Timelessness

Time and Nouns

In response to a statement that said ‘when thoughts stop, time stops.’

Thoughts don’t need to stop to see that time doesn’t exist. The act of believing in (trusting) particular thoughts is responsible for this mistaken assumption that time exists. Those particular thoughts are any of the kind that tries to freeze any activity of appearing into an event that happened. There are no nouns in reality. That trusting energy emerges from timelessness. When that trusting energy ceases focusing on conceptual nouns as if they were actualities. that trusting activity (love) is freed from its self-imposed curse – the seeming imprisonment in seeming time frames.

‘It is obvious’

Hello Freinds,

‘Existence’ is a term that tries to consolidate the activity of appearing into a noun. The activity of ‘happening’, ‘appearing’ never ends up as a genuine noun. The term ‘existence’ is, so to speak, a fake term. Form is, as an appearing phenomenon, in that category if it claims to be real via a mental activity of believing that it is real.

The inherent substance in appearing and disappearing forms is emptiness. (The term ’emptiness’ implies that phenomena do not have an independent substance.) The only substance there is is unboundedness. Some call it ‘freedom’, Jim Newman may call it ’empty space’, Tony Parsons may call it ‘unbounded energy’. They don’t want to call it ‘awareness’ but they say ‘it is obvious’.

That sense of obviousness is only possible when the facts a ‘lit up,’ enlightened. ‘Enlightened or Enlightening awareness’ are terms they reject because there is no one to own such an awareness. Nevertheless, unboundedness is ‘obvious’ (quoting). That claim (that unboundedness is obvious) can only arise within the universal light of clarity – that could be called enlightened awareness.

These terms do not point to something special. They point to the obviousness of timeless ordinariness. These terms are only misconstrued by concepts that arise from a time-bound view. To prevent such misinterpretation, Tony et al. avoid them. At least, that is my explanation of why they avoid these traditional terms like poison.

Cheers
Dietrich

Memory Patterns

The apparent moment is not continuous, it just appears to be continuous because the ‘moment’, meaning ‘momentum’, or movement, replicates itself very often. Say, a stone looks the same as ‘a minute’ ago because the momentary energy waves that result in the appearing of a stone repeat the same wave pattern. There are questions regarding the memory of these patterns. For example: if waves ‘follow’ a certain pattern (say, the stone pattern), is that pattern prior to time? In Eastern esoteric science, the field of memories/patterns is called ‘Akasha’. It is the field of all possible patterns. It is ‘between’ the Absolute/Freedom/No-one and its appearances. Most modern nondual messengers do not touch that subject. Anyway, the message that there is ‘no-one’ still applies. No one (no separate entity) appears as ‘whatever is happening’ or the expressing of patterns.

(in response to a comment on YouTube)

Time and the Timeless

In response to a YouTube video by Rupert Spira:

A questionable conclusion would be to think that the exact novel is complete and present (5:42 onward) on a level that the mind can’t access. We cannot accurately postulate that the illusion is already complete in timelessness since timelessness is real – it doesn’t come or go. Illusion (the novel – the story) happens when timelessness releases or expresses its potential as a streaming of dream activity that includes the appearing of time. In nondual seeing, the timeless is all there is. The appearing of time is seen as well but as an illusion. It is seen that time is not. It is seen that it desperately tries to appear to be. Time, together with the appearing novel, is only taken for real by minds that are conditioned and blinded by the exact same dream activity.

 

Time

In response to a video by Rupert Spira with the title ‘ All Times Take Place Now’

The model that all events (appearances that come and go) are equally present like the pages in a novel is interesting but it can also be quite misleading because it may come across as if the pages had the status of existence. The pages do not exist, except as potentiality. Potentiality is timeless. To say that the manifested pages are already existing as potentiality is like saying that the recipe is the meal and that all combinations of recipes are already present as an infinite number of cooked meals. I don’t think so. The Now carries all the potentiality but releases (manifests) very specific, momentary events out of this virtually infinite pool of potentiality, as specific appearances, all happening in the Now as stated. In my opinion, there is a degree of unpredictability, built into the potentiality that includes and allows some creativity – unpredicted combinations of recipes – to appear. The point is that time does not exist, not even in the form of a novel. It only pretends to exist. It’s okay (of course) to enjoy pretended existence, and that’s what’s happening anyway. It’s more enjoyable though if the pretence is seen through! It’s less serious.

Do Something!

Doing is going on. Spiritual paths usually encourage personal development. That’s doing something to get somewhere. That’s what society understands since every conventional step in a lifestream focuses almost exclusively on a better tomorrow. So what’s wrong with that?

This ‘better-tomorrow’ drive can include the idea that tomorrow is the time to wake up to the boundless energy that’s closer than any thought about it.

It may feel like a disappointment to the ethically conditioned mind that the focus on personal development can keep us identified within the boundaries of time.

The point is that doing happens anyway in all areas of living. Personal development may happen anyway, practising a musical instrument may happen, improving a health condition may happen, financial issues may be tackled etc.

It would be a mistake to think that doing stops. Thinking, doing, expressing, creating, improving, are natural movements in time and will continue to be enjoyed.

The keyword is ‘natural.’ By that, I mean that these doings will happen naturally. Our almost compulsory, mental focus on the belief that something depends on a better tomorrow is the trap.

In reality, everything depends on the timeless energy that is present in every move. If our beliefs focus with priority on ‘moving to a better tomorrow’ then stress will replace naturalness, and with that stress comes the worry about tomorrow. At the same time, worry distracts from the only reliable fulfilment there is, namely the ever-fresh boundless presence of our true nature that is closer than our next thought about it.

Good musicians express that timeless presence, they don’t worry about the next note. Even when practising a scale to improve the skill level, the exercises can be done playfully, without worry about the outcome. The outcome will present itself anyway. In fact, efficiency increases when there is no worry since worry consumes a lot of energy.

On a global scale, suffering is caused by the effects of worry and self-concern.

The last point is that this self-concern will come up again and again as long as there is a disregarding of our true nature, a conceptless presence that can’t be measured, and that is closer… than the next thought about it. 

Worry

Am not terribly interested in philosophy as such. Appearances are happening, that is not a philosophy. That activities come and go is also not a theory. The bondage, one could say, is diverting the attention from ‘whats happening’ to identifying with an action figure in imagined events in ‘the past’ or ‘future.’ Sure, such an identification can also only happen NOW, but the mistake is happening if this is not seen to be the case. There can be a common belief that we ARE the past action figure and that we are a future action figure, and with that belief comes
1. the worry about our body’s future well-being
2. the overlooking of what is happening now
3. the overlooking of what we really are, namely, the looking itself (Francis of Assisi: ‘What’s looking is what we are looking for.’) The looking itself is the natural freedom (not a philosophy 🙂 ! ) The looking is timeless, looking at the dream-like construct of time, not believing it.

(in response to Gail’s question on Facebook)

Salvation

The concept of ‘salvation’ is usually misunderstood. ‘Realise the truth and it will set you free.’ What is true? True is ‘what is.’ Not true is what ‘is not but appears to be.’ For example, the activities of our life story are not really happening right now, and our future activities are also not happening right now. We could say that they are NOT real. Seeing that they are not real is true seeing. The bonus in seeing this is the realisation that what is left is what’s happening now – and it has always been the case, an appearing and disappearing of fleeting perceptions (including perceptions of mind-body activities) in a timeless presence of awareness. In this scenario, memories and plans for the ‘future’ are seen as imaginations that appear now, like other events. The bottom line is that in reality there is only Now/Presence, not between past and future, but as the only authentic reality.

I Am Not the Body

Many nondual messengers say that you are not the body. As far as nonduality is concerned, that seems wrong as there is no division whatsoever. With other words: Being is everything that appears.

This is a quick conclusion that may satisfy the mind’s demand for logic and consistency. However, let’s look at this issue a little closer:

I repeat the statement: ‘Being is everything that appears.’ This statement is, in itself, not clear. Being is. Being is prior to the appearance of time, it does not come or go. Therefore, it is. The same can’t be said about appearances. They come and go. Due to their ephemeral nature, we can’t claim that they are. At the most, they appear to be. The appearance lends its substance from Being. Appearance has no substance of its own.

When we say ‘we are not the body’ we are referring to the fact that we are not an appearance, as appearances can’t be at all. They can only appear to be. The mistake the mind makes is to believe that it is the body, whereas in truth, neither the mind nor the body exist as such. The belief that appearances exist is responsible for their apparent reality. There is no evidence for such a belief to be true.

First of all, beliefs are based on memory. Memory is the imagination of a past event, an attempt to replicate a past event in one’s imagination. With other words, we imagine a memory to be true. It is easy to understand that an imagination is just that – a temporary flicker in the mind about a short-lived event that appeared some apparent time ago. Can we really rely on such a flicker of imagination to prove that it is real, that it is?

When we believe that we are a body-mind, we do the same to maintain such a belief: we remember events in which our body-mind was involved. This includes events that happened a second ago, such as having typed these words with fingers. I call them ‘my fingers’ if I identify with the body-mind. Interestingly, thoughts can only claim events to exist AFTER they already happened. Thoughts can never catch an event at the very instant it happens. Thoughts can only report on events that are already gone. They are no more. In truth, events never had the characteristics of ‘isness.’ They were extremely short-lived. Appearance and disappearance of any so-called ‘moment in time’ are simultaneous. A new vibration replaces the previous vibration. If the new vibrations resembles the previous vibrations, we could call this ‘patterns of vibrations,’ and the appearing phenomena seem to last for a while. Still, they don’t have any independent nature. All vibrations and the pattern themselves appear out of the only existence there is – Being.

When we see that ‘we are not the body,’ we see that all bodies only appear to exist by virtue of vibrating patterns that emerge from the depths of unfeathomable Being. Being does not identify with any seeming boundaries. However appearing mental activities can generate a belief that constantly claims that ‘I am a separate entity.’ It seems that most humans’ mental activities claim to originate from this belief which is also just a repeated mental activity.