Psychotherapist and student/practitioner of meditation
Can Meditation Change Our Perception of Time?
Posted: 11/13/11 11:58 AM ET
I often hear, “I don’t have time to meditate.” In our society where time equals money, this statement is hard to dispute. The new movie “In Time” takes this concept to the extreme. Time has become the currency. A cup of coffee costs four minutes of one’s life.
The very fact that time is precious is the reason we should meditate. I have found that taking time to meditate gives me time — the same way that exercising takes energy but ultimately helps one have more energy.
#1: We See The Big Picture
When we close our eyes and focus inside, we are able to see get an overview, a broader perspective of our lives. We step away from the minutiae and see the broad-brush strokes that make up our days. Meditation gives us the opportunity to see what is really important. Try this exercise: Imagine a day in which you were very over-scheduled. You felt overwhelmed. (I hope this isn’t every day!) Now let your mind float over the activities without trying to judge them. Which stand out as important and/or meaningful? Which could you have done without? Perhaps there were some phone calls you didn’t really have to make or a lunch date that could have been postponed.
When we’re overwhelmed we have less energy to focus on the important tasks. Sometimes we end up rushing things that need more attention. We may even make mistakes that cost us more time.
Meditation can help you sort out what is important, help you prioritize so that your time is spent where you really want it and not on activities that are less important to you.
#2: Our Perception of Time Is Expanded
When we are busy and engaged, time flies. When we are bored or not where we want to be, time drags. Of course, time doesn’t change, it is merely our experience of it that changes. During peak performances athletes describe being in “the zone.” This phenomenon also occurs in traumatic events. Time seems to expand, slow down. I stumbled this last spring while playing tennis, going up and back to hit an overhead. The fall that took my head to the concrete probably took a split second, but I had time to think at least a dozen thoughts, including “Is this how my life is going to end?” I had time to break the fall with my hip so my head only bounced off the court causing a moderate concussion. This sensation of time slowing can also happen in meditation. By focusing on our internal sensations, or our breath, our brain waves shift to a slower rhythm allowing the sense of time to expand.
When time seems to slow down, we feel we have time for whatever we want. Our bodies and minds relax and stress is reduced. Not stressing means more time!
#3: We Focus On The Present Moment
Our thoughts, our feelings and our actions happen in the present moment. So why are we so focused on the past and the future? Consider how often you anticipate what is going to happen or worry about something that might happen. Conversely,
how much do you dwell on the past? Obsess about how you should have done something or said something differently. Or how so-and-so did you wrong?
This past or future focus can be a huge drain on our energy and our time. Being in the present moment gives us the chance to channel all our energy on what we’re doing, on whom we’re with. Meditation can teach you this kind of focus and concentration. One of the things that I’ve noticed is that I am more efficient, less distracted. The pay off is more time for what’s important to me.
There’s also a big bonus to keeping your attention in the present moment: Your memory improves. What I’ve experienced — granted after many years of a regular meditation practice — is that I retrieve information more quickly, forget things less often and find misplaced items more easily. All of this translates into more time.
My life is extremely full. Often I’m asked, “How do you do all of it?” My answer is simple. “I meditate.”
As most of you know from my bio, my primary source for being of service to others is through writing and psychic readings. Through this lens and working with clients, I get an encapsulated view of what is going on in our world, more so than through any other source. It seems as if I have one client talking about a certain topic or issue that more and more people sharing the same information will follow. In this way, I have come to learn more about what is going on in our world through the recurring themes of my clients. What I have come to expect over the years is that when a certain theme appears in the lives of one client, that the same idea or issue is echoed throughout the whole of our community. The words used to describe the energy of a period or, the way in which something is manifesting may be different, but everyone is on the same page to some degree. When I think about so many of us being in sync, it always reminds me that we are citizens of one world.
This month, as a departure from the usual article I write, I wanted to share some of the themes that are constant, if not insistent in my work these days. Since I have already mentioned a common thread appears in my work, I do not feel as though I am betraying the confidence or trust of any one client. These issues are universal in nature and of issue for all of us. Since most of us do our work in some degree of isolation, which is necessary part of spiritual work, hearing about others experiences can be of tremendous value. The spiritual path each of us walks is personal and unique to us. But there are times when it is good to hear what is going on with other like-minded people. One of the reasons I have always been an advocate for spiritual retreats, which offer any kind of a process, is the opportunity to share what is going on in our journey. Something very magical comes from hearing and listening to one another’s stories. In an instant of sharing, we can experience confirmation for who we have become or where we are in our journey. We can even gain new insight and understanding for the work that lay ahead.
In the spirit of sharing, I decided to use this month’s column to talk about the buzz in my client base and community. I hope there will be some confirmation or support for everyone in this month’s column. Sometimes it is just great to know there are other’s out there just like us.
Here are a few of the topics that have been the basis of quite a bit of discussion over the past few months.
About Time
We have been hearing a lot about a perception of time seeming to be different. For many of us, it feels like time is actually speeding up. The lead/lag/manifestation period has become a very different dynamic. The period between our having a thought and manifestation — the actual event happening — seems to have noticeably shortened. There is another dynamic in relationship to time that is equally palpable. Many of us feel as though we are able to move through time in ways that we have never been able to do before. Think of the book Dune, by Frank Herbert and the concept of folding time. In this way, some of us are experiencing what we would have talked about as memories in the past. In this era, there is an added dimension to the experience. Many of us are now feeling as though we are moving through time and space to an exact moment and experiencing an event over again. Although memories are not always the pleasant ones, in the energetic dynamic described here, there is a wonderful opportunity for us to do some deeper healing, as we prepare our bodies to assimilate the coming energy shifts on the planet.
About Healing
This area of our lives and community seems to be approaching a new paradigm. We have all worked so diligently over the years, dedicated to advancing our states of consciousness and working on being better human beings. The work we have done has healed layers of our life experience and helped us to transform into the people we aspire to be and have become today. Yet, our work is far from complete. The practices we do and the techniques we employ take us to certain levels of advancement. Over time, we have cleared some of the “lighter” energetic issues of our journey. Now, our work is becoming more intense and the issues deeper. This will require more time for healing, knowing we may only achieve parts of our desires for advancement. There is some core karmic issues we are born with that will remain with us until our last breath.
How does this feel? Many of us perceive this time as having reached a plateau in our work. The big hits are less frequent and the accompanying sense of forward movement seems to be missing. Just like in our traditional education system, the more advanced the student, the harder the work. Concepts become more complex and the work to understand a subject requires harder work and dedication. Where the spiritual path differs is with the choice to stop or continue our study. At this time and in this era of humankind, we are embarking on a period when the content of our work is deeper and will continue to provide the perfect conditions for our spiritual growth.
About the Choice of a Spiritual Path in this Lifetime
There comes a time in all our journeys when we ask ourselves why we have chosen a life path focused on spiritual advancement. This important question arises from within us at varying times along the way and corresponds with a period just before we are about to experience some major shift. (Sound like what is happening on our planet at this time.) Usually we are feeling a high degree of frustration with our lives and are anxious for life to progress to the next level. After all, we are human and our ego need is to have a sense that our life is moving forward and we are advancing.
What is our motivation and where does the energy come from that propels us forward on our path? If we compare our lives to others who seem to be experiencing life blissfully unaware of the deeper mysteries behind existence, in contrast, it can feel like we are working so hard. After all, they seem happy and their lives appear to be working. Each of us can remember a time when our lives felt less complicated, focused only on material success and the accumulation of things. Whatever created the shift in our consciousness (usually a dramatic life event) that resulted in a need for deeper understanding of the Divine nature of our universe; from that point forward, there was no turning back. The interesting part of this thought track is our belief that we made a conscious decision to move our life in this direction without any outside influence.
To some degree, it is only natural for us to defer to ourselves and see ourselves as the main cause behind all the events in our lives. There are times we may even appear to be self-centered and self-focused because of our journey. We examine our everyday behavior, supported by our practices and beliefs, to create some sense of our life journey. Our work is within and it is where we go for a deeper connection and understanding of the Divine. The more we know about ourselves and understand our actions and reactions in life, the more focused our understanding of the Divine. This is where we begin and journey toward a deeper relationship with the Divine.
Can we ever step off our path and return to the person we were before? In other words, can we ever give up our spiritual quest in favor of refocusing our efforts outward? Perhaps if we chose to give up our purpose and give in to a distraction that exists on the earth plan, we could lose ground, so to speak. Once the flame ignites within us, to smother that light would take a serious effort on our part. An example of something that could potentially affect our heightened vibration would be something with an innately lower vibration such as using drugs over an extended period. Where the frustration comes from is in us. We want our unfolding to happen quickly and overnight. However, the spiritual path is a gradual unfolding that will take all the days of our lives. What do we do in the meantime, as we progress at what can feel like a snail’s pace? Create an objective view of our lives and determine where we are making progress. Perhaps that is in our reactions to others, or perhaps our tastes have changed toward food and the way we spend our free time.
About What Pulls Us to the Path?
In the spiritual community, we often talk about dimensions, a delineation of ranges of energy that affect our consciousness and how we conceptualize the universe. The first through the third dimensions are terms we use to describe the energy of the physical world in which we live. The fourth dimension is the range of energy that exists beyond the perception of the five physical senses. We most commonly call this dimension the ethers or the astral. The fifth dimension deals with a range of energy described as the creative energy behind all of life, and referred to as the creative thoughts of God. There is a constant bombarding of rays of dynamic energy from the fifth dimension, which reach us and interpreted by us on an individual basis. An easy way to conceptualize the fifth dimension is this way; the creative mental images of the Divine, which are the basis for the world we live in, are telepathically sent and received between the Divine and us. It is to the energy of the fifth dimension that we respond as creative, spiritual beings. Once the channel opens between the fifth dimension, and us it is impossible to close. What we could also allude to is that the Divine pulls us on to the spiritual path. The original cause of our spiritual journey is beyond the range of who we are as individuals.
About the Gift of Life
We reincarnate in an era when the earth energy is perfect for supporting our unfolding spiritual nature. There are periods when the changes around us can create fear. There is a lot of that going around on the planet right now. However, if we keep focused on our spiritual goals, the world around us comes into focus and we can begin to understand the meaning and importance of the time for us. Free of emotional responses, what remains is our opportunity to grow more deeply into our connection with the Divine.
If you have any questions or comments, please email me at Steve@Stephenthomson.net. I am always happy to hear from readers.
It’s October 2009. I’m on the plane from London, flying home to New York through Montreal. I’ve been blissfully engaged by Tom Wolfe’s non-fiction novel, “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”, letting the true tale of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters seep into my thoughts, using Wolfe’s precisely evocative language to turn my own direct moment into something mythical, something more than just another gig, another film shoot. That’s what I like to do, anyway. I like to live mythically. Wolfe ponders:
“It takes a rare kind. Because always comes the moment when it’s time to take the Prankster circus further on toward Edge City. And always at that point some good souls are startled: Hey, wait! Like Ralph Gleason with his column in the Chronicle and his own clump of hipness. Gleason is one of those people… Kesey can remember them all, people who thought he was great so long as his fantasy coincided with theirs. But every time he pushed on further — and he always pushed on further — they became confused and resentful…”
When I read that passage it took me back to the night before in London, Canary Wharf, to a private room at the Four Seasons Hotel, where I’m standing next to Garo, the CEO of a firm called Antigenics. He’d said to me, “You know, John, most people don’t like change. They actually fear it.”
SAN DIEGO — One way to get noticed as a scientist is to tackle a really difficult problem. Physicist Sean Carroll has become a bit of a rock star in geek circles by attempting to answer an age-old question no scientist has been able to fully explain: What is time?
Here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, where he gave a presentation on the arrow of time, scientists stopped him in the hallway to tell him what big fans they were of his work.
Carroll sat down with Wired.com on Feb. 19 at AAAS to explain his theories and why Marty McFly’s adventure could never exist in the real world, where time only goes forward and never back.
Wired.com: Can you explain your theory of time in layman’s terms?
Sean Carroll: I’m trying to understand how time works. And that’s a huge question that has lots of different aspects to it. A lot of them go back to Einstein and spacetime and how we measure time using clocks. But the particular aspect of time that I’m interested in is the arrow of time: the fact that the past is different from the future. We remember the past but we don’t remember the future. There are irreversible processes. There are things that happen, like you turn an egg into an omelet, but you can’t turn an omelet into an egg
Mt. Etna eruption put clocks in the local area forward by 15 minutes
Published on July 12, 2011 10:10 pm PT
– By Jim Duran – Writer
– Article Editor and Approved – Warren Miller
No larger image
(TheWeatherSpace.com) — Mt. Etna erupted this week. The volcano is to blame for speeding clocks up by 15 minutes.
People turned up for work early and noticed that their clocks were 15 minutes fast. The volcano stopped flights at Catania’s Fontanarossa airport.
The clock thing is a mystery to some, saying aliens, ghosts, or other events of the supernatural caused it. However, our lead scientist says other wise.
“Since only digital clocks seemed to be affected, then one must consider the fact that digital clocks (like any other clock) do not measure time, but rather measure an event, such as the vibration of a cessium atom, and relate it to the passage of time,” said Senior Meteorologist Kevin Martin.
The Electric Universe theorizes a ubiquitous primal force trillions of times more powerful than ‘gravity’ — electricity — whose currents travel through space in spirals and form a network between all the planets and stars in the universe. It’s electric, it’s alive, and it’s buzzinglike Yankee Stadium on opening day.
“We have never encountered poor engineering in nature” –Albrecht-Buehler
It’s 1978 and I’m sitting at a workbench, electronic test equipment arrayed all around me on shelves — oscilloscopes and ‘bit boxes’, the tools of my trade. It’s the night shift and the factory is ‘cooling fan’ quiet, almost like sitting in my living room — at least in comparison to the buzzing of the day shift when the isles are full of managers and engineers… office types, disturbing my otherwise silent technical devotions. And just like in my living room, I light up a ‘righteous’ cigarette and lean back on my swiveling chair, contemplating a problem with a printed circuit board I’m troubleshooting — trying to put some ‘soul in the machine’ — but it won’t initialize — stuck in a loop. I take a puff (menthols!) and exhale up toward the high industrial ceiling. When my eyes come back to the problem I glance at the scope and notice a straight line on the screen but one that is fuzzy somehow — they are never really straight. Only moments before it had been an incomprehensible blur, racing at megahertz speed and I had barely been able to sync it up so as to bring the blur into focus. Now, as I rest the probe at my side the screen is quiet — in keeping with my surroundings — relaxed at ‘zero’ volt
Both physicist Brian Greene and neurologist Oliver Sacks explain the very strange, very subjective nature of time.
The elasticity of experience is expressed by sound artist Ben Rubin in a piece he produced for The Next Big Thing. We include an excerpt on being in “the zone.” His story features track stars: Shawn Crawford, Amy Acuff, Brendon Couts, Jason Pyrah, Derrek Atkins, Jon Drummond, and Larry Wade.
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
Sean Carroll is a 
