After some bantering with Matthew about he necessity for proces intervals versus the nature of time I studied and thought a bit more and have a second suggestion about the idea that "the awareness of the soul can be instantly transferred from here to there". I offer two approaches here, and solicit feedback.

First, consider a "normal distribution" - this is the familiar bell-shaped curve with about 2/3 of the poulation in the central hump and 1/6 in each tail. You get this curve when tossing darts at a target - 2/3 lie more or less near the center, and 1/6 lie away off to the right or left etc.

When we try to locate the place that something will happen, we find that the best we can do is to get a statistical curve of this type. (For more, look up Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.) We can be certain that most of the time the event occurs in the region of the hump of the curve. (That's a few dozen atomic diameters across, typically.) BUT it is also possible to occur elsewhere, because the statistical curve has no limit - its tails stretch out to infinity - or at least to the ends of the universe. As a result, there is a probability that an event might actualy occur anywhere. This principle is used in tunnel diodes in electronics, among other places.

The same curve is found when we look at the time that an event will occur. Mostly it will be in the time corresponding to the hump of the curve, but the tails stretch out to infinity, so that evet can be located at times in advance or following the "average" expectation.

Second, everything in the universe has come into existence with respect to everything else, either directly or by indirect association. For example, if you have a common lead pencil, the "lead", which is actually graphite, a form of crystalline carbon, came from the center of an aged star as the result of a slight collapse after helium burning. In a sense, that brings the star to us here and now, across endless stretches of empty space, and across aeons of time.

To justify this, consider a candle flame - to start with, try to locate it. In general, we just point and say, It's there." But where is it in the most precise manner? Will you select the part of the flame that is mot luminous?  Or is the part of the flame that is blue from hydrogen burning a better place to point? Or does the actual burning process start where the wax begins to melt, and finih up in the hot gasses that escape afterwards? Or should be start the "burning" when the candle is manufactured, and end it when all the waste gasses have been absorbed by nearby furniture etc?  Now we've added uncertainty in time as well as space - In at least one sense of the term, the candle flame was born with the universe, and continues until the end of time. This is not a common thought, but it is a statistical truth.

This leads us to two kinds of question, in one sense we ask something to do with the nature of the stuff we're looking at, and the manner of its formation. Given our everyday familiar universe, that is a matter of geometry, and thus is explained by relativity. In another sense we ask something about how we relate to these things. Since we too begin at the Beginning, and we too span all time to the End, then in at least one sense, we are coextensive with everything in creation. In that sense, to look at something across the other side of our galactic cluster is like looking at your big toe - it's part of you already, yet it's also somewhat distant.

Now, let's turn this inside out and ask about our location. Since our nature spans all space and time, we are actually distributed everywhere at once. Even if the rocks and gasses of stars and galaxies were to be inert and localized, we would be at the same place as they are already, and thus we are already involved in whatever they're doing. That does not mean that we can make information travel faster than light across space-time, because the geometry of space-time is part of the way that we too are defined. However, it does mean that we are always aware, at least potentially, of the nature of the universe everywhere around us, making suitable allowances for time and information teransfer.

An example of this is the manner in which we compute gravitational attraction betwen massive astronomical bodies. We sense the location of the Sun, for example, along the line of geometrical centers. The light from the Sun, however, takes about 8 1/2 minutes to reach us, so it is actually arriving at an angle that points to where the Sun is 8 1/2 minutes after the center line with the Earth. Milo Wolff (his site is worth looking at) has worked on this and suggests that this means that we have a fantastic speed for gravitation, leading to some questions about gravity etc. However, statistically, the Sun, as a complete and operational stellar body, is present in a small degree all the way out to the end of its statitical curve, and that extends at least 4.5 billion years. The Earth is extended almost as  far. Thus, what is interacting is the extended part of both the Sun and the Earth, since both of these actualy overlap in statistical space, and thus are causally valid in potential state space. Gravitation that represents the core of the Sun still takes 8.5 minutes toget here, but the gravitational influence was established aens ago, and that's the part that interacts.

The way that this shows up in spiritual work is that a great many people report dying, and then "I've become the universe" or "I have become space" etc. The statistical extension of the locus of the persn is trans-universal, and at death this is realized. The fact that your Big Toe (call it the Big Toe Galaxy if you like) might be 20 billion light years distant means that by the time you get a presebnt time status report on it you will be 20 billion years older, just as the time between your body's sensory nerves and brain is separated by a travel time of about 300 mph. Still, we are extended to that distant point, and we see it, although displaced by a light cone of 20 billion years length.

Those arguments are based on our present definition of time and space and the geometry of everyday experience here and now. Is there another way?

It has been agued that somehow we can twist time and space together to make the distant become the near. That is a second notion. Take a sheet of paper, essentialy 2 dimensional, and bend the ends together. By looping through a higher dimension we can bend the subordinate dimensions together to make the other side of the universe coincide with this side. That is a quick way to bypass the 20 billion years of separation from your Big Toe, but to do it we must stop encountering the universe that we know, and start looking at a universe that has multiple dimensions beyond the three with which we are familiar. Still, given that new set of definitions, we can be immediately present everywhere at once. This is the idea that we seem to encounter in eg. the Bardo Thodol teaching, and Matthew's argument from Swedenborg, that we can be everywhere instantaneously. (It would be very helpful to have more input from people workig in the spirit world to see if these ideas hold up in practice as well as they do in theory.) Thus, the point that Matthew was making is both contradictory, because it meant changing universes, and also quite possible if we allow that to occur.

One last interesting fact now begins to chine through all this - that if everyone is everywhere at once, we are all essentially one, and the universe is our collective body. Further, with respect to this Creation we must be one with the Creator, since the Creator is also everywhere at once. Then, when we die we simply return to God - and those who can abandon attachments to the little mudball we call Earth can stay with God forever. It is only through our on desires that we are forced to come back to the cycle of deaths.

PUL
dave

Chapter 18

Hi Dave and Alysia, I've been off the board for a little while.  Your initial post will take me a bit of "time" to digest and respond to.  To start, however, I will reprint what Swedenborg says of his notion of time after conversing with Angels in his work "Heaven and Hell":

Time in Heaven.
162. Although there is a succession and a progression of all things in heaven, as in the world, yet angels have no notion or idea of time and space; and this so completely that they do not even know at all what time and space are. Time in heaven will here be considered, and space in its own chapter.

163. Angels do not know what time is, although with them there is a successive progression of all things, as there is in the world, and this so completely that there is no difference whatever and the reason is that in heaven instead of years and days there are changes of state; and where there are years and days there are times, but where there are changes of state there are states.

164. In the world there are times because the sun of the world seemingly advances in succession from one degree to another, producing times that are called seasons of the year; and besides, it revolves about the earth, producing times that are called times of day; both of these by fixed alternations. With the sun of heaven it is different. This does not mark years and days by successive progressions and revolutions, but in its appearance it marks changes of state; and this, as has been shown in the preceding chapter, is not done by fixed alternations. Consequently no idea of time is possible to angels; but in its place they have an idea of state ( see above n. 154).

165. As angels have no idea derived from time, such as men in the world have, so neither do they have any idea about time and what pertains to it. They do not even know what is meant by the terms of time, such as year, month, week, day, hour, to-day, to-morrow, yesterday. When angels hear these terms used by man (for angels are always associated with man by the Lord) in place of them they perceive state and what pertains to states. Thus the natural thought of man is turned into spiritual thought with angels. This is why times in the Word signify states, and the terms of time, as enumerated above, signify corresponding spiritual things [18.1].

166. The like is true of all things that exist from time, as the four seasons of the year, called spring, summer, autumn, and winter; the four periods of the day, morning, noon, evening, and night; and the four ages of man, infancy, youth, manhood, and old age; and all other things that either exist from time or have a succession in accordance with time. In thinking of these a man thinks from time, but an angel from state; and in consequence what there is in them from time with man is with the angels turned into an idea of state. Spring and morning are turned into an idea of the state of love and wisdom such as they are in angels in their first state; summer and noon are turned into an idea of love and wisdom such as they are in the second state; autumn and evening such as they are in the third state; night and winter into an idea of such a state as exists in hell. This is why these periods have a like significance in the Word (see above, n. 155). This makes clear how natural things in the thought of man become spiritual with the angels who are with man.

167. As angels have no notion of time so they have an idea of eternity different from that which men on the earth have. Eternity means to the angels infinite state, not infinite time [18.2]. I was once thinking about eternity, and was able, with the idea of time, to perceive what to eternity means, namely, without end, but not what from eternity means, thus not what God did from eternity before creation. When anxiety on this account arose in my mind I was raised up into the sphere of heaven, and thus into the perception that angels have in respect to eternity; and it was then made clear to me that eternity must be thought of, not from time but from state; and then the meaning of from eternity can be seen. This then happened to me.

168. When angels speak with men they never express themselves in natural ideas proper to man, all of which are from time, space, matter, and things analogous thereto, but in spiritual ideas, all of which are from states and their various changes within the angels and outside of them. Nevertheless, when these angelic ideas, which are spiritual, flow into men, they are turned in a moment and of themselves into natural ideas proper to man, that correspond perfectly to the spiritual ideas. Neither angels nor men know that this takes place; but such is all influx of heaven into man. Certain angels were permitted to enter more nearly into my thoughts, even into the natural thoughts in which there were many things from time and space; but as they then understood nothing they suddenly withdrew; and after they had withdrawn I heard them talking, and saying that they had been in darkness. [2] It has been granted me to know by experience how ignorant the angels are about time. There was a certain one from heaven who was able to enter into natural ideas, such as man has; and after he had done this I talked with him as man with man. At first he did not know what it was that I called time, and I was therefore obliged to tell him all about it, how the sun appears to be carried about our earth, and to produce years and days, and how years are thereby divided into four seasons, and also into months and weeks, and days into twenty-four hours; and how these times recur by fixed alternations, and how this is the source of times. On hearing this he was surprised, saying that he knew nothing about such things, but only what states are. [3] In speaking with him I added that it is known in the world, for men speak as if they knew that there is no time in heaven, saying of those who die that they "leave the things of time," and that they "pass out of time," meaning by this out of the world. I said also that some know that times in their origin are states, for they know that times are in exact accord with the states of their affections, short to those who are in pleasant and joyous states, long to those who are in unpleasant and sorrowful states, and various in a state of hope and expectation; and this therefore leads learned men to inquire what time and space are, and some know that time belongs to the natural man.

169. The natural man might think that he would be deprived of all thought if the ideas of time, space, and material things were taken away; for upon these all the thought of man rests [18.3]. But let him know that so far as thoughts partake of time, space, and matter they are limited and confined, but are unlimited and extended so far as they do not partake of these, since the mind is in that measure raised above bodily and worldly things. This is the source of wisdom to the angels; and such wisdom as is called incomprehensible, because it does not fall into ideas that are wholly made up of what is material.

Coincidentally, last night I opened my 'teachings from the Mystics' book and it opened onto Eckhart and my eyes fell on this passage - haven't the book here (his words are so beautiful) but from memory;

"To know God and to be with God as one in God one must go beyond time and space for God is beyond time and space".

I thought that statement is pretty full-on and finds it's rest in this topic.  Dave, you have said before it is getting past the knot and I think this must be it.  And Matthew, Swedenborg recognised this very nicely.

Aha, why do we have the knot in the first place though? And what does time and space actually mean to us when we come to the logic nothing is lost, we can be in more than one place at a time, and actually observe ourselves at any point or time in space?

Dave, Matthew and Alysia i think you have addressed this question very well.  And Dave your working outs have made me think; 

When we die we leave behind our bones - that is all we leave behind. This is our Physical body.

With this we also spill a certain amount of blood (although this is not always the case so its only in certain cases?). This is our Etheric body, our life or vital force. - Blood is ethereal.

We also have our Astral body, the carrier of sense impressions, feelings and instincts.

Also we have our Intellectual Soul which gives us permance of knowledge and is the carrier of memory, the process of perceiving earlier experiences at later points in time.

And our dear Ego; the captain of the ship.

So, if we look at this nothing goes away.  It is our Ego which is out of and beyond space, transmitting through the Astral body we had in any point in time, transmitting through our Etheric body at the same point of time - which makes our bones come alive at any point in time.  In order for us to perceive that point in time.

When we join our Ego with the Godhead, I think it is the desire (to perceive oneself in bones) which creates the urge to re-incarnate.  If we read in the Bible we find the ancient prophets used their same bones to re-incarnate - so maybe here we can think the bones stay the same but the etheric and astral is like the wind which needs to be gathered together in order to perceive that point in time.

I think the urge to re-incarnate is also the bursting of life as our Universe is also bursting with life to expand and travel together.

Well, these are my tentative thoughts, I'd like to think some more over it and again re-read your above posts and Dave I hope my talk on bones compliment the science! 



PUL
Caryn