The Center for contemplative practice
A Lay Cistercian Looks at Spiritual Reality
THE WOMAN WHO CHANGED TIME: SPIRITUALITY AND TIME
SPIRITUALITY AND TIME
Some thoughts on how spirituality and time interact.
Seven lessons humans need to learn, in order to live in three universes.
- LESSON ONE: The more complex the reality, the simpler it Truth is. The purpose of your life is to discover what that truth is and to fulfill your destiny as a human being.
- LESSON TWO: The mental universe, in which human can reason, gives us the opportunity to choose a higher
- LESSON THREE: There are three universes but only one Truth that must be the same in all three universes, to be real.
- LESSON FOUR: There are no secrets to the discovery of meaning, reserved for a privileged few. Everyone has a chance to get to Heaven. The purpose of life is to discover meaning and fulfill your destiny.
- LESSON FIVE: All humans are free to choose their own Some centers lead to truth; some lead to destruction. You have a lifetime to discover and learn the difference.
- LESSON SIX: Relationship is a key to discovering meaning in all three universes.
- LESSON SEVEN: Genuine spirituality is the most difficult universe to integrate into reality. It is totally in front of you right now, but it is totally invisible using just your five senses.
“Many people are more concerned about where they came from than where they are headed. You only enter spiritual time with a free act of the will. You make an act of the will for what will be, not for what has been.” —The Center for Contemplative Practice
The following blog comes from my book on Spirituality and Time, entitled The Woman Who Changed Time: Spirituality and Time. The book may be found in the Store section of this blog. I write vertical books, so be warned. Vertical books are those containing a question at the top of each page followed by my comments on the remainder of the page. They are ideally suited for blogs. I have excerpted one section, spiritual time, in this blog. Other blogs will explore physical time and mental time.
WHAT IS SPIRITUAL TIME?
If the spiritual universe is X, can you solve for X?
Mathematics can teach us about the invisible universe of spirituality. Like dark matter, we cannot SEE it but we can deduce its presence through other measurements and deduce its existence from its effect on other known phenomena. In a mathematical formula, the spiritual universe is like solving for X. Like the Pythagorean Theorem, the square on the hypotenuse of a right angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. In physical reality, we can see matter and energy, and measure it. We can use our mental energies to deduce a solution or solve for X if we know the formula. Humans have discovered mathematics, the sciences, medicine, physics, and chemistry to answer the question, “What is it and how does it work?” Our mental thinking is invisible yet no less real. It leads us to make choices. Unlike Yogi Berra’s purported saying: “If you come to a fork in the road, take it,” our mental capabilities allow us to choose what is valuable. Yet, what is of value to us may not be valuable in terms of what is good for the last part of the equation– that third side of the triangle. Spirituality is the logical consequence of two universes, separate yet inexorably interdependent. This spiritual universe is analogous to the dark matter of the physical universe, only it is opaque.
The Logical Conclusion to Human Growth.
Spirituality begins when we make a conscious choice to move from a human-centered existence to one that is centered on THE OTHER. You will spend a lifetime, if you are so fortunate, trying to discover what that means. In my own mind, I have discovered the equivalent of Fermat’s Last Theorem. Once thought to be unsolvable, it has only been solved recently. http://www.mbay. net/~cgd/flt/fltmain.htm. My thinking has led me to look at reality in threes, or, The Rule of Threes: the physical universe, mental universe, and spiritual universe, but with a twist. I have attempted to take everything I ever learned about my time on earth and link it together. In doing that, I used Teilhard de Chardin’s ideas about how the universe is growing. Does time move in a straight line? I don’t agree with the straight line description. I think time is more like concentric circles that form when you drop a pebble on the surface of a clear pond. Instead of the rock causing the ripples, I found myself looking at those ripples and looking for the rock that caused it. Spirituality is the like a pebble that is dropped into the pond of time…it causes ripples. It is the logical consequence of time and matter. Spirituality allows humans the tools to discover the direction that time is headed. It fulfills our nature.
Authentic spirituality…is selecting what is aligned with pure energy.
You are free to choose whatever spirituality you want, but remember that not all spiritual thinking will lead you to fulfill your destiny. People who have a devout spirituality that says, “It is moral to fly a plane into the World Trade Center in the name of God,” are missing the point. So, is everyone’s spirituality correct just because they are free to choose it? If you are free to choose drugs, binge drinking, indiscriminate, unprotected sex, indecent exposure, as some of these halftime football shows advocate, is that authentic? Who is to say? You have all the time you have in your lifetime to find out what is meaningful. When you choose spirituality, you must also choose what that means. Not all religions lead to the truth, the way, and the life. Life is a quest for the truth. Authentic spirituality, regardless of what philosophical expression you select, means your value system is based on three principles:
- The principle of the Truth states that what is real is found in three universes, not just one;
- The principle of the Way means that the path to truth lies outside of you;
- The principle of the Life means that you discover pure spiritual energy in everyday events, to fuel your quest for authentic
The Two Dimensions of Spiritual Time.
If you want to live in the spiritual universe, you must choose to do so. You must also choose what is authentic and real about spirituality. Once this happens, you live in spiritual time. There is a macro level of spiritual time, one particular to the human race. Spiritual time began with one person making a conscious decision to move forward. There are two dimensions of spiritual time. One is personal and one describes the condition of the human race.
- Personal spiritual time begins when you, as an individual, make a conscious and free choice to enter the spiritual This time continues even after you die. Individuals pass into the spiritual universe that has no physical time, space, or matter, but it does have energy. You must say, “YES.”
- Human spiritual time began with the choice of one person who represented all of us. Although spiritual persons lived before Mary, she was the one person who enabled time, not individual physical or mental time but human spiritual time. Spiritual time began with her word, “YES.”
Learn how to sew with The Golden Thread.
You have heard of our early ancestors as hunter-gatherers haven’t you? Did you know humans are also sewers? We humans like to link things together mentally. We want to know how it all fits together. In the physical universe, we use thread to sew our clothes and mend our socks. In the mental universe, we use a mental thread called logic, to put an invisible thread through every action we do, and every thought we think. There is a reason why humans behave as they do. Maybe, in the short run, it is for self-satisfaction. We have evolved to sharing with others. In the long run, we think about things like religion, where it all fits, and how my life has meaning. Usually, people who are older tend to think more about the deeper thoughts about their lives. When we have a trauma or life-shaking event, such as cancer in our own bodies, or the death of a relative, we move quickly to think about the deeper part of life. Ever wonder why people in prisons all of a sudden get religion? Why are some people so religious, when they find out they are going to die? In the spiritual universe, the one we choose freely, we are given a Golden Thread to link everything we find of value to our future destiny, Forever. We need a sense of urgency to focus on what is most important in life.
Mary teaches us to sew with The Golden Thread.
Spiritual time is important because what we thread together during our lifetime, we take with us into a universe without space or time. You can only take with you those items you have sewn together with a Golden Thread. That seems impossible. How can an individual link together all these experiences, these wonderful times, and the relationships that made life worth living? The Golden Thread is God. Each and every morning, as soon as you sit on the side of the bed, make a morning offering of that day to God. A simple prayer might be: “that in all I do today, in all my thoughts and actions, may God be glorified.” If you make this act of the will, every human thought or activity automatically has a Golden Thread put through it, as long as those thoughts and deeds are consistent with God’s laws of spirituality. The Golden Thread for each human who freely chooses spirituality is the link between the wonders of the physical universe with the mental universe, and finally with those of the spiritual universe. Those relationships of intimacy and friendship, consistent with God’s will, all have a Golden Thread running through them. So, what’s your point? We are able to use the Golden Thread because Mary made a choice for spirituality that was acceptable to God.
Spiritual time on earth prepares you for spiritual time in Heaven.
Why are you here on this earth? Is there a destiny out there towards which all of us inexorably march? The answer is “Yes.” It is one of the reasons that spiritual time completes physical and mental time. There is a reason we humans evolved using human reason. The mental universe allows us to store those values and experiences we wish to take with us as we move to spiritual time after we die. Our circuits were not wired to live in a state of pure energy, pure knowledge, pure love, and pure service. Spiritual time is the universe that “always is.” How would humans relate to that? It would fry our circuits. There must be some artificial environment within spiritual time to allow us to survive. There is. Those links we sew with The Golden Thread show that we know what it means to be fully human. We take with us what we sew during our lifetime. Mary is the only human, with the exception of her son, who was perfectly human. Yet, Mary became perfect because God filled her with his energy. In three billion years, we humans might reach that stage of maturity, if we don’t first kill ourselves. For Mary, it was instantaneous. Mary was the first one of us to use The Golden Thread. Because she said “YES,” we reap the benefits and have a chance to fulfill our destiny.
Meditations on Spiritual Time.
- Without a spiritual universe, we miss the critical part of the equation for a unified theory of reality.
- The physical universe is the platform for life; the mental universe is the platform to discover meaning and value. The spiritual universe is the platform to find meaning and values that correspond to pure energy, and so continue to live…Forever.
- The spiritual universe began with a ..the Word Made Flesh. Read John 1: 13-14.
- For that Word to be human, another free choice had to be made by It was “YES.”
- The free choice of Adam and Eve was “NO.”
- Spiritual time is not measured with metrics. There is no distance within spiritual time, only the energy that is.
- To prepare our human minds to live in the presence of pure energy, God had to SHOW us how to use the tools. Read John 3:12-21.
LEARNING POINTS
- In the physical universe, time is limitless, it is invisible, it seems infinite, yet still tied to matter.
- In the mental universe, humans have only a lifetime to find their Humans ask questions that lead them to search for something more than just feeling good about themselves.
- Spiritual time uses the platform of physical time and the human curiosity to resolve the questions humans ask in the mental Spiritual time is. Humans have an opportunity to prepare to live in a universe containing no space or time, only spiritual time.
- There is one reality with three distinct Time is constant in all three universes. There are three distinct types of time, just as there are three distinct universes. There is only one reality.
- The measuring sticks for each universe are different, yet must be True in all three universes.
More on physical time and mental time, next time.
That in all things, may God be glorified. –St. Benedict
The Center for contemplative practice 