What is Time?

Time passes! Lost time! No time! Time is a concept that is “pervasive” in our life, and it would seem natural to us that we know what it means. But whoever reflects deeply about the nature of time is sure to find himself in the situation so splendidly described by Augustine: “If nobody asks me, I know what time is, but if I am asked, then I am at a loss what to say.” Christopher VASEY delves into the paradoxical qualities of time and explains why time does not pass but stands still.

Author: Christopher Vasey

Time indeed appears a paradox to us: It is short and long simultaneously. Long, because it has already “lasted” millions of years, and short, because we never seem to have enough time at our disposal; it is stretched to infinity – or shrunk to a fraction of a second. Time also appears slow and at the same time fast: Slow for the one waiting, fast for the one joyfully absorbed in his activity. “The times” seem to change with us and world history – and “time” nevertheless remains completely independent of all happenings. Whether we waste it or not – time is always available to us.
DOES TIME PASS?

We say, time passes. An important event taking place on a certain date is for the moment still far away; it lies in the future. But the moment draws nearer, the “interval” between it and us diminishes – until at last the awaited future becomes the present and finally lies behind us; the event has passed and disappears perhaps completely from our memory:

Thus time appears to us like a river, which flows independent of us – with relentless, unstoppable, irrevocable movement. We cannot bring back past, bygone times. The river of time “comes” from the future, flows through the present and disappears in the past – a seemingly recurrent process. Does time therefore really pass like the hands of the clock, making us aware of its spatial movement?

“My days are swifter than a post; they flee away, they see no good. They are passed away as the swift ships: as the eagle that hasteth to the prey.” (Job 9, 25-26)

Absurdities arise in thinking about such a concept, with the conclusion that time – true time and not the hands on the clock – does not pass. If time was really “drawing past” us like an invisible river, then it would flow at the same speed for each and every one, each person would experience the passage of time in the same or at least a similar manner to the way we calculate spatial distances. Yet daily experience shows us that we experience time extremely differently.

It “passes” more or less quickly depending on the person and circumstances. Time goes by quickly for someone doing something with enthusiasm, like for example an artist, or a scientist absorbed in his or her research who, when called at midday to lunch, is astonished that the morning is already gone. In contrast, time passes painfully slow for someone who has no interest in his work, perhaps attending to it only as a tiresome fulfilment of duty. Thus we see that:

Our own inner movement forms our experience of time.

WE PASS THROUGH TIME

For an active person who plunges into life with enthusiasm there are too few hours in the day; to the passive person, however, the same span appears drawn out and “boring”: How can two such very different concepts of time be valid side by side? If we assume that time does not flow past, but that we are moving, the apparent absurdity finds a logical explanation: On condition that it is not time with its own momentum that is drawing past us, but that the perception of time only refers to our speed, thus depending on our activity or passivity, one can conclude that time itself basically stands still. We, however, pass through time, move in it.

This real, motionless time, which gives room to our experience, naturally has nothing in common with that concept of time that we think of in looking at the clock. The hands of a clock essentially only illustrate the speed of a regular mechanical process: clocks are used for measuring and comparing a duration or to describe the moments of a day. We may “know the hour” in this way, but not really the time. Hours, minutes, seconds are human inventions (see box “History of Time Measurement”), but this chronometric time is only a system of measurement for the material environment, whereas the true, eternal, motionless time, which everyone experiences personally in the way that accords with him, is an inseparable part of Creation and is a work of God.

The words in the Bible “and a thousand years are as one day.” (Psalms 90,4) show that spiritual time differs in experience from the physically measurable time.

The measurement of “clock time” accordingly meets the quantitative needs of the physical mind, whereas real time of experience is “time of the spirit”. Our spirit is of nonmaterial species, and for it is the qualitative aspect of primary significance. What stirs us inwardly and enables progress is always the qualities of things, people and situations. For the spirit, it is not quantities, masses or speeds that matter, but the nature of experience and the inner perception that ensues. A short, intensively experienced moment is for the spirit far more useful than a long, passively and mechanically experienced period. The – more or less – lived “time of the spirit”, which every person experiences subjectively, has only the name in common with the chronological, impassive time of the clock.

Who has not had the impression that his week’s holiday for example – provided this was especially eventful – seemed to have lasted a fortnight or even longer? His spirit experienced a lot and went a longer way than is usually the case in seven days of chronometric time. The words of the Psalms in the Bible “and a thousand years are as one day.” (90,4) show similarly that spiritual time differs in experience from the physically measurable time. In heaven (the spiritual realm), experience is so intensive, that it is as if 1,000 earth years were experienced in a single day. We wander through time.
TIME AND MOVEMENT

The Grail Message by Abd-rushin tells us: “Time! Does it really pass? Why does one encounter obstacles when thinking more deeply about this axiom? Simply because the fundamental idea is wrong; for time stands still! We, however, hurry towards it! We rush into time, which is eternal, and seek the Truth in it. Time stands still. It remains the same, today, yesterday and a thousand years hence! Only the forms change. We plunge into time, to cull from her records for the purpose of enriching our knowledge from what has been collected there! For time has lost nothing, it has recorded all things. It has not changed, because it is eternal.” (Awake!, Volume 1)

Here, not only the decisive point is addressed that time is eternal and we “rush into time”, but also that what changes “in the course of time” is not time itself but the forms: The hands of our clock go forward, the sun changes its position on the horizon, plants germinate, children grow, our attitude changes, as does the whole of society. The forms change in the lap of time, time itself, however, is eternal and stands still. Nothing else in Creation stands still, all forms ceaselessly change in the cosmic Law of Movement.

Time stands still. It remains the same, today, yesterday and a thousand years hence! Only the forms change. (Abd-ru-shin)

Indeed, everything is in movement, not only animals and humans or the stars in the firmament, which revolve around themselves and at the same time around the central axis of their galaxy. On the atomic level electrons continuously circle round the nucleus, and our inner world is also permanently in movement: Incessantly we think and wish, we strive for one thing or the other, and form again new thoughts and actions.

The Law of Movement, to which everything is subject, leads to an uninterrupted change of forms – and these transformations are not brought about by a “passing time”, but through the creative power streaming through everything. Time itself does not change or move, it does not come along like a river flowing from the future into the past, but it stands still, it is eternal.
SHORT HISTORY OF TIME MEASUREMENT

Is the morning already so far advanced? How much time is left? Is it too late? A brief glance at a clock dial is sufficient today in “knowing the time”, thus in obtaining a quantitative reference for the course of our life. It was certainly not always so.

The first instrument that was used by man for the measurement of time was presumably a simple stick placed upright in the ground. Between sunrise and sunset the stick cast a shadow on the ground, which changed its position with the course of the sun. By marking the path of the shadow the day could be divided in even sections. This system developed into the sundial. Its big drawback: It could be used only during the day and in sunny weather. Man was soon looking for other “timepieces”.

Among these was the klepsydra, a water clock used by the ancient Egyptians. Water flowing out at a constant rate from a vessel with markings was used to measure time. Oil lamps and sundials worked according to a similar principle. Graduated candles were also used as “measurement devices”. They all of course had severe drawbacks and inaccuracies, which lay mainly in the composition and variable condition of the materials used.

The first mechanical clock was built in the 14th century. Its mechanism was released by a weight set in motion, the full hour was indicated by a sound. This basic model of the mechanical clock was continuously perfected. In the 15th century it was equipped with a clock face and a single hand that indicated the hour. Only at the end of the 17th century did the minute hand appear. Also in the 17th century weights were replaced by a pendulum for the first time, and in the 18th century coil springs came into operation. Thereby mechanical clocks became ever smaller – until they yielded the pocket and wristwatches we know today.

TRAVELLING THROUGH TIME We prepare ever new forms by our wishes and our thoughts, which become reality in the “mechanism” of Creation. Our deed, but not time, gives the impulse for the development of those forms which we experience – against the background of “time division” familiar to us – firstly as the future and then as the past. However, every change of form is recorded in time. Thus all our activity leaves its traces in Creation, nothing is lost, everything is preserved in eternity. Therefore it also is possible for especially gifted people in principle through spiritual deepening to scoop from the well of these records of time and so “travel through time”.

The dream of physically travelling through time has so far been the stuff of novels and films. The English author and philosopher H. G. Wells (1866 - 1946) first developed this idea in his novel “The Time Machine”. Countless other science-fiction publications on the theme of “time travel” have followed, as for example Martin Amis with “Time’s Arrow”, and today there are physicists who seriously do not exclude the possibility on the basis of theoretical considerations and calculations.

Such physical time travels would no doubt lead to unsolvable contradictions: Would somebody who travels into the past and makes an attempt on the life of his great-grandmother thereby prevent his own generation? Would not such a trip change the whole of history, because all our wishes, thoughts and actions shape world events in some form or another? And would somebody who travels into the future actually experience “the” future?

It would mean that all events develop independently without influence of our will in a predetermined manner; human free will would therefore be ruled out, undermining the cornerstone of our individual and social life. Since without free will man would only be a plaything of fate and not responsible for his deed. Society could not exhort him to obey the laws and could not judge him either if – conditioned by fate – he acts against these laws. Maybe thoughts of physical time travel can be assigned to the human hunch that it is possible spiritually to delve into the records of the real, spiritual time.
WHAT IS TIME? To this fundamental question can be summarised as answer: Beside the chronometric time which forms part of our physical life and is also central to all theoretical and physical considerations, there is the real, eternal time. It belongs to God’s Work of Creation and and can be understood by us only in experience.

This time is no stream that bears spatial reality, but it stands still. In the treasury of its records can be found “for all time” the traces of our movement.