Time after Time

Everyone is compelled to manage time in order to function in this time-ridden world. Meeting deadlines at work, picking up children from school or just keeping on top of the daily chores can quickly escalate into chaos when identified exclusively with the demands of the emotional self. Then, when the daily routine is interrupted or when things don’t go according to plan, impatience and irritability quickly arise.

Time is an inhibiting factor when the mind, until mastered by the power of pure intelligence, has free rein to interpret the experience of life as a feeling. This then has the effect of taking something out of context of the whole and the person is often confused and fatigued through worry and fear. When, for example, running late for an appointment or there’s a power cut, the feelings can range from mild inconvenience to acute anxiety and frustration. If something more drastic happens such as an accident or sudden disturbing news, the effect is even more extreme. The solution is to practise being conscious in the senses as often as possible so that in a stressful situation the body doesn’t go into shock. Usually a flood of emotion follows the aftermath of any disruption to the continuity of existence. This distorts the clarity of the situation with the right action difficult to discern. By sticking to the facts, the appropriate response can be taken without any negative projection of possible future consequences.

What’s apparent when we begin to examine our lives with a deeper discernment is that every problem we’ve ever had has been solved in time. What kept the person awake at night, yesterday, last week or five years ago as any inner turmoil has long been forgotten – unless the past is resurrected through memory impressions, which strengthens the emotional attachment to that particular experience. Time after time the person is seduced by the prospect of an emotional feed from the accretion of every feeling experienced since birth, which has its basis in the pleasure and pain dynamic of the living process.

The mystery of life is that everything happens in consciousness, the invisible realm behind the form which manifests as the living circumstances surrounding the person. Unimpeded, consciousness seamlessly creates the perfect response to a previous life sequence. Make a problem of something and, by the law of life, whatever’s needed as a solution takes longer to come or the situation may become even more problematical. By not emotionalising any difficulties, consciousness is able to bring about in a swifter time frame whatever’s appropriate in the external world to establish harmony once more.

Each body is bound to the karmic cycle of life, which appears as the ageing process; but this is just the formal side of existence. The intelligence within the body is able to realise the timeless quality of the invisible realm which supports the physical world. Reality, our eternal residence within the structure of higher mind, is accessible to us all when time is no longer a burden to living. Eternity is our reality, not the objective world we perceive with the senses. In this timeless place, everything that’s ever happened – or can ever be – is energetically contained within the original causal moment. In eternity everyone’s life has already been lived out and is complete. It’s only in the slower time gradient of our earth existence that what’s already in eternity is stretched out in elapsed time, consonant with the frequency of sensory perception.

The idea of life on earth for us human beings is to break the cycle of unending re-birth which, time after time, reconstitutes as a fresh life form in search of the missing knowledge that will complete the universal wanderer. Whether it can be grasped or otherwise, this is not a personal life but an impersonal system of cosmic intelligence appearing as the frantic and impossibly chaotic world. Although a minute cell in the vast body of humanity, each of us is essential to the integrity of the whole. Time, as it appears to us, is really just a convenience in which to measure the interval between past, present and future. Real time, which is the state of consciousness humanity is evolving towards (albeit at a glacial pace), is the universal power of the enlightened state. There’s no time in the spiritual life for excuses to justify the need for more time when he or she begins to connect with the spiritual being behind the form – the source of their own divine nature.