ accommodates even the state of changing within it.
So the greatest abstraction object can be: “IS”.
Feel your ‘consciousness’ and look/see where change is coming from?
From the point of view of ‘being consciousness’, what is changing the contents/scenery/appearances?
Isn’t it just causeless? All coming from nothing(no thing)?
I can even go one more level abstract.
That in truth, “nothing is changing”
The above statement can be seen in 2 ways:
1. ‘NOTHING’ as a noun/the all/the ONE/the whole field -> is -> changing
2. No-‘thing’ is changing, because all things are the same divine light
(like how the LEDs in your screen are always shining in essence and only dancing in degree of brightness causing the dance/music/play that you see on your screen as a video playing or movie.)
Also another fine differentiation I would like to make between ‘is’ and ‘IS’.
IS {The ONE is changing}
The capital ‘IS’ accommodates even the state of changing within it.
So the greatest abstraction object can be: “IS”.
God is ‘consciousness’
The plato’s world of forms are the forms of essences.
They are all present in different degrees in different people.
Everyone is innocent and unfolding their karmic potential and destiny.
They are actually god(field) playing and living as those various forms.
All forms are god and this is seen when the form dissolves.
All the people you ever met, and all of this physical world, is nothing but god’s form.
When somebody dies what happens? What is left is ashes and memories.
The person that was thought to be real, was all a play of form and it vanishes into the formless, is sucked back into the ocean of the unmanifest and the ashes return to earth.
Everything ultimately lives on inside you until you understand the truth.
There is only god, all else is an appearance.
God is the field, the infinite potential field, that MANIFESTS like THIS.
Everything that appears in this field of consciousness is god.
Everyone is a symptom of the ONE, the props of the play of the ONE.
The afraid contracting self in a world of hostile others is also the illusion and play.
Only the play is real, no character really exists, and even I do not exist.
And even the play isn’t real, only the field is real.
The field of the unmanifest, i.e. of infinite unborn potential.
All form is birthed in this field, and death is when the form returns to the field.
But the objects are no more real, than images on your computer screen.
Only the screen is real.
(consciousness is the only real entity – god is consciousness – there are no OBJECTS independent of your consciousness – all objects are made of consciousness itself – no object IS conscious or independent of your consciousness, rather, all objects ARE YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS)
Neither is the movie real (experience is not real)
Neither are the characters in the movie real (people and other creatures are not real)
Neither are the situations in the movie real
[The infinite unborn unmanifest potential + current appearance/manifest] = THAT SUBSTANCE -> IS GOD/Ultimate
They are all present in different degrees in different people.
Everyone is innocent and unfolding their karmic potential and destiny.
They are actually god(field) playing and living as those various forms.
All forms are god and this is seen when the form dissolves.
All the people you ever met, and all of this physical world, is nothing but god’s form.
When somebody dies what happens? What is left is ashes and memories.
The person that was thought to be real, was all a play of form and it vanishes into the formless, is sucked back into the ocean of the unmanifest and the ashes return to earth.
Everything ultimately lives on inside you until you understand the truth.
There is only god, all else is an appearance.
God is the field, the infinite potential field, that MANIFESTS like THIS.
Everything that appears in this field of consciousness is god.
Everyone is a symptom of the ONE, the props of the play of the ONE.
The afraid contracting self in a world of hostile others is also the illusion and play.
Only the play is real, no character really exists, and even I do not exist.
And even the play isn’t real, only the field is real.
The field of the unmanifest, i.e. of infinite unborn potential.
All form is birthed in this field, and death is when the form returns to the field.
But the objects are no more real, than images on your computer screen.
Only the screen is real.
(consciousness is the only real entity – god is consciousness – there are no OBJECTS independent of your consciousness – all objects are made of consciousness itself – no object IS conscious or independent of your consciousness, rather, all objects ARE YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS)
Neither is the movie real (experience is not real)
Neither are the characters in the movie real (people and other creatures are not real)
Neither are the situations in the movie real
[The infinite unborn unmanifest potential + current appearance/manifest] = THAT SUBSTANCE -> IS GOD/Ultimate
There is no karma/causation/history
The whole notion of there being an accumulation or karma – a storehouse of impressions – is this really true?
Isn’t it is a kind of dream or a kind of imagination?
Isn’t it a kind of dream that a person gravitates to, to find meaning in his life.
What if there is no storehouse, and it is all arising NOW as the emergence/unfolding of the ONE?
Is there really any HISTORY at all?
What if there is no such thing as history apart from an “Imagined history”?
What(the field?) is it that is dreaming up this world?
By imagined I don’t mean the part of imagination that you control consciously (working memory and conscious mind etc.).
I mean the whole that includes the entirety of the IMAGINAL SPACE including the parts that you cannot control but yet are you.
Control is not the only factor determining ownership.
You are both – what you can control and what you cannot control.
You are both – what is voluntary and what is involuntary.
You are the field, and that includes parts you can control and parts you cannot.
The “Small You” as you picture yourself, appears in this SPACE (this space is your context), and the “Real You” is this whole space/field.
You are the imagination of the the philosophers stone, and the philosophers stone appears to you in your imagination as an object (PARADOX).
Is it the same paradox as idol worship.
You see the ALL in the idol, so you are within the idol’s field and it is also true that the idol is an object within your field.
To solve this paradox, we have to understand the holographic nature of reality. We have to understand “mutually-dependent origination”(Buddhism) and the “Indra’s net concept”(Hinduism).
Every point is the whole and contains the whole.
1 – The drop contains the whole ocean
2 – And so does every other drop
3 – And each drop’s potential is reflected in each and every other drop
Contemplate on points 1, 2 and 3.
So you can see the whole from any point of view(pov).
Because every point contains ALL.
That is how one can have those mystical experiences we hear about from people on LSD such as “Seeing the entire universe in an ashtray etc. Other examples might be: Getting the experience of shiva through an idol OR Even seeing the whole universe reflected in the eyes of a lover.
I feel like then the idea of karma, and that one has to exhaust all their impressions and then reach a certain projected/”imaginal” state of peace/bliss/happiness/completion/enlightenment is a dream.
The greatest dream is the dream of pursuing enlightenment.
There is no karma at all.
There is no self or other at all.
There is only the unfoldment of the ONE/WHOLE.
There is no causation because there is no time(time is an appearance in imagination) and no separate objects(separation is an appearance in imagination(of the field)), for one to influence/affect or be the cause of the change of state in an other.
Nothing is substantial and nothing exists apart from the ONE/WHOLE.
No part exists independently from the whole, but rather each part is in-fact part is an appearance of the whole and sustained by the whole.
The whole field is animated by the divine point light like the projector ray of light which moves so fast it creates the illusion of an APPEARANCE/WORLD/CONTEXT/MAYA.
So as one increases one’s frequency of perception more and more, the transition that happens is like: Say you are looking at the TV, and the frequency of your eye keeps on increasing (to the level of a horse fly and greater), what would happen?
Eventually the persistence of vision (1/10th of a second normally) will decrease more and more, and you would start to see images flashing more and more rapidly. Soon the PICTURE would DISAPPEAR, and this is akin to the dissolution of the ILLUSION/MAYA.
Finally when your frequency is super high, you will just see the one point of light (which is actually responsibly for drawing the whole picture).
Now this persistence of vision is an analogy for your FREQUENCY OF VIBRATION.
Higher vibration beings see “what is objectively real for a lower vibrational being” as being only a possibility or an appearance.
What is real for a lower vibrational being is an appearance for a higher vibrational being.
Analogy:
A horse fly may be able to pass in and out of the spinning fan blades.
What looks like a circular solid object to you (fan blades when the fan is in full speed from persistence of vision), to the horse fly it just looks like 3 blades moving, and it can easily find the gap and pass in and out of the horizontal plane of the fan.
Similarly a higher vibration being can perform miracles simply because he sees all the gaps in the rock like illusion of a lower dimensional being.
He can easily see the whole structure of it and its pattern of unfoldment.
So I can say “PERSISTENCE OF VISION” = responsible for creating illusion/dream/maya/continuity. (metaphorically)
Another analogy would be, supposing you are watching a movie, and a character pushes another character and the other one falls down.
Now, from the screen’s point of view, did the 1st character pixels really CAUSE the 2nd character pixels to fall down or shift? OR was it all simply done by the screen?
The whole thing was an emanation from the whole screen, and no part in the screen was the cause of any other part’s movement or affect.
Journey to the Abstract 