Chapter 5: Linear Time as a Basis for Anxiety

Can we imagine that a significant part, a meaningful part, of the reasons why human beings, and one could say universally, suffer from anxiety, originates in linear time? We are not speaking only about extreme anxiety, but also about everyday anxiety, ongoing worries, pressures, tension, stress, and even obsessions. Would it surprise us to discover that a large part of what generates and feeds all of these is the very structure of linear time?

The form of time in which we live, which according to the perspective I am presenting here is a kind of illusion or artificial structure, does not represent the true essence of time. This chapter deals with the close connection between linear time and anxiety. I must say that it surprised me as well to discover this connection and to open myself to it. What we tend to treat rather arbitrarily as a neutral and objective measure, time, the hour, the clock, reveals itself as a structure whose form and operation are also bound up with the creation of anxiety.

Before I elaborate on this, I would like to pause for a moment and refer to special states we experience. States in which we are enjoying ourselves. When we are traveling, when we are washing dishes, when we are watching a good television program, when we are drawing, when we are making love. States in which we suddenly notice that we had “no sense of time.”

This happens often, for example, in intuitive painting. People report that at times, through the movement and freedom they receive in intuitive painting, they lose their sense of time. And it is delightful to discover this. And no less delightful to discover that in that same place, when they report having lost their sense of time, they also lost along the way their anxieties, pressures, and worries. These too disappeared.

They were in a place of flow. A place in which there is no wondering or questioning of when this begins, when it ends, am I okay, am I at the right pace. Losing the sense of time is always a very pleasant experience. And the connection they are accustomed to being in, the constant conditioning of the question where am I located on the timeline, a question that at its core involves position and pressure, suddenly disappeared.

They moved into what I call real time.
They moved into a different time in their experience. They were “without time.” And from the perspective of cosmic time, they actually experienced the real experience of time, a time that is not measured by the hands of the linear clock.

And this is precisely connected to the fact that linear time is a basis for anxiety. Because within linear time there are constant messages and experiences of questions such as am I enough or not enough. Will I meet the time frame. Am I wasting time. Will I manage to do all of these things. Am I in the right place or not. Am I missing something.

And what is even more difficult to deal with is that within linear time there is often an experience of loss. We tend to lose things within the perception of linear time. And this naturally places us in a constant anxious position. In a moment we will lose something else. This is what linear time tells us.

From the perspective of linear time, what has passed belongs to the past. In English, the word past and the word passed sound the same. And in Hebrew, they are even written the same. We do not always notice the emotional nuances that arise from this.

We supposedly lose what is no longer present here in the now. On the emotional level, we have lost it. And therefore we tend to forget it and to relate to it as something distant that is no longer with us. This creates a foundation for anxiety, because I am constantly on the verge of loss.

This is the structure of linear time. The place I have progressed to is a place from which I have separated from the previous place. Within a linear movement, along a straight line, I took a step forward and gave up the previous step.

In a perception of cosmic time, the movement is more horizontal. Each step joins the steps that follow and joins the steps that came before. The previous steps are an inseparable part of my identity and of my existence. I have not truly lost anything. It has only changed form, focus, or frequency. But it is there.

It is no coincidence that in processes of healing within cosmic time we experientially arrive at what is perceived as the past and experience it anew. We travel in time. And when we travel in time, the level of anxiety decreases.

By contrast, if we live constantly within a process of losses, we live within one form or another of anxiety. There is a constant knowing within us that we are on our way to the next loss. Every progression ultimately becomes a kind of painful separation.

From here an interesting phenomenon arises. People are afraid to progress, to develop, to grow, to change, to expand, to set out on adventures. Because deep down, on an unconscious level, they experience a kind of loss inherent in their very progression.

This is a paradox. Linear time is constantly in motion. We agree with its movement. And at the same time we also agree with the experience it creates within us, an experience of losses.

The encouraging thing I can say in this context is that we are in fact agreeing to an illusion. And when we enter real time, these things begin to change. The more we enter the experience of real time, cosmic time, the more we can release the perception that things are constantly falling out of our hands, and discover that they are actually with us.

All of this takes place on the experiential level. All of this happens when we integrate physical life with experiential life and allow them to exist together.

Real time exists within the experiential space. And it does not particularly need a clock upon which there is consensus. It does not need confirmation or milestones. It is an infinite space. A space in which everything that was is present. A space in which nothing is lost. Nothing is forgotten. Everything merely changes form, yet remains present.

With the right attunement, it is possible to encounter this. It is difficult to describe the magnitude of the change. The transformation into a form of existence in which one stops fearing the loss of things. Stops being in a constant conditioning that at any moment something will be lost.

This is the foundation of anxiety.
And when it dissolves, even if from time to time real losses do occur in life, people leave our lives, workplaces end, periods come to an end, we are no longer trapped within the narrow story of linear time that says that is it, it is over, there is no more.

This is a narrow story. It is not a true story. It is an illusion that rests upon excessive attention to the physical world and insufficient attention to the experiential world.

When we release the experiential world from its subjugation to the definitions of the physical world, and allow ourselves to be broader, freer, more infinite, the anxiety bound up with linear time, the anxiety of losses, gradually dissolves.

And then we begin to receive the gifts of the transformation of time.

Practice Questions (to be answered for yourself in handwriting or shared in a practice group):

1. Are you familiar with this experience, moments in which you later realized that you “lost track of time”?

2. What more can you describe about such moments, during their occurrence and immediately afterward?

3. What happens to your experience of “time” when you are anxious, worried, or under pressure?

4. Can you currently identify any connection between experiences of anxiety and the usual way of relating to time here, as a linear phenomenon that only moves forward?

5. Have there been times when you were able to help yourself in a state of anxiety by relying on an experience that temporarily “cancels” time? Please describe this.

Chapter 6: Linear Time as a Basis for Depression

In the previous chapter I referred to the fact that linear time creates a foundation for anxiety, because it is a form of time in which we experience ongoing losses, within a kind of illusion that things slip away from us, that we constantly have the potential to miss out, to fail to catch something. This is the consciousness that accompanies linear time, in which you have something right now, and in that very moment it may already no longer be yours, and this is supposedly irreversible.

At every single moment you may supposedly miss opportunities that supposedly will not return. Within linear time there exists a wide range of experiences of loss, which are part of the very definitions of linear time. This also includes human life as a process of a certain period, which begins and ends, and with that, from the perspective of linear time, the story is over.

When we move into cosmic time, into the transformation of time, things look somewhat different. They appear less saturated with anxiety, and more like experiences that allow us to undergo transformation, to heal ourselves, and even to experience pleasure simply through the connection to real time, to cosmic time.

In this chapter I wish to address the idea that linear time is not only a foundation for anxiety, but also a foundation for depression. There is something deeply sad in the fact that we are constantly in some kind of loss, in the fact that the past has passed and will not return, and in the fact that when we finish our lives, the entire story of our lives is essentially over.

This is linear time. You take a step forward, and what has passed behind you supposedly no longer exists. This is indeed a foundation for depression. It is indeed a foundation for questions such as, what are you, why make an effort, why try, why struggle, why work, since in any case it will all end, perhaps even soon.

What is the value of all of this at all. There is something here that can certainly create, and justifiably so, a melancholic atmosphere, a sense of lack of direction, lack of purpose, lack of a meaningful goal to this entire story, the story of human life. You begin, you finish, and that is it. Period.

When one moves into a consciousness of cosmic time, and into an experience of time that is more horizontal, the pessimism that accompanies linear time can be updated, and slowly turn into a kind of optimism. Along with this comes a clearer recognition of why I am here, why I exist, what my aims are, and how I relate differently to the experience I am currently receiving from linear time, the experience of temporariness. In a way that shows me that even temporariness is a kind of illusion.

In cosmic time, in real time, nothing truly disappears. It merely shifts aside in terms of attention. Our attention is currently given to what we call the present. In a linear time approach, everything that is not in the present does not exist, or it has passed and is no longer here, or it is somewhere ahead and is unknown.

In a cosmic time approach, what has been has accumulated, is present, influences, and is accessible. It is not truly lost. It has not truly passed. It is present, and it requires a certain level of attention in order to connect to it.

And this attention is a kind of emotional and mental investment of energy that we, as human beings, have learned to be somewhat lazy about activating. There is a process here that needs to take place. A process of self awareness. A process of emotional transformation. A process of parting from the existing structure, which allows a person to see a different structure, a structure that truly belongs to them. A structure that shows them that it is not truly possible to lose anything. And that if you supposedly missed something, you did not miss it, but rather made a certain choice, and there are always additional opportunities.

I remind you of what was said in Chapter 2, that time is a sequence of opportunities. The universe is neither cruel nor stingy. It is abundant with opportunities. But in order to see this, to experience this, to connect to this, we must move away from linear time and connect emotionally and experientially to cosmic time.

And here is the place to remind that all the transmutation we are doing here, all of this movement, all the healing and all the transformation, take place within the experiential space. A person can move into a more open experiential space, heal their experiential space so that it is less governed by linear logical thinking that reduces existence only to what is recognized within physical consensus, and take themselves into the infinite spaces of experience, what we call imagination.

There they can encounter cosmic time, boundless time, in which there is not much reason for worry, and not much reason for sadness, and no sense of lack of purpose. Within cosmic time, the present moment is the purpose.

The experience itself is the purpose. Nothing is lost, but rather accumulates as a collection of lessons. Therefore we have less to mourn regarding what we missed or what has passed, and more to learn to reconnect to them, and to see that they are present with us.

Part of the foundation for depression arises from the feeling that things are constantly disappearing from me, that things are constantly falling apart, and that I cannot retrieve them. Within cosmic time it works differently. And when I experientially grasp that linear time is an illusion, I also grasp that what created the foundation for my depression is an illusion. Thus, in the end, depression itself rests upon an illusion, and is itself a kind of illusion.

It is not difficult to see that depression is an illusion, even though it is a very powerful experience. We are seeking to update this experience. And within the experiential space, where when we are depressed we are convinced that everything is dark and lost, that there is no strength and no energy, we seek to move the experience from linear time, which determines depression, fixes it, and feeds it, into cosmic time.

Cosmic time releases the person from the need for depression. It shows them that they have not lost anything, and that they will not lose anything. That they can influence their past, and thereby significantly change their present. That they can influence their future. This is in their hands.

The awakening that accompanies the transition into cosmic time, in the transformation from linear time to cosmic time, is first and foremost an awakening of a sense of capability.

This is an awakening of recognition of the infinite creative power that exists within the human being. A power that can be realized more easily when one’s consciousness is situated within the space of cosmic time, and not within a constant fear of losing, and not within a fear of ruining things.

This is also how it happens in intuitive arts. We connect people to cosmic time, release them from the fear of losing, failing, and ruining. They receive there the freedom to create and to move within the now, without fear of an unsuitable result, which itself is a distorted concept of linear time.

In this way we slowly dismantle the foundation for depression that originates in linear time, and we build ourselves within a real and existing space, a space in which there is always an abundance of possibilities, an abundance of opportunities, an abundance of tools to do again what did not succeed before, and to do it again and again if we wish.

We can meet again what we think we lost, and discover that we did not truly lose it. It only changed frequency, and we can reconnect to it if we choose to attune ourselves to it.

In this way we also change our psychological profile. From a profile that tends more toward depression and melancholy, to a profile that sees that there is no deep and true reason for a depressive state of mind. Because there is nothing that can truly be lost, and nothing that can truly be missed. And by contrast, there are always possibilities to repair, to change, to improve, to grow, and to expand.

And when this experience, which also gives rise to a new sense of capability, becomes increasingly established, the foundation for depression also gradually diminishes.

Practice Questions (to be answered for yourself in handwriting or shared in a practice group):

1. Describe how you feel when you are in a low mood, when things are difficult for you, when life feels heavy. What are your experiences like in such moments?

2. Try for a moment to focus on your experience of time in such moments. How does “time pass” when you are in this state?

3. How do you feel about the possibility that we cannot truly lose things or miss opportunities?

4. Can you currently see a connection between an experience of optimism and the experience that, in cosmic time, it is possible to move and encounter both the past and the future within yourself?

5. If you could right now “move through time” and go on a journey to wherever you wish in your past or your future, where would you like to “jump”? Describe how this transition feels to you in your imagination. Be as detailed as possible.

Chapter 7: The Illusion of Moving Forward Only

I would like to begin this chapter with a few associations that came to me just in this very moment. I am sharing them exactly as they arrive, because it feels right to begin the chapter in this way. No matter how much I try to explain cosmic time and the transformation of time in a logical manner, the ability of logical explanation to truly allow a person to grasp what I am trying to convey will always remain limited.

The more practical, productive, and successful way to grasp these concepts is through an experiential path. This is because cosmic time is an experiential space, and also because the illusion of linear time itself is an illusion that exists within experience. In other words, correction, healing, and progression take place within the experiential space. A space that does not readily respond to the tools of ordinary logic, logic that is based on a kind of consensus within the physical realm, where the private, personal experience of the individual is considered less important and less meaningful.

The irony is that even the agreed upon things, those that create what we call human logic, also exist within experience. Yet this is a narrowed experience, an experience that cannot expand, an experience that gives very narrow definitions to the picture of reality, such as the definition of time itself.

Therefore, I will begin here specifically with associations, and only afterward will I enter the story itself, the core of this chapter.

The first association relates to the concept of infinity. The concept of infinity appears here as part of the experience of cosmic time, and it is very different from the way we are accustomed to relating to linear time. When we relate to infinity, we usually look at it forward, within the context of linear time. This is because linear time gives us the sense that the only movement that exists is movement forward.

And so, even when we think about the concept of infinity, if we are at all willing to engage with it, we imagine it forward. No end, no end. If we try to reach the edge of the universe, we discover that it has no end, and no end, and no end, and it always seems to us that it only continues forward.

But it is also possible to look at infinity backward. It is possible to imagine that we set out on a journey into the past, toward the beginning of beginnings, and discover that this is not truly a beginning. That before it there was another beginning, and before that another beginning, and before that another beginning. And it does not end.

Any attempt to grasp the trajectory of time through a search for a beginning or an end does not succeed. It continuously opens further and further and further. We are accustomed to looking at this only forward. In order to enrich our observation, and in order to dismantle our existing frameworks, I suggest taking this also backward, and imagining that even when we search, we discover again and again that there is no true beginning. That things have always been. Existence before existence before existence before existence.

Another association I wish to share, from my perspective as the creator of this process, is the understanding that in order to bring the most meaningful information here, I must not prepare. I must arrive at the moments in which I produce this text, this book, without any prior knowledge of what I am about to express.

When I do this, and when I become skilled at expressing things that arrive to me in that very moment, I connect to cosmic time. I connect to knowledge that opens within me in that exact second. I cannot plan this in advance. And if I try to plan, I restrict the flow, restrict the stream, restrict spontaneity, and also restrict the quality of the knowledge that passes through me.

Everything that appears in this book, and in all the other psycho creative books, works in the same way. One can find within them great richness of material, dozens of books, large quantities of deep knowledge that significantly affects people. And yet, the only thing defined in advance were the chapter titles. When I arrived at the creation of the chapters themselves, I arrived open, clean, and allowed the information to pass through me. Through my logic, through my spontaneity. And it always arrives.

And this brings us to the subject of this chapter, the illusion of moving forward only. This illusion is very similar to the illusion that in order to bring meaningful knowledge, one must plan it several steps forward, several steps in advance.

Cosmic time is a time in which things happen now. There is no real forward, and no real backward. There is an ongoing, renewing now, that does not move only toward the next thing, but also toward the previous thing. And even metaphorically, it does not move along an axis that can be drawn as a straight line with an arrow pointing only forward.

It moves in many directions. Like in the game of hide and seek, where one says, whoever is behind me, or in front of me, or above me, or beside me is the one who is “it.” Of course, no one is really above me, and everyone runs to hide, and no one is really standing there. But even there, without noticing, we spoke about different angles, about different possibilities of existence, about different places where people could supposedly be located.

When we speak about cosmic time, we change the experiential perception. I am here right now, and this moment is everything. It is all that exists. We will speak about this many times, about this moment within which all moments exist.

The only progression that exists is related to the degree of attention I have toward this moment. Within attention there is an experience of inner movement, just like the movement of information that comes to me while I am here producing this information.

There is inner movement there. One can close one’s eyes, quiet the inner noise for a moment, breathe deeply, and try to ask fewer questions such as where am I, what am I, what will happen, and where to now. All of these are anxieties connected to linear time.

One can simply breathe existence. The fact of being. Your self here. And feel that in that moment, even if only for a few seconds, forward and backward dissolve. All times are possible there.

In that same second I can move in my thoughts to the future, to the past, to the now, to my desires, to my wishes, to experiences I have lived. Everything is here. Everything is here like an open book. And all that is required in order to leaf through it is to release ourselves from the grip of time that moves only forward, and to move into an experience of movement that takes place within this moment.

This is an experience that one connects to through attention that is not seeking immediate answers, not seeking certainty, not seeking control. Attention to what is. Within this attention there is movement, and there is desire, and there is inner guidance, and there is knowledge that seeks to flow.

We are here to refine this attention. To allow this experience to heal itself. To move from the narrowing, parallel, anxiety provoking experience of linear time, which is essentially an illusion of time, into an experiential reality of this moment.

A moment within which the day from a thousand years ago is also present. And the day two thousand years from now is also present. And the day ten minutes from now is also present. Everything is there. And everything is there in a movement that invites creation, development, and healing.

This is magic. It may sound like fantasy at the moment. But what is truly fascinating is that one day it may be discovered that this fantasy is the true reality. A reality we cannot see as long as we rely too heavily on the illusion of linear time.

And if what was said here was not clear, that is fine. I did not intend to be clear. I am conveying experiential messages here, which parts of your consciousness are ready to receive and wish to receive. And in order for this to be absorbed more deeply, it is helpful to read these materials again and again, in a passive way, without trying too hard to understand.

Slowly, this will awaken what already exists within you.
And within you is your natural cosmic time.

Practice Questions (to be answered for yourself in handwriting or shared in a practice group):

1. What is your relationship with your spontaneity?

2. When you imagine “the day one hundred years from now,” what do you see? Are you willing to release logic and “fly” with your imagination, and invent the way you see the human space one hundred years from now?

3. If you could take a “means of transportation” to a very ancient period, where would you like to “travel” right now? Why specifically there?

4. How do you feel about the idea that existence as a whole has no beginning, that “existence has always existed”? How do you cope with this infinite challenge?

5. Right now, in this very moment, what is “moving” within you? Close your eyes and sense the inner movement, timeless and without location. Remain like this for one minute. Then open your eyes and write what you saw, experienced, and felt.

Chapter 8: Creativity as a Bridge to the Experience of Cosmic Time

In an amusing and pleasant way, I would like to begin this chapter with a story that happened just a short while ago. About two hours ago, I taught a class as part of the studies of the Psycho-Creative Temple, which dealt with emotional creativity as a healthy nature. During the class, one of the students shared that she realized and experienced that creativity is, in fact, a door, or a gateway, into the cosmic time within her.

And here we are now, precisely now, arriving at Chapter Eight. I pause it here, in this moment, in my own cosmic time, and it deals with exactly the same subject. A relatively short time after these things arose in conversation and in the lecture, they appear here in this chapter, almost in the same words. The student experienced, through her emotional creativity, a direct entry into her cosmic time, and that is what we will be speaking about here. Creativity as a bridge to the experience of cosmic time.

From the outset, I wish to qualify and say that this usually refers to emotional creativity. Spontaneous creativity, intuitive creativity. Creativity that is not limited by criticism, and not limited by a need for a specific result, or by a need to please someone or receive any kind of evaluation. This is creativity that is based on creating a space of freedom of expression, which can take form in any way it wishes. Whether it is wild, whether it is gentle, whether it is slow, or whether it is fast. In all the forms that arise naturally from the person.

This is what we call here emotional creativity. And it can be expressed in a wide variety of ways. Through intuitive writing, through intuitive painting, through intuitive movement, and through many other ways that a person can find suitable, in order to express their creativity and their creation freely. Without criticism, without limitations, and without a need to please others or receive feedback from them regarding the quality of the creation.

In this state, creativity becomes a bridge. A real bridge that one can cross, from the experience of linear time to the experience of cosmic time. In this sense, it can be said that emotional creativity is a kind of vehicle, or even a kind of spacecraft, that reminds a person of the cosmic time that exists within them.

But it can do this only if the person truly agrees, chooses, while still within the experience of linear time, to jump into creativity. To play with it, to enjoy it, to move within it, and to bring their emotions into it as broadly as possible. To agree to give up criticism, to give up the need to produce something beautiful, to give up the need for a result. And most importantly, to be there. To remain there. To spend meaningful time there.

And within this meaningful time, what is likely to happen to the person is an experience of transformation. This transformation takes place on several levels. Both in the sense of turning emotions into creation, and in the sense of releasing pain and pressures and turning them into movement and flow, and also in the sense of a transformation in the experience of time itself.

Thus it happens that when people are engaged in intuitive creation, carried out in a way that grants genuine freedom to bring the entire range of emotions into unlimited creative expression, they experience a loss of the familiar sense of time. They lose their connection to linear time. Because within linear time it is not truly possible to move freely in any direction one wishes. There is a very rigid framework that dictates where to move and where it is correct to move.

And when a person enters emotional creation, they are released from this framework and enter another space. A space with different rules, a different mode of operation, and different experiences. Therefore, for a person who wishes to move toward their cosmic time, who wishes to experience cosmic time during more parts of the day, who wishes for greater access to the cosmic time within them, there is a clear possibility here. Through a conscious decision to move into creation.

When a person finds their own way of carrying this, their own practice, in which they succeed in leaping over excessive criticism, over fears and inhibitions, and jumping into a place of creative play that welcomes every outcome and every act that arises from the heart, through creation, freedom, and creativity, a deep shift occurs.

When a person expresses their emotional creativity, when they release the definitions of what is right and what is not right, what is good and what is not good, what is allowed and what is forbidden, and when they release competitiveness and comparison, and surrender to free creation that allows emotions to express themselves in every direction, that allows natural intensity to come into free expression, they connect to one of the most prominent characteristics of cosmic time.

Cosmic time is also creative time. Because within it every action is reasonable, every action is appropriate. Everything is within reach. One can move within cosmic time to a wide variety of places. Within cosmic time, we are in a creative consciousness. This is one of the gifts, and one of the sources of pleasure, of cosmic time. The connection to natural creativity, which is an inseparable part of a person being in cosmic time.

It can be said that, to a great extent, a person’s being in cosmic time is a movement closer to their divine self. The divine self is the creating self, the creative self, the changing and transforming self. We encounter this self through the bridge of emotional creation, which carries us from the limited place of the physical self, which feels surrounded by many limitations on its ability to create and to influence its life, to a greater closeness to the divine self, in which an abundance of possibilities is revealed. An abundance of creative possibilities for moving through time.

Through creative tools we do what is called healing in cosmic time. We will enter into this in greater depth later on. Within healing in cosmic time, deep changes and transformations occur. And in order for these changes to take place, we need our creativity.

Through creativity we invent encounters with our self at different points in life, which exist in linear time somewhere in the past, and in cosmic time they arrive here, into the present, and ask for a meeting. We create this meeting. We use our creative energy to allow it. We rely on our capacity for invention and imagination in order to bring together parts within us that, in a linear time consciousness, cannot meet.

In order to do this, we must be more and more connected to our natural creativity, and be willing to play. This is how emotional creativity works. This is how the experience of play works. And it is no coincidence that people love to play and want to play. Because there they are released from the burden of linear time, which is heavy and rigid, and they enter a flow that can develop in many directions.

One of the beautiful things about play is surprise. The renewed connection to the fact that in every moment many things can happen. That there is uncertainty. But this is a sweet kind of uncertainty. An uncertainty that says, how wonderful it is that there are so many possibilities. This is a clear characteristic of cosmic time, and it is also a clear characteristic of creativity.

Creative consciousness is a connection to the fact that right now there are many possibilities for action. Right now I can choose this, and this, and this. And all of the choices will be perfectly fine. Within a linear time consciousness, possibilities are limited. One must look only forward, one must produce a specific result, and there is pressure and there is a time budget. All of this leads to coping with anxiety and depression, which are connected to linear time.

When I change phase, when I cross the bridge of emotional creativity, I leave behind the heaviness of linear time. And through play, movement, dance, improvisation, change, and renewal, I find myself within cosmic time. A time that I reached with my own hands, through my own creation.

Practice Questions (to be answered for yourself in handwriting or shared in a practice group):

1. What do you think right now about the “state” of your free creativity?

2. Are you familiar with this experience of “losing the sense of time” while creating, or during other experiences or activities? Please describe in as much detail as you can.

3. What do you think your natural creativity most wants to do right now? What does it strongly feel like doing at this moment?

4. In what way or ways do you like to connect with your inner child and allow her to play and move within spaces of surprise, discovery, and adventure?

5. If you could now “fly” to any place you wish, where would you “fly” to? What do you think about creating this experience now through writing an imaginary journey on the wings of your cosmic time?

Chapter 9: Excessive Self-Criticism Emphasizes Linear Time and Conceals Cosmic Time

Here it is important for me to bring us back to the core of the entire process, which is the human experience. We tend to relate to time as a given agreement, as a consensus measured by external instruments, at a fixed pace, second after second, minute after minute. Yet when we grant such a central quality as time exclusivity through external measuring tools alone, we almost without noticing drift away from the fact that time is first and foremost an experiential element. It appears to us that the clock measures time, but in practice we are merely creating agreements around it.

Time is experienced. We experience it. And therefore, in order to understand what cosmic time is, and in order to allow a transformation of time, it is essential to observe the experiential quality of time. Ultimately, as I say many times, truth resides within experience. This stands in sharp contrast to the common linear conception of truth, according to which truth is a social consensus, something that most people agree upon. Yet human history teaches us again and again that the majority does not necessarily carry the truth, and that at times it is precisely the personal, subjective experience in which a deeper truth is revealed.

In the context of studying cosmic time, we seek to return the center of gravity to experience. For it is precisely in the place where time is experienced that the possibility for change, creation, and influence also exists. When time is perceived as something external to us, as a force that manages us from the outside, we become smaller in relation to it, and at times even experience ourselves as victims of a system that does not truly reflect the nature of time itself.

From here a very familiar phenomenon emerges. When we are within a stressful, anxious, unpleasant, or disharmonious experience, time is experienced as heavy, as crawling, as something that advances slowly. We find ourselves longing for a certain event to end, and precisely then it seems as though time insists on stretching itself. By contrast, a pleasant, flowing, creative, and rewarding experience is felt as one that passed quickly. Not out of regret, but out of pleasure. It was good, and therefore time did not weigh us down.

Here an important insight is revealed. It is not the clock that changes our lives, but the experience. Experiential time is the time that is truly relevant to the human being. And from this understanding we arrive at the core of this chapter: excessive self-criticism.

Excessive self-criticism is not merely a pattern of thought. It is an emotional force that contracts the person, that limits their inner freedom of movement, and that blocks them from their authentic creativity. When self-criticism dominates, a person finds it difficult to play, difficult to experiment, difficult to set out on an inner adventure. They cling to definitions of right and wrong, good and bad, permitted and forbidden, and in doing so they become confined within linear time.

In such a state, life is increasingly managed by external approvals, by external measures, and consequently also by external time. The person continually asks themselves whether they are enough, whether they are keeping pace, whether they are late, whether they are missing out. These questions fix the person within a very narrow perception of time, in which time is a judge rather than a space.

When a person begins to reduce their excessive self-criticism, interesting moments occur. They discover that at times they lose their sense of linear time. Not through effort, but through an inner connection to what is taking place within them. External time ceases to be central, because for them truth is located elsewhere, within experience.

All processes of healing, change, and growth take place within the person. Not in external texts, not in external tools, and not in external clocks. And within this inner space, a person’s cosmic time is also found. A time in which it is possible to move, to change, to return, to draw closer, and to expand.

When excessive self-criticism speaks in the language of lack of worth, lack of chance, and lack of legitimacy for desire, it does not only damage self-image. It also fixes the person within linear time, within a perception in which there is no real possibility for free movement. This is a direct connection between an emotional state and the experience of time.

Cosmic time, by contrast, exists within a space of freedom. A space in which time joins the process rather than managing it. There, time can become a pleasurable factor, experienced as flowing, changing, and supportive. This is the time that is experienced in healing processes, when changes occur that are quick, deep, and at times surprisingly positive.

Cosmic time is not only a philosophical worldview or a theoretical understanding of the universe. It is a living territory of healing and of change. And as a person learns to reduce excessive self-criticism and to move toward acceptance, listening, and emotional creativity, the possibility opens for them to encounter their cosmic time in a broader and deeper way.

This is one of the central keys in the process of the transformation of time.

Practice Questions (to be answered for yourself in handwriting or shared in a practice group):

1. Try for a moment to focus on an experience in which you were in a state of very excessive self-criticism toward yourself. Please describe the situation, and especially the emotional experience you were in at that time.

2. Now try to observe also the experience of time that accompanied that event. If you enter deeply enough into the emotions and sensations you had then, you may be able to identify the place that the experience of time occupied for you. What do you see there now?

3. Can you see the similarity between the tension that exists within linear time, with time pressure and everything related to it, and the tension that exists as a result of excessive self-criticism?

4. How do you feel about the statement: “The truth is found somewhere within my experience”?

5. How do you now connect the concepts of “cosmic time,” “freedom,” and “unlimited creativity”?

Chapter 10: Real Time and Passion

In this chapter, I wish to address a connection that I consider particularly fascinating, the connection between the transformation of time, transformation in general, and the human being’s connection to their healthy passion. A person’s healthy passion exists, in fact, in only one time, and that is the now. When a person’s now is a healthy now, this now is characterized by a connection to their healthy passion. When a person’s now is less healthy, their motivations and their way of perceiving reality are less connected to their healthy passion.

In this sense, the transformation of time is also a healing process that connects the person not only to a broader, more creative, and more pleasant experience of time, but also to the experience of their basic and healthy passion. This is an experience of passion that also connects the person to a very special form of communication with the divine aspects within them, as I will elaborate further in the next chapter.

In a process of transformation, we carry out a kind of return home. A kind of drawing closer to the source. At the same time, in a process of transformation we clearly move from a stuck place to a liberated place, from a darker place to a more illuminated place, from a more complicated place to a lighter place, and from a more constricted place to a more creative place. This is a process of transformation that can, to a large extent, also be called a process of healing.

Here we are carrying out a transformation of time. A transition from a focus on linear time, in which the future is vague and the past is perceived as something that no longer exists, to a perception of cosmic time. In linear time, it seems to us that there are three separate parts of time, past, present, and future. When we move into cosmic time, we discover that time ultimately converges into a single time. Into one now that contains everything. The past, the present, and the future are different aspects of the same time.

We are making a transition here from a constricting and pressuring linear sensation, which includes many experiences of loss and anxiety about missing out, to a perception of cosmic time that is more circular, more spiral like, and that offers potential access to all parts of time. This is the transformation we are making here, and it is possible because cosmic time exists. It is present, it is waiting, it is real, and it is ready for the human being to return to it.

When there is a healthy nature, when a healthier possibility exists and is waiting, we can potentially undergo a transformation toward it, return to it, reach it, and learn to activate it more and more. And when we carry out a transformation of time, we almost without noticing also carry out a transformation of our passion.

Within linear time, we often encounter what we might call negative passion. A passion connected to addiction, a passion connected to partial pleasure, a passion that often also frightens us or manages us. It may take us into situations and events we do not truly wish to be in. We learn to heal this passion through healthy passion, which is the passion that teaches us where it is worthwhile to turn, what it is worthwhile to create, and where it is worthwhile to direct our attention in order to grow. Passion marks the path for us.

In this sense, passion is the central compass of intuition and of the divine voice. In order to experience it, to encounter it, and to be able to be in a broader and deeper relationship with it, we must move from linear time to cosmic time. One can call it real time, one can call it circular time. The name is less important. What is important is the broader and more complete experience we undergo in this transition.

Here it is important to emphasize again that the transformation of time is, in fact, an emotional transformation. It includes deep emotional transitions. The pressure that characterizes linear time is replaced by the experience of freedom and expansion that characterizes cosmic time. This is a form of healing. We are released from a burden. We are released from a heaviness imposed upon us by the constriction that characterizes linear time.

In places where we are constricted, and where we are forced into excessive focus on our survival, because our time is limited, because we might miss things, and because we supposedly must not waste time, we reduce our access to the experience of our passion. This is how it works. When a person is overly occupied with survival, they move away from passion.

And when we remove those constricting and burdensome components, when we peel away the illusion of finality, the illusion of a time budget, and the illusion of the loss of time or the loss of events, we arrive at a new place. A place where we no longer need to be so occupied with survival tension. In this place, we can turn our attention to one of the most important characteristics of the experience of the now, which is the human being’s healthy passion.

One could say that this is a kind of gift, or reward, for those who devote attention and resources to the transition from linear time to cosmic time. The person regains their passion, and they can operate with it within cosmic time.

In order to act with passion, I must focus on the now. And this now is also connected to the future, to where I long to arrive, and it is also connected to my past, to everything that has nourished me until now. These are the materials through which my passion operates. In this way, an atmosphere of inner teamwork is created with all the parts of me, with all my expressions, and with everything that exists within me. All the separations I was forced to create within linear time begin to dissolve, and everything connects into one place of shared action that operates from passion.

In the psycho creative world, we often speak about the junction of the present. The junction of the present that we also discussed in Chapter Three, in the story of now, and that we will speak about many more times. This is a junction that invites the person to ask themselves, right now, what is my highest passion. What excites me the most. Where is my intuition signaling me to go, toward adventure, toward risk.

And here the great human question appears. Am I willing to devote resources to this, or do I prefer, sometimes unconsciously, to remain stuck within certain problems or within certain addictions. This is the central challenge of the transformation of time. To move into the now, and within it to encounter the great question, what is your passion.

Conversely, one can say that the more a person practices connecting to their passion, the more attention they give to their passion and heal it, the more they bring themselves again and again into cosmic time. Because it is possible to act with passion only within cosmic time.

And each time a person allows themselves to be within the now, within the intense and nourishing experience of acting from passion, they are in fact bringing themselves into the space of cosmic time that exists within them. Their divine aspect was always there. They were simply not aware of it, due to the distractions created by linear time.

And here we connect cosmic time and passion. Cosmic time is characterized by an ever growing connection to passion, a passion that continues to expand and to bring more and more ideas for growth and development. This is part of the gifts of cosmic time. This is part of its characteristics. And it is also one of the ways to reach it, through greater focus on passion, and less focus on that which distances us from it and repeatedly returns us to linear time.

Practice Questions (to be answered for yourself in handwriting or shared in a practice group):

1. Right at this moment, right now, in this very second, what is the most exciting and heart expanding thing in your life?

2. How do you connect the experience of the “now” with a connection to your healthy passion?

3. How can an excessive separation between your present and your past “drain the air” from your current connection to your central passion?

4. How can an excessive separation between your present and your future also “drain the air” from your current connection to your central passion?

5. Can you now recall an experience or event that was accompanied by a high level of passion and a sense of deep inner connection? Can you observe the experience of time in those moments? Did it feel “fast”? Did it feel “less present”? Can you now identify elements of the experience of time during moments of connection to passion that you did not notice before? Describe in as much detail as you can.