Why do we worry too much? If we overthink about our future, it seems we unnecessarily generate problems in our minds. And, why do we regret what we have done too much? Often, we can’t forget the mistakes we made in the past, indulging ourselves in depression.
Why is that so? If we can live here and now without regrets in the past and worries in the future, our lives could be joyful and peaceful. Is that so?
Since the birth of consciousness, we have inevitably think of ourselves, see ourselves in our minds. And, we see ourselves in the past, the present, and the future. The birth of consciousness means the moment when we acquired the sense of time. In other words, our consciousness generated our sense of time.
Why did we develop our consciousness? And what is consciousness in the first place? That’s not easy to answer this question. At least, there was a long period that we humans used to live unconsciously like other creatures, though it is still debatable which species have consciousness.
Once upon a time, in our small tribal community, people lived together to help one another. It was natural to see the growth of family members, including oneself. Surrounded by nature, they realized that everything and everyone was time-bound. For example, your vulnerable newborn baby became a vigorous youth. And your body was not as strong as before because of aging. We can easily imagine that even among the prehistoric communities, people had many chances to realize that they were indeed time-bound. They inevitably recognized the truth that:
I will die someday as I was born in this world. That is the path that my parents, grandparents, and ancestors went through. And in the same way, my children, grandchildren, and descendants will have to go in the same direction. That is to say; everyone will die as everyone was born in this world.
According to archeological studies, when the apes went down from the trees to the savanna, they could free their hands to use more sophisticated tools and hunt other wild animals by helping one another. In doing so, they worked together, crafted instruments, and ate more nutritious meats, and cooked meals with fire. The result was their bigger brains, which was to be ready to scale up the communities from tribes to civilizations to generate more complex societies and cultures.
With these developments, people studied the world around us more thoroughly, driven by the curiosity of their bigger brains. People were no longer unconscious creatures but possessed the much-sophisticated consciousness where even they could see themselves and the entire universe. That is, we see ourselves in ourselves. Suddenly, we have realized that there is the universe, and we exist within this cosmos. And all these things are from what we see and experience. What are these things on earth and in heaven?
When did the Big Bang take place? When was the beginning of the universe? Is it 13.8 billion years ago? Not necessarily. The correct answer in the current context should be when our consciousness was born, as it is the moment when our sense of time was born.
Nobody ever thought of the existence of the universe unless and until we have our consciousness. Nobody ever thought of the beginning and end of the universe unless and until we have our sense of time generated from our consciousness. Nobody ever thought of the existence of God unless and until we have our consciousness.
Why is everything time-bound? The answer is clear. It is because we see everything in our consciousness, including ourselves.
There might be the timeless Being regardless of our perceptions. But then, we can never see it because everything we see is in our consciousness and inevitably time-bound; more strictly speaking, spacetime-bound.
When we were unconscious, we used to see the timeless, spaceless Being unconsciously, face to face. As the birth of our consciousness, however, we lost all these none-boundary realms.
Thus, the sense of spacetime becomes the prison of our existence. We worry about the future and regret the past. We are born and die as our reality is spacetime-bound. Both age and edge of the universe overwhelm us. We can never think of anything beyond them.
Is it too long? Is it too far? That’s all within the prison of spacetime. There is no such a thing as too long and too far, in spaceless, timeless Being.
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
Revelation 22:13
Image by Dan Sudermann
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