and our Inner clocks, by Dane Rudhyar:
Philosophers and poets have long discussed and still talk about the nature of time. Physicists take a more practical approach inasmuch as what they deal with are measurements; and they measure distance in time with clocks of one kind or another, just as they measure distances in space with an international standard of length — a platinum bar one meter long (a little over three feet) which is kept, or used to be kept, in the basement of an official building in Paris, France. Of course, physicists use far more "sophisticated" measures of time and space which have to do with the wave length of some atomic particles or with the speed of light (a light year being the distance covered by a ray of light during one year). But the principle is not really different from that which Egyptian, Chaldean, Mayan, or Chinese astrologers recognized when calculating a calendar enabling their people to regulate their life activities according to the periodic motions of the Moon, the Sun, Venus, or to the appearance above the horizon of some so-called "fixed star" at a certain time of the year.
Astrology, as we know it, deals essentially with the measuring of time. The processes of life on earth "take time," and that time can be measured by celestial clocks. Actually, this phrase, found in most languages — "to take time" — is a very peculiar one. Is time a substance you, I, or the universe can "take," lose, spend, or give to somebody who needs it? Is time our property to deal with as we choose? On the other hand, we are told to wait for the time, to expect the fulfillment (or the end) of time. This suggests that time moves quite independently of our desire for activity. The mystic, and a host of contemporary pseudo-mystics lured by the glamour of "cosmic consciousness," tell us that time is an illusion and that everything is "now," in the timeless moment.
This is all very confusing, is it not? How can one really experience timelessness as long as biological processes go on in the body of the experiencer? Is there any conceivable moment "When the Sun stood still" and your heart ceased to beat and all cellular activities stopped, except in death? But all sorts of activities still go on in the cells of a corpse. Wherever there is activity, there must obviously be time; and there is activity or motion everywhere. Could it be that activity and time are the same fact, seen externally as activity and internally as time?
What is a living organism or an individual person if not a complex system of interrelated and interdependent activities? Man is not only a system (i.e., an organized whole) of physiological activities (body); that system somehow expands into, or is connected with, an equally complex organization of psychological activities (mind, feelings, imagination, will, etc.). Is it not logical to say that because a human being is active at two levels, he experiences time also in two different ways? Accepting this as a hypothesis, we would then say that time for a conscious and thinking-feeling-willing individual person is known, on the one hand, as objective time (the time of physical activity) and, on the other hand, as subjective time (the time identified by psychic-mental activity).
Two Levels of Human Activity
This may sound very profound and philosophical, but actually nothing could be simpler. A man lives at two different levels of activity — we all know that! When we try to solve a difficult problem or we are reliving a deeply moving experience of love, ecstasy, or panic, "time" then means something different than it means when we are repeating mechanical actions on an assembly line in a factory, typing countless legal forms, or driving from home to office trying to beat the traffic — or also when we watch an organic process like the slow opening of leaves or flowers in early spring.
Novelists and poets tell us how a few minutes of blissful love can seem to last forever or, on the contrary, how when deeply interested in some work or play, "time passes so rapidly." This kind of time belongs to the category of "subjective time." It is a phenomenon of consciousness. We cannot measure it by the standard according to which we measure the time of cosmic or biological activities — i.e., the revolution of the earth around the Sun, the growth of a plant, etc.
An astronomer, a physicist, the supervisor of work in a factory deal only with objective time. They investigate every natural or social phenomenon with their clocks (and also their yardsticks). They measure everything; their thinking is strictly quantitative. The one big clock that has been used since men were able to think objectively — that is, with their intellect — is the sky. The day, the month, and the year are measures of time which men have been able to read on the clock of the sky for countless millennia.
When medieval Europe installed big clocks and bells on the church steeples and the belfries of their city halls, they actually did something quite remarkable. They brought objective time from the cosmic level of the sky to the social level of the city-community. This was a most significant change, the importance of which relatively very few people recognize. Later on, wristwatches came; and objective time became a decisive factor at the personal level of human consciousness — with equally significant results. This introduction of objective time into the greater part of modern life of everyday activity produced a profound change in our "inner life" — particularly our life of feelings and our intuitive thinking (i.e., a thinking open to the vast tides of universal processes). It has had the effect of altering and depreciating our sense of subjective time. It has compartmentalized our thinking and brought technological standards of measurement into our most intimate inner life and even his loving. It has "quantitized" love into sexual accomplishments — how long, how many times, etc...cont'd
http://www.khaldea.com/rudhyar/astroarticles/clockofyourinnerlife.php____________________________________________________________________
This is from a very old book on freemasonry (so there shouldn't be any copyright restrictions). While our discoveries in science have
caught up with this centuries old esoteric knowledge, this early explanation of the Time/Space riddle is beautiful and very helpful. It's very much in keeping with what Eckhart Tolle (in his book, The Power of Now) has reintroduced and made accessible. Experience of the Now, is available to the seeker through disciplines such as meditation or wakeful presense, but is not acessible or understood through the intellect alone (meaning...only experientially).
A SYMBOL OF OMNISCIENCE UNCONDITIONED BY SPACE AND TIME
In Masonry the All-Seeing Eye, ever beholds us. Indeed, the expression implies even more than this. Not merely does the Deity behold us – everyone – wherever we are, and however employed – so that all existing facts throughout the material universe, at this present moment, are equally apparent to Him – but it necessarily follows that to an Omnipresent Being, such finite terms as Past, Present and Future can have no meaning; for to Him all Time is one eternal Now.
Space and Time are in fact the two mysterious Pillars which flank the Porch of the material universe – the great Temple of the Deity whom we serve. The celestial and terrestrial worlds rest upon these twin pillars, yet the pillars themselves seem to us illimitable. So far as human reason and thought can fathom them, Space is infinite and Time is infinite; only the All-Seeing Eye of God can comprehend the two in their entirety.
Let us examine these two Pillars more closely. In other words, let us try for a few moments to realise the stupendous scale on which the material universe has been constructed. Perhaps the simplest way to do this will be to adopt an illustration by taking an imaginary journey through Space. We will call to our aid Astronomy. By Astronomy we observe the motions, measure the distances, and comprehend the magnitudes of the celestial bodies.
For our hypothetical voyage let us harness the wings of Light to our chariot. I will not pause now to discuss what Light really is; but you all know that it travels – travels with a velocity almost incredible – about 186,000 miles in a second; or in other words, a velocity equivalent to shooting a particle seven and a half times round the earth whilst your watch marks one second.
Launching ourselves out into the ethereal concave at this almost inconceivable speed, over an abyss of 50,000,000 miles, directing our course to our nearest celestial neighbor, the plant Mars, we arrive in about four and a half minutes at that wonderful world; in many respects so similar and yet in others so different from our own.
We must not stay, howeer, to inspect its marvels. Away again into space we continue our journey for nearly four hours, crossing the orbits of three far mightier spheres – Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus – each separated by a more stupendous distance from the other, until we reach our planetary outpost, Neptune. Our glorious luminary the Sun appears from there but as a glimmering star in the sky. Practically no heat, no daylight ever penetrates the distance from it. Only the mysterious force called gravitation governs and guides it from its solar center 2,740 million miles away. To convey some idea of this enormous distance, may I say that if the path of light and force from the Sun to Neptune be represented by a line 76 yards long, every single inch in that line would represent a million miles.
Thus far have we proceeded; yet this vast planetary system which we have been considering covers but a fraction of the space in the Universe. Standing now on the planet Neptune, let us look forth into the abyss beyond it. The starry firmament surrounds us here just as at home, all the stars still far, far away – at distances of appalling immensity, inexpressible by miles. The velociy of Light at which we have been travelling must be our unti of measurement.
We will select Sirius, the Dog Star, the most brillian (though not the nearest) of all the stellar orbs. Sirius is an enormous binary sun, similar to, but far larger than, our Sun. It is the center of a Sirian planetary system, and dispenses light and heat under the same conditions as in our solar phenomena. Its mass is about twenty times that of our own grand luminary, and its distance about 100 billions of miles; so that the rays of light from Sirius require about 15 years to travel to Earth.
Still, even at this almost incomprehensible distance, there are immeasurable depths of space before us. Far away beyond Sirius we see a misty zone of light, forming an immense girdle around the firmament. From time immemorial it has beeen called the Galaxy or “Milky Way”. As we approach it, this luminous mist resolves itself into a countless multitude of stars, bounded by more nebulous haze. Penetrating still further, this haze is again resolved into myriads of yet more distance stars, and still unexplored haze comes into view from the dark depths of space beyond. We should have to travel with the velocity of Light for ten thousand years ere we could reach the extremity of this stupendous star-cluster, which comprises millions of mighty spheres of incandescent matter, our own Sun being but a unit – a comparatively insignificant unit – amid the host. Remember, too, that every one of these millions of luminaries (together with its planets or satellites) is rolling ever through the vast expanse of Space with terrific rapidity, in its own particular path among its fellows.
Yet again, we must turn our thoughts away beyond this countless multitude of suns. The Universe extends far beyond them. Still on the wings of the Light, you must project your minds across voids which (even with our postulated tremendous velocity) would require thousands of years to traverse, until at length our glorious Galaxy shall have shrunk in retrogressive remoteness to the appearance of a small vesica-shaped cloud.
Meanwhile before us another self-luminous cloud grows grander and grander, till the darkness is dispelled by its glittering haze. On and on, till the haze resolves itself into more myreads of suns – glorious and immense as that whence we came; a cluster whose extent would unquestionably require at least another ten thousand years to transpierce with all the speed of Light.
In other words – night after night, by means of our largest and finest telescopes, waves of Light enter and impinge on a human eye after having been travelling through space for more than sixty-thousand years. Yet, beyond this awful circuit, boundless Space spreads away as unfathomable as ever.
We have passed from planet to planet, from sun to sun, from star-cluster to star-cluster; yet only to discover that the limits of Space – tri-dimensional Space – extend beyond our grasp in every direction.
“The human spirit can only cry out that it finds no limit. Notwithstanding all its strivings the finite mind cannot really get any nearer to where the might sea of Time breaks in noiseless waves on the shore of Eternity” (Klein).
We have reached the point where human thought must halt, and imagination grow giddy in conceiving God's ominiscience.
Like two parallel lines, these mighty pillars of Space and Time raise their heads about the Temple of the Universe, converging at Infinity; where the All-Seeing Eye of the Deity looks along them from beginning to end, in simultaneous inspection.
Now standing at the top of the Winding Staircase of Arts and Sciences, we pause – and from this vantage point concentrate and direct our attention upon that sublime symbol which is the subject of our study. Let us see whether our brief astronomical survey will enable us to comprehend more clearly how – to the All-Seeing Eye – there can be no such distinctions as here and There…Past and Future. To the Almighty and Eternal God there can be – there must be, only an ever-constant Here and Now.
I ask you to remember the velocity at which light travels, and look at the light shining in the east of the Lodge. You do not see its form, size and color as they really ARE at this very instant; but as they WERE when the waves of luminositywhich now enter your eyes left the source a certain fraction of time ago. In the same way we see the Sun only as it existed either minutes previously, and we see the planet Neptune only as it existed four hours previously. To go further, to what are termed the “fixed stars”, we see Sirius as it was fifteen years ago. During the long interval Sirius may have disappeared or exploded into atoms; yet we on this planet still see it shining, and we shall continue so to see it until the long line of luminosity emanating from it has run itself out.
In fact, to us, the Vault of Space is bespangled with images of blazing suns not as they are now, but as they WERE centuries ago; whilst stellar photography reveals light which left other firmaments even thousands of years ago.
Let us take the converse of this thought. If we were situated now on the planet Neptune, and we had eyes (or else some suitable optical instrument) to see in minute detail occurrences upon the Earth, the scene here which we should behold would not be that of the present moment but that of four hours ago.
Proceeding still further away, on the star Sirius would be visible the events which were occurring on Earth 15 years ago. On some other yet more distant star, there is just arrving that historic spectacle when the English Grand Lodge was inaugurated more than two centuries ago. At another spot, still more remote, is only now arriving the scene which occurred at Jerusalem nearly 3000 years ago when Solomon King of Israel was marking out the designs for their wonderful Temple; at that particular point in space every incident will be depicted in its true succession, until the stately pile becomes completed and the workment are bidden to cease labor.
By the same logical sequence it is obvious that in worlds still more exceedingly remote, the whole history of the Earth could not yet have begun to be. What would occur if from such a point we could return to Earth in one year, endowed with the wonderful faculty which I have been assuming? The whole of the events from the Creation down to the present moment would pass in view before us as we approached, only thousands of times more rapidly. Make the journey in one month instead of one year, and the speed of consecution will be proportionately accelerated. Make the journey in a day, an hour, a second, or a moment, and all those events in Existence which we denominate “the Past” will be visibly enacted in an infinitesimal unit of time.
In fact we may thus understand that wherever we are, and whatever we do, the survey of the Omnipresent Diety is not only upon us now, but is also simultaneously beholding every event which has occurred since the beginning of all Time. To an Omnipresent Being an eternity can be at will compressed into a moment, and conversely, a moment can be protracted to an eternity; for, to his All-Seeing Eye, Time can have no objective reality.
There is another method which may help us to grasp the idea that to the All-Seeing Eye, the infinitesimally little must be just readily and entirely apparent as the superlatively large. I have show that to the Omnipresent Being, what we call Time (or duration) cannot exist. Any event may be drawn out to a thousand times its length or may be enacted a thousand times more rapidly; but it will, of course, still constitute the same scene or series of scenes. Now, such are the limitations of our human faculties that we cannot distinguish in any quivering object more than twenty vibrations per second as single separate movements. At any quicker rate such vibrations are perceptible to our sight only as a blur, and to our hearing only as a hum.
But many a tiny insect regularly vibrates its wings a thousand times in a second (as we know by the musical note produced), and, so far as we can scertain, that insect is itself cognizant of each separate beat. How absolutely different from ours must its appreciaton of Time be!!! Its entire life extends only over a few hours. There can be not alternation of day and night – none of the ordinary criteria whereby WE measure duration. It would be, as it were, viewing Time through a microscope.
Now, if we travel away from such insect at exactly the velocity of light (as, in imangination we did a short time ago) that which we call “the present instant” would continue always with us; the wing of the insect (although really vibrating at tremendous speed) would appear to us quite stationary; and would for ever remain so if we thus continued our flight concurrently with the rays of light. Therefore, to the All-Seeing Eye of the Deity who formed that tiny insect, and endowed it with life, its entire existence must be instantaneously apparent – every minute circumstance indelibly portrayed in waves of light, which circulate for ever through the illimitable Space which we have been surveying.
A SYMBOL OF OMNISCIENCE REGARDED MONITORALLY
In conclusion, let us see whether these thoughts will not help to solve (at least partly) some of the moral enigmas which confront us when we contemplate the evil and injustice perpetrated on Earth. A crime, committed hundreds or even thousands of years ago, may have remained undiscovered by Man, but somewhere in Space the scene still exists from beginning to end. The victim and the criminals of that fatal catastrophe have been for centuries turned to dust. Both site and surroundings have been swept from the Here. But the entire sequence of events is protrayed There – the ghastly wound still appeals for justice before the All-Seeing Eye, and (adopting an argument of the eminent astronomer Flammarion) if the ghosts of the assassins were condemned to move ceaselessly in space with the point where the etherial vibrations display their crime, and with the velocity of light, they would thereby be compelled to a perpetual contemplation of it. A penalty, surely, as terrible as the crime itself !
So must it be with every lapse from that undeviating line of conduct laid down in Sacred Law. And every such defection must remain – would have to subsist in perpetuity – except that the dazzling brilliance of Judicial Power in the All-Seeing Eye is blended with an Infinite Benignity. It is this which permits that hereafter – somehow, somewhere, these penal offences will be annulled from existence.
Here, our circle of human conduct is bounded by Divine Mercy. But parallel lines converge at Infinity. Hence, though the Seord of unerring and impartial Justice impends the one parallel, we raise our eyes to that Bright Morning Star which illumins the other, and we trust that by humility and contrition the doom will bee be averted.
Yet the deeply solemn thought reamins. Wherever we are, and whatever we do – ALL is perpetually present to the scrutiny of our Just though merciful Judge. To Him our real intentions are plainly apparent, the criterion of our actions; and He will reward or punish as we have obeyed or disregarded His Divine commands. Whatever be our faults, the Eye of Omniscience exercises an unwearied supervision over the actions and affairs of the whole human race; and while we continue to act according to the principles of our Craft, let us not fail to discharge our duty to the Grand Overseer with fervency and zeal.
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