I am going a different way : I still want to see (because I imagine everything as a picture) - time like a little canary in a cage : caged by us - therefore I look and say :

" this is a Canary in the cage - and that is the reality" The cage is my mind - and the canary a way of making time absolute. In my mind I open the cage - and the bird fies away and just in one whoosh disappears - as if there was nothing else.

I have to destroy the cage and throw myself into chaos. I have to understand that I am not caged by time - but time is caged by me interms of a linear concept - I would rather go this left field way because it forces me to completely think chaotically. Like the bird represents a spirit - and time is actuall a free spirit. But gentle and soft and ethereal.

Time is Space : Free flowing like God. Time is God. That is the unknown dimension - GOD/TIME/SPACE - I know that in my bones - but my mind must force itself through the pain of logic - I must put my mind through absolute chaos and put it in self destruct - and the only way is chaotic thinking - not to allow it to to hang it's coat on any peg.

I know that at the end there is light. But the the tunnel is dark and dangerous - and for those without courage may get lost in the tunnel - and destruct everything without understanding.

No, not understanding, but - without experiencing.

A half a Buddha is perhaps worse than someone enclosed in Maya.

Lets keep up these conversations - I do not have to totally understand what u say - nor do you, I guess. But as long as we keep questioning each other - there will be at some points of time a coming together - a synchronization - and then like a wave - disbelief and questioning again.

shekhar

Perhaps that is the way for me. Because I find it really difficult to go the other way - except theoretically - do I believe it ? Yes I do - that there is another reality outside the concept of 'me' - but there again it is a thought that emmates from my mind - the same vehicle from which the other thoughts about cause and event emmate from.

shekhar

Again - try and throw the mind into chaos - rather than mind arguing with mind - and coming up with zilch

shekhar

> yes that would be great - but I like to continue this conversation on the
> email - becasue I can reflect upon all this in private moments - and
> would it not be good to ahve a record of our conversations ?

Needless to say, IF linear time is not real, then a realization of that fact makes one a more effective player is alleged linear time; just like you can only be an effective film director if you realize that a film is not real -- which doesn't mean it is arbitrary.

Piet

the truth was
and is
i was afraid
i was afraid
u would say no

i was afraid
u would not take me in your arms
i was afraid you would laugh

but i lie again
i was not afraid
i was terrified
that you would abandon me

i

"The past is imagined - but somewhat real - yes ? It happened - but ofcourse now exists in thought only - although physical ramifications of past actions are real - yes ? therefore from that point of view there is a reality ?"

And yes, we do normally live in the unquestioned belief in linear time and its inescapable rule of past events with its consequences governing present happenings. This is our real religion, more unquestioned and more ingrained in our bones and nerves than any more teneous `belief' in any form of religion or science. But this does not make it more likely to be true. On the contrary. That what escapes investigation because it is so unquestioned is more much likely to have holes, to be only partly true and possibly seriously flawed in important ways.

What guarantee do we REALLY have for the law of karma and the scientific rules of cause and effect? I often think we are prisoners of linear time, cloistered by shackles that are totally imaginary. With Karl Marx I suggest that we, finally, have nothing to lose but our shacklers: our belief in being enslaved in linear time.

> the paper work I threw into the rubbish bin yesterday - still lies
> there today in this moment and the action is confirmed by the memory
> of others that saw me do it.

at first this seems totally powerful and convincing, but couldn't this be on the same level as "you can see that the Sun goes around the Earth" or that "mass and energy are inherently different, cannot be converted" and similarly for time and space, which turned out to be at least partly transformable into each other in relativity theory?

I'd like to start asking, slowly slowly, who is the I in your quote. The I of today is not the same as the I of yesterday. By identifying those two, are we not already doing part of the work of putting on our shackles to linear time? What is the world would be REALLY created afresh in each moment, not as a poetic metaphor or romantic dream, but what if this would be the only reality -- in which we use this infinite freedom at each moment to recreate a sense of bondage to linear time. Wouldn't that be a terrible realization? The point is: sages in many times and places and very different cultures have reached such type of a conclusion. And I am beginning to see how science is moving in a similar direction. I would be willing to be a lot that this picture of true freedom in every moment is correct. In accordance with that, I'm trying to live my life in resonance with such a perspective.

> So perhaps it is not us that are imprisoned by time - but Time that is
> imprisoned by us. We have to let it go and watch it flow freely with a will
> of it's own. But how do we divest it from it's rlationship with action ?

AND there is the `us' we normally identify with that is imprisoned by the `us' whom we realy are. Like in a tapestry, you cannot cut out a single figure from a scene to `liberate' it. You cannot liberate the image of a person from a snapshot from a movie. You can liberate the actor; or better, the actor is already liberated, was never really `caught' by the movie. Similarly, the MAIN struggle in any spiritual path is that we tend to waste a couple decades trying to liberate the picture we have of ourselves, trying to enlighten that picture, something that will NEVER work. Then, tired from trying, and with a little guidance and lots of luck, we may stumble upon a way to find out more of who we really are. Together with that goes the realization that there was nothing to liberate or enlighten in the first place. These stories crop up here and there in esoteric literature, but are never offered for popular consumption; it would be pearls before swine, completely undigestible and leading to angry reactions. But they all point to the fallacy of linear time, in my opinion.

Piet

Piet

Note from shekhar : Piet was right, scientific theorey ahs indeed moved on since Piet wrote this in July 2001.

the paper work I threw into the rubbish bin yesterday - still lies there today in this moment and the action is confirmed by the memory of others that saw me do it.

So the past has a reality - and certainly in terms of action has a linearity. I FIRST threw the paper into the rubbish bin - and THEN found it there the next morning. So is then the linearity of time only explained by linearity of action - conscious or unconcious ?

And therefore is it viable to divest the two ? Action from time ? For if we can, then time has a life of it's own - it can flow freely. Divested of it's relationship to action, like ageing.

So perhaps it is not us that are imprisoned by time - but Time that is imprisoned by us. We have to let it go and watch it flow freely with a will of it's own. But how do we divest it from it's rlationship with action ?

shekhar

"There is no begining and no end" And actually no middle either. Every event (contradiction) exists in eternty - so that theoretically the nothingness still exists."

Piet

Piet

so why must we look at the big bang to explain the universe - and call it the known universe.

surely it is the unknown universe that will define the known.

It's what was there BEFORE the big bang that will tell us what the big bang is.

I will write more to u about my confusion on this -

but could the formation of the universe be instantaneous ? rather than formed in in a millionth of a second

could it be the contraction of Space rather than expansion of universe ?

help !!

Shekhar