Time is just one of four dimensions …

We know from science that time does not exist independent from space. But there is no doubt that time is real – as one of the four dimensions of space-time.

And that is my starting point. None of the other three dimensions of space-time (the three spatial dimensions) seems to control us in a way time does.

Few (if any) people are stressed by „length, width or height“ but time seems to have taken over our lives. How comes?

 

We stress about time because we falsely treat it as a resource!

We are falsely treating time as a resource, which it is not (it is a dimension). In our culture we treat time as something that “we have”. Language like, “I don’t have time” or “I only have one hour”, is a common way we communicate and think about time. Like any other resource that we see as limited this creates a perception of scarcity which in turn is the reason so many of us are stressed out about time.

Our false perception of time as a resource rather than a dimension is the reason we stress about time but not about other dimensions like length, width or height

We structure time in a way that further enhances scarcity

This perception of scarcity is further enhanced by the way we have structured time, e.g. a day has (only) 24 hours and then the day is “over”, the week is over, the month is over, another year is over … While time is certainly real, how we structure time is man made and random. Time as a dimension has no structure whatsoever. We are simply moving through time – in a straight line.

Why time flies …

Time as a dimension is linear. Yet we treat time as if it is moving in loops.

Every 24 hours seem to repeat the same thing all over again. Just another day, getting up, doing my morning routine, driving to work, etc. … and then we are looping into seemingly the same thing 24 hours later. These 24 hour loops are smaller loops within a weekly loop (I hate Mondays, can’t wait for the weekend, oh no the weekend is over and them we start all over with yet another week) and an even bigger loop which we call a year. The problem with perceiving time as looping rather than a linear line where every moment is a completely new moment is that our conscious mind is primed to notice only what is new and important. Anything familiar will go unnoticed. That is why a whole day, week or year can go by and we have no idea where “all the time went”. We have not noticed it, because the conscious mind did not bother as it classified the information as a repetition rather than something new and therefore has not registered it in a lasting manner.

The consequences of our misperception

To perceive time as looping may well be one of the most costly misperceptions in mankind’s history. And here is why.

“Life is short” … or isn’t it?

Life is only “short”, because we tend to go through most of our life in a trance like state, distorting (shortening) time, with the conscious mind simply not being aware of what is happening neither inside of us nor around us. Imagine yourself gently dosing of while watching a movie, only to wake up right before the end, being surprised that it is already over. That is how many people feel when they come near the end of their lives. We pay for the misperception that time is happening in loops over and over and over again with basically missing out on experiencing each moment of our life, as our conscious mind shuts down and starts to sleep right through. A young kid will not agree to a statement that “the year has just flown by”, because to the mind of the kid everything was new and that is the way a kid is experiencing life. Only when we start to misperceive time as a repetition we start to dose off … We are basically sleeping through (and missing out on) life.

You can not make choices while you sleep

Not only do we “sleep through” most of our life, we also rarely make conscious choices that shape our life into the desired direction. In fact we don’t even reflect and challenge the direction we are taking …

With our mind living comfortably in the illusion that it is all more of the same, we tend to go through life on automatic, making the same familiar choices over and over and over again.

Rarely do we interrupt, wake up to the fact that this is a completely new moment where we are free to make whatever choice we want – into the unfamiliar, the exciting, the new and different experiences. Instead we keep running whatever program of behaviour and choices we have installed in our early childhood, forever, like a wind-up toy that has been wound-up years ago and keeps moving into the same direction until it finally fizzles out of energy.

Remember this tragic pattern is due to your false perception of time. Just as you would stop, reflect and make a conscious decision when you are travelling and reach a crossroad that you have never been to before, you would also stop, reflect and make a conscious, new decision if you fully realized that every moment in time is an entirely new moment in life. As long as you continue to perceive time in loops you will treat each crossroad like the one you are passing daily on your way to work. Automatically and always taking the same turn. Until your life is over.

Three steps to “Freedom from time”

Be rigorous with your language

 It is our language that creates the world we live in. Change your language from “Having time” (illusion) to “going through time” (truth) and notice the calming and slow-down effect it has on you. By being conscious about your language you will also create the necessary awareness to acknowledge that every moment is a new moment in time.

So …

Understand that this is your first time – always

Understand that time is nothing but a linear dimension which each moment being a completely new point in life that you have never visited before. You can not meet the same person a second time (we produce new cells at a rate of a stunning 5 Million per second so you will have changed while you read this line) nor can you visit the same place again (when you come back home after an hour of grocery shopping you will find your house a whopping 490,000 miles away from where you left it, given the speed we move through our galaxy)

No place is ever the same as the ”last time” you were there. No activity, no person is ever the same. Everything is changing all the time. Everything is new. Go through life, knowing that this is your first time – always.

Dwelling in space-time

The way to learn to dwell in time is by dwelling in space. Scientifically speaking, time does not exist independent from space, so we can use this as our tool to dwell in space-time and thus slow down time.

Theory: By focussing your attention on the world around you, you become aware of the three spatial dimensions . At the same time check in with your internal experiences that change constantly and assign the current point in space-time to whatever your experiences may be.

Practise: We all know how to consciously be in space and enjoy the “moment”. Remember a time where you paused for a moment to look at a beautiful countryside? You were probably taking a deep breath, time would “stop” and you would simply enjoy the moment, completely absorbing the beauty and uniqueness of nature around you. Because it was new. And you were in awe of the wonders of the world. Whatever the activity you might be doing at any given moment, by keeping part of your awareness on your being and part of your awareness on the world around you, you can dwell in time no matter what you are doing. This dwelling in time leads to a massive slowdown in our subjective perception of time. Time no longer controls us, it has merely become an orientation on our journey through space-time.

Every moment becomes an invitation to visit a different and new point in space-time and make new and different choices.

For more insights: Torsten Lueddecke