Question
Leah -As much as I try, I can’t grasp the idea that everything that ever happens, happens on the same day. I can wrap my mind around non-linear time because I just picture all event in a large room or field, maybe more than one floor but at least I can comprehend nonlinear time somewhat.
If it all happens the same day then while I am typing this post, my 15 year old self is riding my horse and my 18 year old self is just getting out of bed. It didn’t happen, it is happening?
Answer
Julia Wagner – How do we put it? Cause and effect are non linear. Something I do today, might effect my 18 year old self, the same way that something my 18 year old self did might effect me in the present. All the potentials exist at one time vs. having ONE pathway only. They are ALL existing ALL THE TIME. The present is the point of power. That’s why “BE HERE NOW” is such a rich command and strikes such a chord. When you relax into the knowing it opens up the potential to experience ANY reality at ANY time.
Let me put it a different way. Pretend you are playing a video game. The game has different options. You might be able to play as different characters, or have different lives in this game. Say three lives- a man from the 1600s, a man from the 1800s, and one from 2000. Those all exist- all the options, the programming the code– Even while you are focused on playing only ONE of those characters in the “now” the others are RIGHT THERE as well. The potential exists.
You can jump around, play different characters who live at different times and take on different quests, etc. The one who is PLAYING the game- the Soul– has a birds eye view of the process. The Higher Self, you might say.
You can arrange each character’s gameplay a number of ways. In a LINEAR way, from birth to death or each character, you could just watch “highlights”, you could jump around randomly.
You could play the game, replay the game, organize or watch the game play any number of ways or any camera angle.
One character’s plotline might even INFORM the others, so to speak, or the three figures could experience plotlines that revolve around similar themes, use similar game mechanics, coding or structures.
Reality is similar to this, just with way more options. We might be able to remember a past life, “like it was yesterday” while NOT being able to remember parts of, well, yesterday. Does that make yesterday less real? What if I can remember the future (I can, parts of my future lives are quite clear). Does that make the present the past? It’s all relative, you might say.
It doesn’t really matter, since I know all of it “now”. I remember LOTS of lives. Or have access to the memories of an immense amount of information about and insane number of incarnations.
In one past life, I killed myself after I lost a child. In this life, I talked to that woman, and showed her that I’m happy without children. She didn’t take her life in THAT timeline, instead she became a textile merchant.
Leah- That is great! I think that I have to separate my physical from my spiritual and only think about it as spiritual. I wonder if I had no pictures of myself as I was growing up then it would be easier because I would just feel the past self but with pictures I can see each period of my life at different sizes and maturity. That brings it into my physical mind so I feel it less?
Julia Wagner– Let’s use those pictures. Imagine you have those pictures in front of you. One of you from a year ago. A picture from 5 years ago. One from your teens and one as a baby. You can hold all those pictures at one time, can’t you? You could arrange them in any order when you hold these, can’t you?
Time, and how we might experience our lives, is similar. We organize these in units, we can hold or organize these in multiple ways.
In THIS dimension, if we don’t consciously try, time appears to move in a linear fashion, and it DOES operate, mechanically, in that order. Change perspective/change dimension and you add another understanding.
I was watching the river the other day. I know the river runs from West to East. But this day? I saw it moving backwards. The wind was blowing so hard, it was creating the appearance that the river was running East to West. If I observe just the linear, 2 dimensional view of the surface of the river during a short period, I see one thing from that 2 dimensional snapshot. It’s not WRONG, exactly. There IS some water moving in the direction I’m observing.
But If I expand the way I look at the river- add time or depth to my observations, in a few hours, or at a certain depth, it will be obvious that the current, indeed is still flowing from West to East. Those are dimensions, 3D might be like adding the depth and 4D might be like extending the the length of time you spend observing the river.
Time is like that river.
As we expand our dimensional perception we might view time running with different currents than we observe from lower dimensional observation. Cause doesn’t always come BEFORE effect. The Buddhist might compare this to a Lotus flower, or Renge since it seeds and it flowers at the same time.
Because of the Universal Law of Causes and Effect (aka Myo-Ho) the causes we plant NOW can blossom anywhere in any dimension of time or space. All we have to do is create an intention that marries its effect with collective benefit. That is the Power of Now. This is the “magic” behind the principals of manifestation. As a Nichiren Buddhist I chant the mantra Nam Myoho Renge Kyo to create and amplify this aligned intention.
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