The Relationship Between Time and Eternity

[Spiritual Warfare]

13 minutes ago, Hojo said:

@Spiritual Warfare its just pretending it exists by having dialogues to itself about what is happening. Everyday you wake up and start remebering things about the other day is a fiction of time being real. You are waking up to the first moment of existence everyday and you are 'remebering' what happened to construct a time narrative.

If you wake up and for the first hour of your day sit there and try to have the feeling of deep sleep remain for one hour you will see you are contstructing everything with a narrative but its not happening. nothing is happening.

 

I find your perspective intriguing, and I agree with many of your points. However, let’s consider the possibility of a God who exists without a beginning or an end. If such a being is truly timeless, how could this God engage in the act of creation? This raises a compelling dilemma: if God exists outside the confines of time, how could time itself emerge from this timeless existence? 

While I understand that time may not be real in an absolute sense, let's assume it is for the sake of this argument. My focus here is on the religious view of God, which often seems contradictory to me. I would like your help in examining these contradictions and exposing the inconsistencies within this perspective. How can a timeless God create within a framework that requires a temporal process? This question challenges the very foundation of traditional religious beliefs about divine creation.

[LastThursday]

1 hour ago, Spiritual Warfare said:

The complexities of consciousness mean that even if we explore it endlessly, we might not always find new or significant understandings. This complexity could make our exploration of consciousness feel more cyclical rather than genuinely infinite.

I would say that was infinite nonetheless, i.e. a process without end. There's nothing about infinity that suggests novelty is key to its definition. The trick is that you may have finities mixed with infinities. You can have an infinite set or permutation of finite things - which you can judge to be novel or not depending on how you want to see it. Novelty is a value judgement.

Edited September 5 by LastThursday

[Loveeee]

2 hours ago, Spiritual Warfare said:

While it may be tempting to equate infinity with non-duality, could it be argued that infinity, in its mathematical sense, exists independently of our perceptions and distinctions? Perhaps infinity is a concept that transcends our understanding of unity and duality, suggesting that our efforts to comprehend it through a non-dual lens may limit our grasp of its true nature.

 

 

[Princess Arabia]

14 hours ago, Hojo said:

Eternity created time as a limitation

Eternity didn't create time. Time and space was created by the mind for linearity purposes and to make sense of reality. Notice when you sleep time and space disappears. One can dream of being at the beach but there's no actual beach there is it and your eyes open from sleep without you experiencing time. 

[Spiritual Warfare]

6 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

Eternity didn't create time. Time and space was created by the mind for linearity purposes and to make sense of reality. Notice when you sleep time and space disappears. One can dream of being at the beach but there's no actual beach there is it and your eyes open from sleep without you experiencing time. 

Exactly. This is why the concept of creation makes no sense when applied to an unchanging, eternal God. Creation implies change, a before and after, but an eternal being exists beyond time and does not experience progression or transformation. How could something unchanging initiate anything new?

[Yimpa]

7 minutes ago, Spiritual Warfare said:

How could something unchanging initiate anything new?

Pair-a-ducks

[Princess Arabia]

1 minute ago, Spiritual Warfare said:

Exactly. This is why the concept of creation makes no sense when applied to an unchanging, eternal God. Creation implies change, a before and after, but an eternal being exists beyond time and does not experience progression or transformation. How could something unchanging initiate anything new?

Great question. I was just like you at one point where nothing started to make sense and I begun to get totally confused to the point where I took a break from all this stuff and then things started to get revealed. More clarity. It's still just a matter of perception and what I've come up with is that this is alive and kicking. It is happening right now. There is no creation only being and it's all presence. My typing this is presence, the Absolute or just typing happening but for no one. That's just an appearance. It's aliveness and it's unknowable. 

 

[Spiritual Warfare]

57 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

Great question. I was just like you at one point where nothing started to make sense and I begun to get totally confused to the point where I took a break from all this stuff and then things started to get revealed. More clarity. It's still just a matter of perception and what I've come up with is that this is alive and kicking. It is happening right now. There is no creation only being and it's all presence. My typing this is presence, the Absolute or just typing happening but for no one. That's just an appearance. It's aliveness and it's unknowable. 

 

If there is no creation, only being, what is the origin of what we perceive as the world around us? How do we explain change and development if everything is just presence?

If typing these words is simply "presence" and "happening for no one," why do we experience it as a personal action? Why does it feel as though we are conscious subjects?

How can something be alive and present without being "for someone"? Doesn’t life and awareness require an experiencing entity in order to exist?

If everything is "presence" and "unknowable," how can we talk about it or develop theories about its nature? Isn’t reflection itself a form of knowing?

[gettoefl]

3 hours ago, Spiritual Warfare said:

I find your perspective intriguing, and I agree with many of your points. However, let’s consider the possibility of a God who exists without a beginning or an end. If such a being is truly timeless, how could this God engage in the act of creation? This raises a compelling dilemma: if God exists outside the confines of time, how could time itself emerge from this timeless existence? 

While I understand that time may not be real in an absolute sense, let's assume it is for the sake of this argument. My focus here is on the religious view of God, which often seems contradictory to me. I would like your help in examining these contradictions and exposing the inconsistencies within this perspective. How can a timeless God create within a framework that requires a temporal process? This question challenges the very foundation of traditional religious beliefs about divine creation.

if you live forever, why would you want to live for a day

or even a trillion years?

You are, right?

This has been tested out metaphysically:

Offshoots of ultimate inc. decided they wanted to have sweet dreams since they have the power to do so

Even though nothing was ever sweeter than what is

It was a tiny mad hair-brained idea that is contemplated for one nanosecond which explodes into wow i am this

and then is summarily rejected as being crazy painful and superfluous

which ends the insanity of an apparent universe instantly

as though nothing has ever happened

And indeed it hasn't

Edited September 5 by gettoefl

[Spiritual Warfare]

8 minutes ago, gettoefl said:

if you live forever, why would you want to live for a day

or even a trillion years?

You are, right?

Offshoots of ultimate inc. decided they wanted to have sweet dreams and they have the power to do so

Even though nothing was ever sweeter than what is

It was a tiny mad hair-brained idea that is contemplated for one nanosecond which explodes into wow i am this

and then is summarily rejected as being crazy painful and superfluous

which ends the insanity of an apparent universe instantly

as though nothing has ever happened

And indeed it hasn't

If living forever means existing in a perfect state, why would there ever be a desire for something different, like "sweet dreams"? What would make such dreams appealing to a being that already has everything?

If the "tiny, mad idea" is instantly rejected and everything returns to what it was, doesn't that imply there was some imperfection or curiosity in the eternal state to begin with? Why would such an idea arise in the first place?

How can something that never really existed leave behind such vivid experiences? If the universe is both an illusion and something to be "summarily rejected," that creates a paradox. How can something exist long enough to be dismissed and still claim it never existed at all? Even fleeting experiences leave a mark.

 

 

 

[gettoefl]

20 minutes ago, Spiritual Warfare said:

If living forever means existing in a perfect state, why would there ever be a desire for something different, like "sweet dreams"? What would make such dreams appealing to a being that already has everything?

If the "tiny, mad idea" is instantly rejected and everything returns to what it was, doesn't that imply there was some imperfection or curiosity in the eternal state to begin with? Why would such an idea arise in the first place?

How can something that never really existed leave behind such vivid experiences? If the universe is both an illusion and something to be "summarily rejected," that creates a paradox. How can something exist long enough to be dismissed and still claim it never existed at all? Even fleeting experiences leave a mark.

 

 

 

You harboured a devilish hankering for this

and look at what you wrought!

You tell me why you did it!

It's okay, you were just playing in your sleep

No big deal

[gettoefl]

A course in miracles puts it like this:

Quote

⁶The instant the idea of separation entered the mind of God’s Son, in that same instant was God’s Answer given. ⁷In time this happened very long ago. ⁸In reality it never happened at all.

3. The world of time is the world of illusion. ²What happened long ago seems to be happening now. ³Choices made long since appear to be open; yet to be made. ⁴What has been learned and understood and long ago passed by is looked upon as a new thought, a fresh idea, a different approach. ⁵Because your will is free you can accept what has already happened at any time you choose, and only then will you realize that it was always there. ⁶As the course emphasizes, you are not free to choose the curriculum, or even the form in which you will learn it. ⁷You are free, however, to decide when you want to learn it. ⁸And as you accept it, it is already learned.

4. Time really, then, goes backward to an instant so ancient that it is beyond all memory, and past even the possibility of remembering. ²Yet because it is an instant that is relived again and again and still again, it seems to be now. ³And thus it is that pupil and teacher seem to come together in the present, finding each other as if they had not met before. ⁴The pupil comes at the right time to the right place. ⁵This is inevitable, because he made the right choice in that ancient instant which he now relives. ⁶So has the teacher, too, made an inevitable choice out of an ancient past. ⁷God’s Will in everything but seems to take time in the working-out. ⁸What could delay the power of eternity?

(ACIM, M-2.2:6–4:8)

 

[Breakingthewall]

2 hours ago, Spiritual Warfare said:

If living forever means existing in a perfect state, why would there ever be a desire for something different, like "sweet dreams"? What would make such dreams appealing to a being that already has everything?

I don't think that an eternal god who desires things, like living a human adventure or whatever, is possible even as an idea. He would have already lived infinite human adventures.

If that god acts for "fun", he would be immersed in the absolute horror of eternal existence, after infinite human "adventures", the adventure of a Japanese office worker with suicidal depression number infinite would be equivalent to absolute cosmic horror and that god would only want to commit suicide and nothing else

Id say that the thing is totally different : Given the absence of limits, reality is, and is absolute. There is only one reality, the absolute, and it is you and you can realize it right now. Now, given the absence of limits, there are infinite manifestations of that infinite absolute, in infinite directions and dimensions. All of them are the absolute, and all of them, infinite, which is unimaginable, are coordinated in an absolutely perfect way by total intelligence, inevitable since it is a consequence of the infinitude. We can call this god, but it is a god that does not want anything, that does not decide anything, that cannot help being, nor does it want to, it simply unfolds infinitely without beginning or end, which is not understandable by the mind, and here I am typing on a phone, which is a manifestation among infinite manifestations, so it has a meaning equivalent to zero, and an essence equivalent to infinity: the total absolute.

[Princess Arabia]

2 hours ago, Spiritual Warfare said:

What would make such dreams appealing to a being that already has everything?

It doesn't have anything, it is everything. It cannot experience itself without duality, it has to separate itself from itself to understand what it's like. It had to forget too or else there would be no point. 

[Spiritual Warfare]

13 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

I don't think that an eternal god who desires things, like living a human adventure or whatever, is possible even as an idea. He would have already lived infinite human adventures.

If that god acts for "fun", he would be immersed in the absolute horror of eternal existence, after infinite human "adventures", the adventure of a Japanese office worker with suicidal depression number infinite would be equivalent to absolute cosmic horror and that god would only want to commit suicide and nothing else

Id say that the thing is totally different : Given the absence of limits, reality is, and is absolute. There is only one reality, the absolute, and it is you and you can realize it right now. Now, given the absence of limits, there are infinite manifestations of that infinite absolute, in infinite directions and dimensions. All of them are the absolute, and all of them, infinite, which is unimaginable, are coordinated in an absolutely perfect way by total intelligence, inevitable since it is a consequence of the infinitude. We can call this god, but it is a god that does not want anything, that does not decide anything, that cannot help being, nor does it want to, it simply unfolds infinitely without beginning or end, which is not understandable by the mind, and here I am typing on a phone, which is a manifestation among infinite manifestations, so it has a meaning equivalent to zero, and an essence equivalent to infinity: the total absolute.

If an eternal God has already experienced infinite adventures, wouldn’t that imply that time itself is real for God? How can an eternal being, which exists outside of time, experience anything sequentially, including infinite adventures?

Why would infinite experiences lead to cosmic horror? Could it not be possible that an eternal God, being beyond human emotions, transcends concepts like boredom, horror, or desire?

You mention that reality is absolute, and that there are infinite manifestations of that infinite absolute. How can these manifestations exist without implying some form of change or time, which contradicts the nature of an unchanging absolute?

Assuming that God would eventually fall into cosmic horror after experiencing infinite human lives projects human limitations onto an infinite being. God, as the absolute, would not be bound by emotions like boredom or despair. The concepts of "fun" or "horror" may not apply to such a being at all.

 

 

 

[Spiritual Warfare]

6 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

It doesn't have anything, it is everything. It cannot experience itself without duality, it has to separate itself from itself to understand what it's like. It had to forget too or else there would be no point. 

If the absolute is everything, why would it need to experience itself through duality? Can something that is complete and whole truly lack self-awareness without separation?

Why would the absolute need to forget itself to understand what it’s like to be something? If it is everything, wouldn’t it already encompass all possible experiences without needing to fragment?

If the absolute forgets itself to experience duality, how does it eventually remember? What triggers the realization of its true nature if it has willingly forgotten its identity?

And I don’t buy the idea that God needs to forget it’s divine nature to have experiences! God could still maintain it’s memory of It’s true nature while experiencing life as a human.

 

 

[Keryo Koffa]

"Your world is formed out of the vast unpredictability of consciousness. From it you form your own ideas of significance and of yourself... You must stop thinking in terms of ordinary progression. It is bad enough when you worry about keeping up with the Joneses. It is something else, however, when you start worrying ahout which kind of self [Or consciousness] is superior to another kind."

"You are like children with a game, and you think that the game is played by everyone. Physical life is not the rule. Identity and consciousness existed long before your earth was formed. You suppose that any personality must appear in physical terms. Consciousness is the force behind matter, and it forms many other realities besides the physical one. It is, again, your own viewpoint that is presently so limited that it seems to you that physical reality is the rule and mode of existence"

"Using your free will, you have made physical reality into something quite different than what was intended. You have allowed the ego to become overly developed and specialized. You were here to work out problems and challenges, but you were always to be aware of your own inner reality, and of your nonphysical existence. To a large extent you have lost contact with this. You have focused so strongly upon physical reality that it become the only reality that you know"

You create your reality according to your beliefs and expectations, therefore you should examine these carefully. If you do not like some aspect of your world, then examine your own expectations." - Seth

[Princess Arabia]

6 minutes ago, Spiritual Warfare said:

If the absolute is everything, why would it need to experience itself through duality? Can something that is complete and whole truly lack self-awareness without separation?

If you were born and just sit in a room for 50years how would you know yourself and experience yourself. You are also complete and whole and not separated. It is you.

 

9 minutes ago, Spiritual Warfare said:

Why would the absolute need to forget itself to understand what it’s like to be something? If it is everything, wouldn’t it already encompass all possible experiences without needing to fragment?

Imagine going to school and someone giving you all the answers to every test. You wouldn't learn anything would you. It has to experience the test for itself. As the Godhead, it isn't experiencing anything, that's where you come in. It's just there just being without any movement. It's a mind imagining all creatures and experiences within it's consciousness. 

 

15 minutes ago, Spiritual Warfare said:

If the absolute forgets itself to experience duality, how does it eventually remember? What triggers the realization of its true nature if it has willingly forgotten its identity?

It leaves breadcrumb trails for itself plus death is the utmost remembrance, that's why no one makes it out alive.

[Princess Arabia]

19 minutes ago, Spiritual Warfare said:

And I don’t buy the idea that God needs to forget it’s divine nature to have experiences! God could still maintain it’s memory of It’s true nature while experiencing life as a human.

Oh yeah, lets see you go to work knowing you're God. Let's see you get jealous, angry frustrated, make money to eat etcetc. Why do you think some lose the motivation to go on after they've awakened to their true nature. 

[Spiritual Warfare]

1 hour ago, Keryo Koffa said:

"Your world is formed out of the vast unpredictability of consciousness. From it you form your own ideas of significance and of yourself... You must stop thinking in terms of ordinary progression. It is bad enough when you worry about keeping up with the Joneses. It is something else, however, when you start worrying ahout which kind of self [Or consciousness] is superior to another kind."

"You are like children with a game, and you think that the game is played by everyone. Physical life is not the rule. Identity and consciousness existed long before your earth was formed. You suppose that any personality must appear in physical terms. Consciousness is the force behind matter, and it forms many other realities besides the physical one. It is, again, your own viewpoint that is presently so limited that it seems to you that physical reality is the rule and mode of existence"

"Using your free will, you have made physical reality into something quite different than what was intended. You have allowed the ego to become overly developed and specialized. You were here to work out problems and challenges, but you were always to be aware of your own inner reality, and of your nonphysical existence. To a large extent you have lost contact with this. You have focused so strongly upon physical reality that it become the only reality that you know"

You create your reality according to your beliefs and expectations, therefore you should examine these carefully. If you do not like some aspect of your world, then examine your own expectations." - Seth

Life sucks