Time as Illusory

   When we look at the broader panorama of our existence, we realize that we only occupy a very short span of life. What we think is going to be a long time is actually only a very brief moment, and time itself is a kind of illusion that we create with our minds. For instance, when I was first embarking on my doctoral studies program, I thought it would last "forever", in the sense that time seemed to slow down for a long period. Later, as I became more and more occupied with the focus of my topic, I lost the sense that any time had passed whatsoever. And it was then that I began to contemplate how time itself is just a sort of illusion that is arising only when we feel unsettled or unsure about something.

   Another way of looking at this is to state that everything we are is happening in a single unfolding moment. That moment may change in terms of its details, but the moment itself is really a product of the mind. When I start using my imagination to put these individual moments together to form a story, then there is suddenly this sense of past present and future imposed upon it. This is how we begin to make stories from our lived moments. But actually, all these stories are really only stories, and there is no real start, middle and end. All we ever really have is an eternal unfolding now.

   Whenever we become consumed with the overwhelming sense of time, we only need remind ourselves of two things. One is that "time" is what is happening now. When I project onto the future what I expect to happen, I am just creating an image in my mind of what I think the future will be, not realizing that this image is only what I am experiencing right now, and the sense of future is only a delusion. Second, we create the sense of time by projecting stories onto our experiences. These stories are actually not really happening, any more than a circle is created from a spinning flame. The construction of time is compelling because we create these powerful stories in our minds, not realizing that it is we who sustain these stories through sustained attention and imagination. Contemplating on this might ease the sense of stress and anxiety that comes with the overwheening sense of time.