What is time?

Last night we flowed into the concept of time. One member was curious about the nature of time and what it means to be at peace. This led us into physical time and psychological time. Have you ever thought about time? What is time? I go to sleep and wake up at a certain time. I go to my job and spend a certain amount of hours working. When I drive, it takes me a certain amount of time to go from one place to another place.

Essentially, time is movement and movement is time. Rather than time, it is space/time. Space/time is relative. I need space and time to learn a new skill and is relative to the thing I am doing. Whatever action I am taking, space/time moves uniquely. Sometimes it seems to move fast, while in other space/times i am interacting with, slowly. Yet, the question remains, is there such a thing as psychological time.

Or we are led to believe that there is psychological time. I am insecure and in time I don’t want to be insecure. I am angry, and in time I feel like I can change and not be angry. In time, I can change the world and make it better. In time, I can make myself better. I am ignorant now ad will be awakened in the future. If I work at it, I can enlightened. If I make certain choices in time, I can become wise. This is what we have been taught and this is what most of us think will happen. I wonder if this sort of thinking makes things in actuality worse.

There are many issues in society. War, poverty, environmental degradation, addictions, many divisions politically and socially, and collectively and individually sorrow. Our culture is the collective consciousness of us all and simply said - it is dysfunctional and you are not separate from this dysfunction. I question whether these issues have gradually become better over time even with our advances in technology and medicine? Or do things keep getting worse. Have you ever taken this seriously and thought about and listen to this. Are these issues separate from you, or part of the way in which you think? Progress is our societies motto and the destruction of the world to satisfy our progress is a tightly held collective belief. And if you were to sit still with yourself and stop moving, would you be aware of your joy or sorrow?

Can you see that all of these issues are actually, not the past, nor future, but now. There is only now. The past is memory. The future is the projection of that memory into the future. The future is an ideal. The past is held on by the threads of memory of past experiences and knowledge. You either interact with this now with the accumulation of our past conditioning and experiences or if it is a painful experience we try and get rid of this feeling and hope that in the future things will be different. That future is in actuality a modification of now. Is one the accumulation of past experiences and in using those past experiences, change yourself into better ideals in the future? Or is that an illusion?

If you are angry - angry is.

If you are insecure, insecurity is.

If your body is sore, soreness is.

If this conditioned ego tries to get away from that insecurity, does the insecurity go away, or is it pushed down and kept in memory and in your body? If you don’t listen to your body, does the ache go away or does it get worse? Does the conditioned response of now dictate the now which just creates a prophetic future which is simply based in the actions of now?

Here is the thing. You don’t need to be enslaved to time. You can actually let go of right now your conditioning. Listening. Do you know how to listen? Is listening of time? When you are truly listening, is time happening? Whether you are playing tennis, swimming, doing yoga, talking with someone, eating, if you are listening, is there time? You have had moments when you have felt this timeless state. As one member shared, maybe flow is our true nature. And instead of having these moments only partially, is it possible to live in this way in the whole of your life.

If you are present, in flow, one with what is, is there time? Directly see this. There is only the moment. This moment. Present, there is no movement, and because of this, there is no time.

And in this presence is

completeness, wholeness.

Here,

there is complete trust

without having to try

and trust

because the mind is quiet,

listening,

completely engaged

with the present.

In this is complete action.

Timeless and actual.

Here there is no escaping or conflict.

Here is being awake.

Here is oneself is actuality.

Here is no separation.

Here one interacts out of that timeless state

of wholeness.

Is the universe separate from us….or are we the Universe?

When we die, there is nothing you can take with you. Nothing. And yet, what you are when the body dies is what you are already. It is what you have always been. But to be this, there is no time to arrive there. There is no arriving. The beauty of this is that you can touch this right now by just being right now.

In this place,

what would happen

if you could just let go to just being

where you are

and totally

in full awareness,

just listened -

listened with no agenda

no accumulating

no trying

just listened?

What would happen

to beliefs

opinions

assumptions?

What would happen

to the conditioned self?

And in this place

where would division be?

And in this beautiful quiet place

of repose

where would sorrow go

and in this place

always there

would freedom and peace

beyond peace flow outward and onward…..?