No matter where I look, and what I’m studying, that same question keeps surfacing at the moment. It’s as if it’s waiting for an answer. So I suppose I’d better stop and give it one.
The latest attempt to get me to look it squarely in the eyes came early this morning, somewhere between sleeping and waking. It was one of those little video things some part of the consciousness lobs at us when it wants us to hang on to something important we discovered in the dream state, and are in danger of forgetting when life gets in the way.
So here’s what happened in my ‘video’:
Deep blue background with luminous spheres of light whizzing this way and that – rather like one of those speeded-up films of commuters moving through a railway station. A voice says, “What if there’s no time?”
The spheres stop and just hang there, then, suspended in the blueness, going nowhere.
“What if there’s no space?” she asks next.
Thunk. All of them sink and congeal together in a globby white mass with no discernible end or beginning.
“Is there any room for cause and effect?” she asks, finally.
It repeats a few times, until I’m properly awake.
TIME FLIES…………………* (Photo credit: Neal.)
Albert Einstein allegedly said, “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.” He also called time a “stubbornly persistent illusion“.
Just about every channelled source that really makes sense to me insists that time is a construct of our 3D universe. It allows us to experience life one bit at a time, but doesn’t exist at higher dimensions, or once we have passed over to our wider spirit state. It’s not even there in dreams, when you think about it.
And what about space? Maybe that’s here so that everything doesn’t happen in the same place?? Given all the material I’ve read on ‘non-local’ events in the realms of quantum physics, and the way in which spirit (and even my own thoughts and imagination) can be everywhere and anywhere, I’m happy to dispense with space once I move beyond this Earthly game we’re currently participating in.
I’m not saying that time and space don’t exist. I’m just saying that they exist only within the parameters of the life experience we’re creating for ourselves – the HERE and NOW. And since to my way of thinking life itself is a ‘stubbornly persistent illusion’ which a portion of our consciousness chooses to inhabit in order to gain experience and thus expand, I also have to accept that cause and effect – those twin sacred cows – are merely a by-product of our perception of the way life works.
Could we imagine a system in which there was no cause-and-effect? Yes, easily. If, like the blob of spaceless matter in my semi-dreamed movie, all is One, then everything is both the cause and the effect. As I watch the movement of water on the surface of a stream, I don’t feel that one swirl of movement causes another. They exist as parts of the whole water-skin, sharing a great single movement in fractals.
I’ve a feeling that my semi-dream interrogator was getting at something rather more pragmatic than this, though. I think she was asking me whether I could dispense with cause and effect in everyday life – in relationships, for example. That would mean no guilt or blame, no tit-for-tat ‘karma’, no ‘what goes around comes around’… just a constant swirl of movement between the many parts of All That Is, allowing each of us to experience all we choose to experience.
Having someone or something to blame has always been a very comforting prop; so has believing that the majority of life is completely beyond my control. Letting go of all that and believing that I’m solely responsible for what shows up in my life takes courage – huge amounts of courage.
Perhaps the real question is this: Am I brave enough NOT to believe in cause and effect?
Maybe…
Looking at Life 
But there is no time , and no space…. Those exist only because we exist! And we exist because time and space exist! But dosen’d exist! Everithing you cimagine , is real! Pablo knew what he was talkin’ about! In the universe there’s no ”fast” or ”slow” is just , the way it is! And , how can creatures for that the end is certain , understand ”forever”?
Cause and effect is a product of energy states that are constrained by their inability to act in any other way. At the baryonic scale (i.e.the stuff of atoms) is a bit like being an individual stuck in the middle of a vast crowd. On your own you are free to move how you like, but the physical constraints of the crowd limit your options and the crowds movement dictates yours. If they move so must you (cause and effect), on your own you can be spontaneous and unpredictable (quantum like). As for time, Einstein showed us how we cannot have “space” without “time”, however he never conceived of the probability that while space infers the existence of time, Time does not necessarily infer the existence of space, i.e time can and probably does exist beyond space. However! and here is the rub… without space, time does not need to have a beginning or end.. If the dimension of time has existed without space then it probably has always existed! i.e infinite time. If this is true it confounds our understanding of what time is. What does infinite time mean? For me, infinity (or infinite time) resembles nothing like the clock time we think of on Earth. It is instead better to think of pure Time as a reservoir of energy, which when it is not being expressed through the portal of space just exists. It is the Godhead, the Source, the Rock solid potential of Great Mystery. Why should it give birth to Universes at all?..quantum theory (particularly String Theory) has its ideas but frankly I think that last question (i.e.not when did the Universe begin, but Why did it begin) is beyond our frame of reference and therefore unknowable.
Lovely to have your wise words to add into the mix. Thanks to both of you for your comments 🙂
Very profound Jan – there are several important messages (and inquiries) here that could lead to important discussions. I like your depiction of our consciousness being only temporarily localized (via space and time) into the here and now, and the concept of cause and effect contributing to our inability to accept personal responsibility. You’re lucky – I only dream confusing life-stories (not my own) which I am attempting to turn into fiction or screenplays. Here’s to making our lives what we CHOOSE to make them!
Yes, the dreamish thing reminded me to revisit some of the ideas I cover in far more detail in my book, but I think it’s good to look at things from slightly different angles – we always get a few new ideas and perceptions.
Good luck with your dream-inspired writing (or should I say, ‘CHOOSE to make a success of them’ ?) 🙂
My brilliant friend Kali Tammik has put me in touch with the work of Robert Lanza on biocentrism. This is a clear and excellent article which explains all I’ve been trying to express and then some! http://www.robertlanza.com/the-biocentric-universe-theory-life-creates-time-space-and-the-cosmos-itself/
The best book I ever read about this topic is J.J. van der Leeuw’s In Conquest of Illusion. You can get it here: http://www.dondeg.com/metaphysics/Conquest_Of_Illusion.pdf. He distinguishes the Relative and the Absolute, what has also been called The Many and The One. Our regular consciousness is awareness of the Relative/Many, and mystical consciousness is awareness of the Absolute/One.
van der Leeuw argues that time and space are our interpretations, in our relative consciousness, of our eternal being as we exist eternally in the Absolute. None of it has any cause and effect at its roots, but only appears to do so from the standpoint of our relative consciousness.
The overall point of the book is that, when we try to frame any deep problem about life intellectually only from the standpoint of our relative consciousness, we will create unsolvable paradoxes. The only way to understand the truth of the questions we create is to have the mystical experience and experience the truth of reality for ourselves. His famous line is: “Life is not a problem to be solved, it is a mystery to be experienced”