Omowale Jabali : The Wheel of Time

[Omowale Jabali]

In general, the Judeo-Christian concept based on the Bible, is that time is linear, with a beginning, the act of creation by God. The Christian view assumes also an end of time, the eschaton, expected to happen when Christ returns to earth in the Second Coming to judge the living and the dead. This will be the consummation of the world and time. The Christian view is that God is uncreated and eternal so that He and the supernatural world are outside time and exist in eternity.

Ancient cultures such as the Incan, Mayan, Hopi and other Native American tribes as well as the Hindu, Buddhist and Jainist have concept of a Wheel of Time, that regards time as cyclical and quantic consisting of repeating ages that happen to every being of the Universe between birth and extinction. This concept is also shared by the Q'ero Indians in Peru who are direct descendants of the Incan empire and the Hopi Indians of Arizona. The Wheel of Time is also associated with Tibetan Tantric Buddhism and the diety Kalachakra.

There are those among us who say time is an "illusion" but is this really true? For the concept of "chakra" translates as "cycles" and Kalachakra translates as "cycles of times". Chakra meditation then would be related to these cycles and their relationship to points within the human form or body which is regulated by the heartbeat and pulse.

Thus we have differential viewpoints. Those who view time as illusion and those who view "time is everything and everything is under the influence of time".



Om d'Nommo "as it is outside, so it is within the body"

 

[Keita Kenyatta]

Very Good Bro. I am one of those who say that time is an illusion. I have given the concept of time great thought and have often asked myself "what the definition of time is"? The only conclusion I was able to reach was that "time is mans measurement of nature and his own activities"...thereby making time a creation of man. However, let us move this further. Since the concept of all ancient people is not linear as the European sees it, then it is indeed cyclical. If we use the concept of a wheel or circle then in reality the circle or wheel has no beginning or an end. We only mark the beginning and end of it based upon stellar observation whereby we see certain shapes, signs or stars at a certain point return to that point again...thereby allowing man to even come up with the concept of time. Again, it is nature and our observation of it that even allows our minds to conceive of motion whereby we created time conceptualization based upon our perception.

For the astronaut who is in space where there is no movement that we call day and night, all concept or perception of time no longer exist .

In the Lancet Medical Books there is a story of a young woman who was about 20 years old. She was deeply in love and was due to be married. On her wedding day the groom never showed up. The trauma, pain and non acceptance of this reality was such that she went into mental dead zone. Every morning she would wakeup and prepare herself just as if it was her wedding day for a groom that would never be there. In other words, mentally she was still living her life as if it was the day of her wedding. This went on for over 40 years. What amazed the doctors and scientist was that the woman wasn't aging as we normally would do. For her all concept of time no longer existed and as such she wasn't graying in the head or wrinkling up in the face that one would normally expect.

There are many other examples but I just wrote this one out to demonstrate the idea that our illusion of it has drastic effects upon us physically and mentally.

 

[Omowale Jabali]

The "Afterlife"

Thanks for your input brother Keita. If time is an "illusion" then perhaps so is the concept of the "after-life" which itself is a concept or construct of time.

http://www.egyptologyonline.com/the_afterlife.htm

Do life and death really exist or are these illusions as well? Is there a beginning or an end to one's being? One thing for sure is that these can be seen as transformations in life's natural cycle, which is cyclical in form.

 

[I-khan]

I like this thread here, this can be applied to our mentalities....

Peep the post I made about the medicine wheel because it says alot about human nature being cyclical as well.

 

[Keita Kenyatta]

That's the point....just as time does not exist, neither does death. We need a redefinition of what is life, just as we do of what is God. No man can prove death. Let us take for example the following illustration: The light bulb is the human body. The electricity running through it gives life to the bulb and it lights. When the filament is worn out or is no longer able to hold the energy that causes the light to glow, we say that the bulb is blown.

If we were to take the bulb while it is lit and break it, what did we do to the energy that was causing it to light? We didn't do anything to it, for it was the energy that gave life to the bulb. Our killing of the bulb or destruction of it did nothing to the force that energized it. If we identify ourselves with the bulb that held the energy then we can say the bulb is dead. If we identify ourselves with the energy that gave life to the bulb then there is no death at all.

More on this later.

Peace!