If we can be present in each moment, we step out of relative time into the flow of living. Even if we can be fully present only for brief moments, we experience some degree of the peace or serenity of Now.
If we remind ourselves to be present, we may succeed in stepping out of chronic thinking of the past or anticipation of the future. It’s not easy. Being in the Now through an act of will takes effort. Mindfulness. Attention. Discipline. Patience.
Practicing being in the Now through effort is often not sufficient to bring about a lasting change. We may find we are back to past or future thinking before we know it. But those moments of being in the Now reveal to us a glimpse of what is possible.
The ongoing state of being in the Now begins to be established in Cosmic Consciousness (or Self-Realization). Being in the Now becomes our natural sense of time. How do we get to an ongoing Now? Divine Grace. We prepare principally through effortless spiritual practice, over relative time, until we are ripe for the Divine Grace of Awakening.
Living in the Now is quite different from not living in the Now. It does not mean there are no thoughts about the past. We still have memories. And it does not mean there is no anticipation of the future. We can still plan ahead. But we rest in the flow of timelessness. Past or future thinking no longer disturbs the timeless Now.
When we approach Cosmic Consciousness and subsequent spiritual unfolding, it is not just our sense of Time that begins to shift. Our sense of Space can shift too. For Time we move into the Now. For Space we begin to experience ourselves as the space upon, or within which experience occurs. When Cosmic Consciousness is established, it is like we are the spacious screen on which the movie of life is projected. And we recognize that the movie of life arises on the basis of our Presence.
This shift begins to move our experience from ordinary three-dimensional space to non-dimensional space. We lose conventional Time when we reside in the Now. Yet we begin to lose conventional Space when we discover that the deeper dimensions of Space are increasingly non-dimensional. This can be understood in Cosmic Consciousness to a some degree, but the recognition of non-dimensional space becomes clearest in Unity Consciousness (Oneness) and beyond.
We exit Space-Time on the level of our perspective of Reality. But we retain all the relative time and dimensionality that was there before. Experience becomes non-dimensional and timeless. There is just one wholeness, in spite of the layers/dimensions of the world, or the passage of time, that continue to appear. It seems paradoxical, but the paradox is only in our minds.
Who ever thought we would exit Space and Time? Such fun!
– Joel