why do we lose sense of time when we're sleeping why do we lose sense of time when we're sleeping why do we lose sense of time when we're sleeping try now you understand what I mean by now yeah and if we represent the past we could imagine that the past is is like a vast space that extends endlessly behind the now and that the future is a vast space that extends indefinitely in front of the now yes and the distance between the past and the future is what we call time yes or the distance between
two events in the past or or the future so so now let's explore time the past and the future so now just for a few moments leave the now and visit this place that you call the past I when I say visit it I don't mean just think about it or imagine it because if you think about it let's take say you take the image of breakfast this morning that image image doesn't take place in the past that image takes place now so I don't mean just think about the past or imagine the past I
mean go there leave the now just step out of the now and go into the past that's not possible okay because if I try to step into the past that effort is happening now exactly so can anyone here just while we're discussing can anyone here step out of the past and just step out of the the now and visit the past just just for a few moments no can you imagine Alexander that anybody that has ever lived not just us kind of weirdos that are interested in nonduality but but regular people that that could you
imagine that any of them could just for a few moments step out of the now and actually go to the place that we call the past no okay so if nobody's ever been there and presumably the same applies for the future yeah so if nobody nobody has ever been there how do we know that this place called the past really exists surely experience must be the te the test of the existence of something so if nobody's ever been there nobody's ever got a glimpse of it how do we know it's there we don't really we
don't no we don't know it's there we imagine it's there but we don't know it's there we have no knowledge of it at all could it be that it's not there yes and wouldn't that be in line with our experience in other words could it be that the past and the future don't exist in the way that our minds imagine them yes after all have you ever experienced anything apart from now no and how many Nows have you experienced in your life or let's just take today how many Nows have you experienced today that's a
trick question one one one yeah so so all your life you're only going to experience one now yes yes and that that now we've already discovered that contrary to popular belief the now is not this fraction of a moment sandwiched between these two vast spaces of the past and future that the vast spaces of the past and future aren't there so now is not a moment in time we normally think that the now is moving slowly through time yeah H how fast is the now moving through time in your experience it's another trick question it's
not moving it's not moving it's not going anywhere it hasn't come from anywhere and it's not going anywhere so this now is the only now there is and and this now is not a moment in time how long does this now last it's Eternal it's Eternal and you understand that by Eternal Eternal doesn't mean Everlasting in time it means ever present now so if we're just simple and we just stay with the facts of our experience time is never experienced time is what the now looks like when it is filtered through our mind in other
words time it doesn't exist in our mind it seems to exist in our mind and therefore if that's the case wouldn't it makes sense that when our mind disappears in sleep the seeming existence of time disappears with it yes that's why we don't experience time when we're asleep actually we don't experience time when we're awake but we seem to but when we're asleep we don't even seem to experience time because no mind is present in sleep so that's why you seem to wake up in the same moment that you fall asleep because there is no
time in between two waking States or two dream states okay that's confusing but it makes sense um it's confusing that it makes sense no no it's confusing but it makes sense it's confusing but it makes sense yes yes it's exactly [Laughter] it's confusing because we compare because everything that I've said you've understood in your own experience and you've agreed with and it's very simple what I've said if you just stick with your experience but when we compare that with the way reality seems from the point of view of the mind it conflicts with the mind's
view of reality so it it is the mind that superimposes its own limitations on reality and makes reality appear in a way that is consistent with those limitations just as I said this morning if you put on a pair of orange sunglasses when you're skiing you very quickly forget that you've put the glasses on and the snow appears to be orange you think the snow is orange the snow is appearing in accordance with the limitations or the coloring of your glasses but because you have forgot that you are looking through this limited medium you think
that the orange color belongs to the snow now each of our minds is a limited medium our minds are the orange glasses but the orange color is time and space that's the tint of our minds time and space so when Consciousness looks through the the time and space glasses of our mind it sees a threedimensional a four-dimensional world three dimensions of time and one dimension of space and we think time and space belongs to the world no it doesn't time and space are the orange glasses through which Consciousness is looking at eternity that's what what
I meant when I said sometime today or yesterday that the world as we normally see it is a reification or an objectification of the limitations of our mind the limits that we seem to see in the world belong to the the glasses of the Mind through which we perceive if you take away the limitations of the Mind through which we perceive what is out there is eternal infinite awareness or God's INF being and that's what the sufis mean when they say everything is the face of God it's what William Blake meant when he said when
the doors of perception are cleansed everything will be seen as it really is infinite the doors of perception that's the the glasses of time and space through which that's the doors of perception when when the doors of perception are cleansed when the mind of is cleansed of time and space what seem to be finite will be seen as infinite in religious terms as God's face and what does that look like I know you can't really you can't see it technically no you can't see it you know it through the experience of beauty that's what the
experience of beauty is that's how you experience it and in in exactly the same way that when your relationship with other people and animals are cleansed from the limitations of the Mind what seems to be a relationship with another is felt as love closeness friendship okay so you mean it's the same Beauty as like looking at the window and admiring the mountains it's the same when you experience Beauty in any form that is that is reality Eternal infinite Consciousness filtering in to your finite mind beauty is is is is the is the EXP experience of
the collapse of the distinction between Consciousness and existence or between self and other I'm giving you a rational explanation of it but the actual experience of it is the experience of beauty or love so the the way the world appears doesn't change but the way you experience that appearance does change so don't expect suddenly the world to be transformed into some magical appearance it's not the appearance that changes it's your experience of the appearance that changes okay
