Dear Rupert,
In the ‘Time and Memory’ chapter of your book you have explained how time and memory are created by a third thought which connects the first thought (object) and the second thought (recollection).
I am not sure if I have understood the following correctly: ‘Nothing is ever lost. That which took the shape of the object then is taking the shape of its “recollection” now’. Does this mean that all the shapes that consciousness takes continue ‘forever’, with the consequence that all past events are present (‘happening’) right now?
If this is true, it seems that consciousness may even be free to change a past event. What about ‘future’ events? Are they different to consciousness? Could you please help me to understand this?
With kind regards,
Rajah
Dear Rajah,
Rajah: In the ‘Time and Memory’ chapter of your book you have explained how time and memory are created by a third thought which connects the first thought (object) and the second thought (recollection).
Rupert: Just for clarity, time is the imagined duration that exists between the present moment and an imagined moment, or between two imagined moments (in the past or the future or both).
‘Nothing is ever lost. That which took the shape of the object then is taking the shape of its “recollection” now’. Does this mean that all the shapes that consciousness takes continue ‘forever’, with the consequence that all past events are present (‘happening’) right now?
No! It means that the true substance of all those shapes continues. The true substance of all forms is consciousness, and it is consciousness that remains. All forms are changing appearances that appear on or within, and are made out of, consciousness. All that is present when a form is present is consciousness. Consciousness is the content of consciousness. This content never disappears.
To say that consciousness ‘continues forever’ is not quite right, because it implies that consciousness continues in time. On the contrary, time appears, ‘from time to time’, as an idea within the ever-present, timeless reality of consciousness.
Imagine a TV screen with images of a film continually changing. The true substance of the images is only the screen. When the images change, does the screen change or disappear? No! That which is real is never lost.
It is like that: just one substance, ever-present, alone; knowing, being and loving itself simultaneously; seeming to become the mind, the body and the world, but never actually being or becoming anything other than itself; dimensionless but taking the shape of all appearances of time and space.
This one substance is our self. It is the knowing, being, experiencing element in every experience.
* * *
If this is true, it seems that consciousness may even be free to change a past event.
It is! However, there is no such thing as a past event, as such. What we imagine to be a past event is utterly non-existent now. Where is your fifth birthday party now? It exists, along with all other apparent past events, simply as the thought that thinks it. And all thoughts are, by definition, present events.
This means that the apparent past is created afresh every time it is thought about. Your fifth birthday party has no existence other than the thought that thinks it, and that thought is new every time it appears.
Everything takes place in this present now. Time is never experienced. Your fifth birthday party took place in the same now that this word is taking place in and it was made out of the same stuff.
So yes, consciousness, by taking the shape of the mind, creates a new past every time the thought of such a past appears. In other words, every moment comes with its own brand new past!
It does not mean that your fifth birthday party was not real. It was real. But its reality is thisreality. It was made out of the same stuff that this current experience is made out of.
What about ‘future’ events? Are they different to consciousness?
Likewise, the future is simply the thought that thinks it. It is new every time it is thought about. The past and the future alike are made only out of thought, and thought is made only out of consciousness.
The substance of all possible things is this very substance present here and now. It is closer than close. It is known as ‘I’.
With love,
Rupert
