Time – Sri Paul Twitchell – With Commentary

Letters to Gail Vol. 2, May 6, 1963

Dear Gail:

On the subject of time — space and time are not the framework of nature but of the world of sense perception. Time cannot exist without an observer, and what you see as objective time really doesn’t exist.

Man’s perception of time is indicated by the clock. If he has a habit of working by the clock, newspaper, etc., life becomes fast. Events and characteristics come into existence when an observer is present to witness with sound, touch, sight, smell, etc. Time is not real, for if it was it must involve change, and since there are no events except in present when the observer is there, and this is always the present. Remember what Blake said in one of his poems about the Halls of Los 1, where all events were frozen until you turned your attention upon them. So you see history is only a recorded document of those events which individuals saw in their own present-time. You see Time is dependent upon the individual’s sense organs.

Commentary: In this writing, Sri Paul Twitchell is uniting many ideas found in various literary sources, and uniting them within the framework of Eckankar. Primarily setting what is now called spacetime as a thing that exists only as a feature of feeling and of mental activity, depending on which facets of it are being discussed. Also notable is the term “Halls of Los” which is mentioned actually as “Los’s Halls” by Blake in his The Book of Urizen (1794). Where the attention of an individual is necessary to activate a sequence. This was verified as being true by the Double Slit experiment, originally theorized and performed by Thomas Young in 1801(well before quantum physics existed). This experiment proved that light expressed the form of both a wave and a particle, generally depending on whether or not a witness was viewing it at the time. The watcher’s expectation literally appears to dictate the way that the medium will perform. But this is not a fixed law because as soon as no one is witnessing it, it breaks from the expected pattern of effects. This experiment proved that there existed a wave-particle duality that not only happens with light, but also directly affects atomic particles on the quantum scale.

Actually time and space cannot be separated 2. Space in itself and time in itself sink into mere shadows and only a kind of union of the two preserves an existence; and this again depends on the observer’s system of reference. Henri Bergson takes up the study of time in his book The Creative Mind, and one point he makes is that even outside of physical time, where there is what might be called eternity, are rest points; that we can go so far and must come to rest points — in other words even the Soul moves from rest point to rest point 3. An interesting thought, isn’t it?

The past and future overlap and mingle. We look at the years which suddenly disappear because we are living in the present and suddenly that which we call time on which we base our whole existence itself no longer exists. It does not alter its position anymore than space because it begins in the center of every event and every event is fixed in the center, and all that goes past from end to end of our life without moving by a hair’s breadth around its motionless pivot. Therefore time as an objective reality is false, and is only a relative.

The particular time-structure of your world image is but your way of interpreting the ever-present reality. It is, with its structure of past, present and future, the product of your externalized world-image. Since time is an illusion then science cannot solve a problem born of it; each person has his individual time of perception and it is no other than his own unique experience. The movement of time is largely within each individual, and therefore is an abstract. But when an abstraction is taken to be something itself real it contradicts itself.

Commentary: Here again Sri Paul Twitchell points out the overlapping dual principles spoken about in the first commentary, only now translating it to the feeling or Astral Plane level of being, as well as the thinking or Mental Plane area of being. The same principles apply insofar as they are things that are formed by the individual’s attention and ability to understand the perceived rules a thing appears to be working under. Again these can often be changeable due to the present understanding of a thing or lack thereof. This is also changeable by virtue of the fact that one can be led through experiences that will literally shatter the old ways of viewing events, replacing them with another wider view that is better able to encompass and include the great many varying options that are possible to exist. These are inherently related to what has been experienced and learned previously, as well as the ways that can be further expanded while learning continues moving forward. This changeability is just one example that maya or illusion, actually exists within the lower planes or states of consciousness. 4

We must learn to conquer illusion (maya is the Indian word for illusion) before we can know reality. In the world of the Real, or God, we can only transcend the illusion of being a physical thing, and know ourselves as the spiritual entity. Therefore we are seeking an insight into the illusion known as time and find eternity. This world is limited to a three dimensional world; time, space, and matter. If we can rise above these three parts of the physical world, there will be a transcendence of the consciousness to a higher level and we can have a wider perspective and a greater awareness.

In the physical life we clutch at the hours and days of the past and present to reassure ourselves, to fasten on some certainty, to convince ourselves that we are still in our right place in this life where all is substantial and real. Time is actually on one plane but man can live in several planes, according to his own psychic development. Therefore, man doesn’t have to be bound by time, nor held back by the weight of his own flesh; he can be anywhere he desires in his other self, as pointed out several times to you. If you will notice the mind measures the flight of time, and to some degree also measures it. Relativity 4 teaches us that form which time takes in experience is never final, and vice versa, meaning that no experience is ever final as long as it’s in time, and Karma; not until one is lifted into the higher planes, those above time. None in flesh will experience this until he has freed himself from the purely human angle of vision, and until this is done truth and God is hidden from him. To study this we must think: “What is my relation with time?” So when you think about any event, you place yourself mentally at a certain place and in a certain time, but it is not a true place nor a true time. To enter into the true place and true time one must follow out the dictates of the Shariyat-Ki-Sugmad which says that you must surrender the mind in order to see God.

Einstein’s theory of relativity says that all time is local. Therefore there are as many local times as there are spaces. It is just as impossible to locate an event in time in an objective way as to locate an object in space in an objective way. Nature is such that it is impossible to measure an absolute velocity by whatever means possible. Nature is concerned only with relative velocities. So you see there is no fixed background of points in space against which a motion can be measured in absolute terms and consequently no absolute flow of time against which an interval of time can be measured.

Experience reveals the strange fluctuations of the sense of time when we approach the same face from different points of views. Time is short during periods of love affairs and long in the painful hours. Therefore, time is not a fact but a relation. Through our mind we break up the space-time bound and can’t get a grip on concepts outside space and time. Therefore, we are in the throes of illusion when we believe ourselves living in the events of the present time when no such division really exists. You see the movement of time is within ourselves largely. The quick or slow passing of time is somewhat subjective and its real significance is largely subjective too; mainly in our world of feeling, instead of thinking.

Commentary: Here again he is reaffirming that these concepts are not only a part of Physical Plane science and Quantum Theory, but that these concepts also hold varying places and levels of meaning and interpretation depending on which specific level or plane one is viewing, dealing with experiences upon, or working with at any given here/now instance. The purpose of showing these points and the transitory nature of maya, serves the purpose of helping a chela identify these different states, for the purpose of working through them as they change and transition, until one is finally able to break through into the states of consciousness of the True Self beyond duality. While this is by definition merely a Mental understanding, it is one that must be reached before one can move into the purely spiritual states beyond it.

Since this is true (time is concerned with feeling mostly instead of thinking) there is a need for you to take a fresh standpoint to secure a wider and deeper outlook on the relativity of time. The change from the lower to the higher viewpoint, or the shallow to the deeper viewpoint is a mater of insight, for the structure of the world in which we are living depends entirely on the structure of the viewpoint you take. In other words, you see what you are looking for, not what you are looking at. So when you brush away the barrier of what you know as time you know your past lives and your future lives. When you can separate time from your mind and stand off to look at it, without your feelings being affected, you are deathless whether in the flesh or in the spiritual self. This is the meaning of true freedom and the ECK Masters have discovered this secret of life!

Final Commentary: Sri Paul Twitchell finishes the discourse by tying together these various levels of understanding and interpretation, from the Physical, up through the Astral, Causal, Mental and Etheric, until finally pointing to the Soul Itself, as well as denoting that the ECK Masters know this secret as well as how to teach it and lead Soul not only into Its becoming Self-Aware, but into further states quite beyond that of Self-Realization!

More later.