Time is like smoke and mirrors

10/18/2009 by John Smallman

Time is like smoke and mirrors, unreal, imaginary, and yet there seems to be something going on that makes it essential and very real; namely, the sequential passage of events, particularly those that cause the next one to occur. So how do you square its appearance with its unreality?

Imagine a line with garments on it hanging out to dry. They blow in the wind, back and forth, as the wind changes. The wind is like time: You notice it when the garments are drying, and you notice the lack of it when the garments hang motionless and you want them to dry. When you are not attempting to dry clothes you pay the presence or absence of the wind no attention.

So time seems to be present when you attend to it, and when you do not — where is it? Children playing have almost no awareness of time; children cleaning and tidying their rooms are inordinately aware of it!

Time is present for you when you are doing something you would rather not be doing, and it drags. When you are doing something enjoyable there is no awareness of it . . . until a clock tells you that you have to start work again!

Time is an elusive concept. People who become unconscious due to sudden illness or accident and then regain consciousness have no idea how long they were unconsciousness. There will be clues in their memory: lying prone on the football field and seeing people looking down at them — in this case, maybe only moments have passed — coming back to consciousness in a hospital bed; obviously much more time has passed. But for the one who is unconscious there is no ‘passage of time’.

Someone going through a near-death-experience may think that he’s been ‘gone’ for a considerable time, while for those in the vicinity of the unconscious one, the period of unconsciousness may seem very brief.

And life in your illusory reality is very much like that. Separation — the illusory reality you made when you attempted to separate yourselves from God — was but a momentary experience and was immediately over. But in the illusion where you appear to be experiencing life, the experience continues for you with all sorts of clues to indicate that this reality is vast and has been developing for billions of years.

You always have guides with you helping you to regain consciousness (like me nudging John!), and when you do regain it, the clues will be present to show you that your unconsciousness lasted but an incredibly short instant, and upon awakening you will have no memories of your ‘time’ in unconcsciousness.

A near-death-experience, on the other hand, is like a brief return to Reality, to remind the one who experiences it how wonderful it is, and to give her the strength to return to the illusion and bring comfort to others there, until all awaken. All will awaken, and the time taken to do so will be fleeting. So relax, and realize that there is no time, no illusion. There is only Heaven — the divine Reality of which you are momentarily unaware.

With so very much love, Saul.

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