Time is one of the most difficult demiself constructs to understand and overcome. To understand the nature of the time delusion, I have to examine time both as I experience it, and as I believe it exists. With effort and concentration I can see the differences between these two, and from there decide which is true and which is a distortion.
Experientially, I only ever directly experience this moment. Because the truth lies in my direct experience, I know this is true. I have secondself impressions of a past, and imaginings of a future yet to come, which reinforce my conviction that time is passing and I am constantly moving into the future. This is the distortion.
Time is a function of my focus, awareness, and conviction. If I have a secular scientific conviction I believe when I look into the night sky I am seeing stars that are many millions of years old. When I look at bones, I believe I am seeing the remains of ancient creatures that no longer exist. But I know that these only exist as I experience them; as points of light in my moment, and as solid objects I touch in my moment. The remaining conceptual parts — that the stars are millions of light-years away from me, and the bones are remains of extinct creatures — are purely imagined. Both of these beliefs are secondself constructs (i.e., imaginary) which supplement a thirdself experience (the light and the physical bones, respectively).
More clearly, while I see the forms in my thirdself (the stars and bones), I am simultaneously imagining them in secondself. Both the stars and bones have a secondself and thirdself component. The thirdself component is a physical form — the stars as lights, and the bones as objects. The secondself component is time: I imagine the stars in distance and time, and bones as belonging to ancient creatures separate from me now in distance and time. All this secondself imagination gives rise to the idea of a separateness; things that are not me, now, and here, but are other, not now, and not here. This is all purely imaginary.
As I begin to adopt the triself model, I frequently experience a shift I have not been able to articulate within terms of the model. It happens when I am spending long amounts of time dwelling on worldly content such as big power conflicts between China and America. In triself, I know that these are merely puppets on a stage of my own creation. But when I suspend triself, the ideas of China and America become massive relative to me; I am merely a citizen in one, interested in and frightened of the rise of another. This is demiself mode, in which I am a single solitary person among eight billion others currently inhabiting a large world. I mis-proportion myself relative to my creation. If I suspend triself and assume that state, then rapidly descend back to firstself, I experience a shift. It is like believing I am a person in the world, then suddenly realizing that the world is a puppet-show and it is my own hands which are controlling the puppet. This is the model shift, and I experience it in reverse when I awaken in my morning.
If I imagine time as part of the emanation I can see its structure. When I emanate outward, my sense of time is greater. If I read a history book, my secondself is emanating into the deep past. If I look into the sky through a telescope, my imagination is fabricating a universe that is billions of years wide. It is the same telescopic activity at play, whether I physically look into the night sky and imagine millions of light-years, or whether I look deep into my mind at an imagined past filled with dinosaurs. Both are the same function: imagination distorting into time, distance, and separateness. But when I bring my awareness in closer, and even close my eyes and center, I experience a timelessness, lack of distance, and oneness. This is the moment of creation.
Experientially, time is a function of my focus and awareness. The further inward through my second and thirdself I emanate, the more deeply I will experience time, space, and division. The closer outward to my firstself, the more I will concentrate and time, space, and division will collapsed down into oneness. This magnifying and telescopic function is fundamental to understanding the nature of time, space, division, and myself.
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