Some Ideas About Time
Jan 18th, 2009 by admin
Some Ideas About Time
A Chapel Talk
By Allyce Cay-Bothmann
We are told that to the great cosmic mind all time is held in consciousness at once. In this grand universe there seem to be various levels of time. Even on our planet, we have the different time zones, as to when the light of day dawns on the turning earth’s surface during what is called the twenty-four hours of our day.
These hours we are allotted are the little vessels wherein we earn our advancement. In early years, youth squanders the little vessels of time thoughtlessly, trying to find directions that appear easy and fun, but because we are put here to take measures to refine and eventually perfect ourselves, we are given difficulties that increasingly prepare us for growth, power and greater abilities.
Some people who regretfully wasted months and years try to compensate and they allow time to drive them in haste, which can be another mistake. Time, although inexorable in its passing, can be well managed if we use our intelligence to good advantage. Facing the problems caused and employing the virtue of hard work on a focused project can make up for lost time. It is rarely too late to acquire an education and never too late to improve ourselves. If self-improvement is made a habit, it is the way our lives are designed by our helpers. Being lazy or self-indulgent is ever a temptation, but at certain stages, we are ambitious. The world is full of inspiring examples of the amazing accomplishments of even ordinary people. This is where time can use an esoteric perspective.
Inasmuch as we are infinite beings with infinite destinies, and at preset we are the heirs of the knowledge of former centuries, there is such a multiplicity of information in this legacy, that a person merely needs to set a goal and stay with it to achieve. In the early years of life, there emerges a framework within the personality that shows our strengths and weaknesses. When assessed with proper judgment, this framework renders guidance for the choices needed for emphasis. If we are taught the value of choice, and that even the least decision bears its responsibility, we become conscious of our behavior. As the human personality evolves, this awareness increasingly improves along with the appreciation of the minutes, hours, days and years as they present opportunities toward expanding control.
Let us look at time as teacher. Many live and die without ever learning the value of promptness. This is a simple lesson, but like many simple disciplines it takes practice to know how much time to allow for an entire specific situation. As we mature, we discover the advantages of good timing in planning short and long-term activities as well as for changing tactics for unexpected events. With foresight, we can interject all manner of improvements into our lives. In studying the great contributors to world progress, we can learn from their successes and mistakes.
Time management is a science, which in industry comes down to motion study in much of factory work, but it results as well in the efficiency of the householder doing his daily chores or lining up a wardrobe for the coming events of a week or longer.
The masters of life, who are our examples, are Studies in simplicity. In contradiction, those who have suffered deprivations materialistically accumulate things and tie themselves to preserving and caring for them. This takes a huge amount of time in our lives. The experienced and wise ones realize just what is needed and eliminate any excess. One has to have gone beyond the pride of display to have learned the quality of what is best for every circumstance. It would be revealing to note how much of our lives are linked to the attitude engendered toward our possessions. In all that happens, however, we are practicing for eventual perfection.
Cosmic time is something else. We are told about how many light years we are away from the star, Alpha Centuri, and on the other hand we learn of the comparative great distances between the parts of an atom. Space is related to time in the universe—those in the infinitesimal and those in the grand universes. This is humbling to even partially know, but our challenge is to use these little segments of time to make the most of our lives. Strangely enough as you no doubt have come to realize, time can be flexible. When we are in pain, the moments seem excruciatingly long, but when we are enjoying happy minutes, they vanish all too soon.
There is a way to maximize our pleasant times. As we learn to love and excuse our associates’ disturbances to our peace, understanding that God has ordained each to his limitations in order for all to overcome every imperfection, we gain the virtue of self control. Less time is needed to attend to the observation and insertion of correcting others’ weaknesses. With the attainment of this one virtue, it becomes simpler to steer a straight course in refining our own idealism.
According to most astronomers, our system of worlds began with an explosion in the Andromeda nebulae four hundred and fifty billion years ago. In our teachings the time between epochs and the recessive or outwardly inactive time is equal. We know our earth has come to a mid place on the fourth globe, and that we have three and one-half periods to complete this scheme of evolvement. Our understandings have not reached a stage where we can conceive even this duration, yet it is inspiring to know we have such marvelous enfoldments of beneficent time ahead of us.
Our present mortal education is encapsulated in the three-score-and-ten years in general. We can note where we have improved and, alternately, where it will take more time to even perfect one trait imperative to a refined character.
Einstein, with his concentration and mathematical genius, probed into the time equation of relativity, which so few of us understand, as it is man’s intellectual borderland between the present limits of human and cosmic all-pervasiveness. This represents the possibility of the human brain in contrast to that of a highly evolved and trained dog, for example. The film dog celebrity of his time, Strongheart, had established in his noble nature, more of the general virtues than many, if not most, humans. It appears that some of those of superior memory, information, and creativity are so lacking in heart—of the loving connection with all life—that so far they are largely centered on the tiny view of personal self and what is most rudimentary—physical gain. This is reverting back to the lower level of untamed creatures. However, there are advantages in this area of growth, which the guides of the races work into the common good that time renders at the close of specific dispensations.
We are a particle of such a vast, intricate design that until reaching a plateau of philosophical, emotional and spiritual discernment, there is little of the piercing truth of the grandeur of Reality that filters into consciousness. When it finally does, such humility comes to a person, that he is transformed into a truly spiritual being with the abiding reverence for every creation of life.
In the history of the world, of nations, of cities and in our individual lives there are beginnings in time of the various phases, seasons, and terminations—rhythms, ups and downs, better times and other happenings, as we become used to seeing that the only permanence is change, with increasing adaptability to the demands of exigency. Without retrospection and introspection and strict acceptance of our faults, we will spend more time than is necessary in catching up to our potential.
Because each of us has a personal relationship with time as a great cosmic gift, allotted to us in this special place in our pilgrimage toward our service in the cosmos, we as students of this glorious teaching may take ever more advantage of the wisdom we have gained. There are the times of concentration on lessons, some pushing us relentlessly uphill, some crushing the relentless pride, some bringing sudden trials and ever more testing to get us past human limitation to a plane where our destiny takes on the aspects of the Christ. Let us aim and pray constantly to keep close to our hard-won victories and the understandings we have so far attained: To study to feed our souls, to serve to help our world, to practice all virtues, to develop our higher selves with loving humility; to ever and unfailingly receive the light divine.
Allyce Cay-Bothmann