No Time

According to the Mayan prophesy, 2012 will mark the end of time, as we know it. Some are concerned that this will bring the end of the world, but the end of time, as we know it, may be a very good thing. Most of us struggle with time – having enough time, running out of time, managing time – especially in our fast paced world that seems to be getting faster as we move closer to 2012. Letting go of time could be a solution.

What does it mean for time, as we know it, to end? To answer that we first need to look at how we know time. The way time seems to function now is that there is a past, present, and future, with the present becoming the past and the future becoming the present. If we examine our consciousness as we go throughout our day, much of our mind-time is spent in the past or the future. We are thinking about what has happened (memory) or what we want (or don’t want) to happen (expectations). Both of these activities take us out of the present.

In Mexican shamanic traditions, initiates focused on erasing personal history as a way of bringing their energy into present time. They believed that the more energy a person has in present time, the more power a person has to create reality. Erasing personal history does not mean that you have no memory, only that there is no emotional charge on memories. With no energy attached to memories, they cannot control your energy in the present.

The future is a similar energy drain if we have attachments to what will happen. We know we have an attachment when thoughts of the future bring judgment, worry, anger, sadness, or fear of loss. Again it does not mean that we cannot visualize a particular future, only that it does not take our energy from the present moment through these emotions.

So perhaps this shift in time that the Mayans predicted will free us from the past and future so that we can live in an eternal now. Or maybe the shift in time will occur because we have released the past and are unattached to the future. Lest you think that living in the now would be boring, just give it a try. If you are really in the now, with no resistance to it, boring is not a word that comes to mind! Instead a whole new level of possibilities opens into awareness.

Reality

Over the years of working with people I have come to realize that everyone lives in a different “reality”. Each person’s “reality” consists of a series of stories based upon their unique life experiences, beliefs, and memories. In addition, each “reality” is influenced with what we bring into this life, such as past life memories and DNA settings. No two people on earth, even identical twins, have all of that in common.

I use the term “reality” in quotes because we have lots of evidence from science now that shows us that our memories of experiences do not conform to what actually happened. Instead, we have bits and pieces of information that form the basis of a constructed memory, or story, about the event.

We also have lots of evidence to show that our minds cannot distinguish between what is real and what is not. When we think something, it is often recorded as being real, such as having a conversation with someone in your head and then thinking the conversation already occurred. My favorite experiment was one where one group of people worked out on weights and the other group spend the same amount of time imagining themselves working out. Both groups had the same increase in strength after 30 days compared to a control group.

Likewise, the body and emotions respond to stimuli in the environment according to our stories, not according to what is real. An example would be a stress response to another person’s facial expression that is interpreted based on story as threatening when the other person is not at all threatening. So to the mind, the stories are real and they cloud our ability to determine what is true based on their lack of accuracy as well as the drama they create.

So how then do we know what is true? The only reliable way to know if something is true, is to quiet the mind for a moment and shift your focus to your heart chakra. There is a feeling that arises from that area that is different when something is true or false. Truth often feels light and open while false often feels heavy and closed. Each of these feelings is a vibrational awareness that is relatively neutral in the sense that it has no emotional charge. Only the heart can see what is real beyond our stories, beliefs, and dramas.

It takes some practice to learn to listen to your heart but the reality that emerges is well worth the effort.