Is the afterlife timeless?

[ricdaw]

Are we without time in time/space?

I like the practical.  So let me re-phase this question: what is "time" like in time/space?

First, I believe that the home environment for us 3d earthlings in the Afterlife looks, well, earth-like.  As above, so below.  So there are mountains and seas and clouds and trees.  (Hey, that rhymes!) 

Second, there is also a perpetual light akin to the perfect summer's day.  It never stops.  Some identify the light as being from the "central sun" but not our solar sun.  The day/night cycle we have here on Earth is one of the big "time" differences between space/time and time/space.  It is important enough to warrant depiction on tarot card 13 (Death) as the morning (or setting) sun.  I think Ra commented on the "diurnal period" and the way that it can allow for a daily reset to help one achieve one's life goals through catalyst.  (If at first you don't succeed, try and try again.)  So our "time" here is broken into daily cycles.  Associated with those cycles is the body's need for sleep and the fact that we fatigue.

But in the Afterlife's time/space, there is no "diurnal period" and no sleep and no fatigue.  We be spirits.  How would that impact our perceptions of the passage of time?  I suspect that after we wean ourselves from our earthly habits, we will come to find that perpetual light plus perpetual alertness equals a spacious sense of NOW-ness.  No matter what you "do" you have an unlimited, unfatigueable, time to do it.  

With no day/night cycle, there are no calendars to mark the passage of time.  With no need to sleep (or eat for that matter), a regular day's worth of time will already be three times longer than we expect.  No need for 10 hours sleep in every 24 hours, no need for breakfast, lunch or dinner (and all the time it takes to prepare those meals) leaves us with an awful lot of time.  Imagine how much longer the days would be here without eating or sleeping?

We may be psychologically aware of time's passage back on Earth (for example, if we choose to keep track of the loved ones we left behind) and we might coordinate with them to celebrate major holidays, but we are essentially freed from all of time's burdens: fatigue, sleep, aging.  We have, literally unlimited time to do what we want to do in the eternal NOW. 

And, I submit, it is the very impermanence of Earth and its daily "time" that makes it so attractive to us.  Everything dies here.  It is a world of loss and boundaries and confinement.  And we, seeking to know who we really are, our Authentic Selves, so to speak, joyously jump down here into physical bodies to try and know about ourselves as we confront the physical and psychological limits of the place.  We can't do that in the Afterlife.  Spirit = no pain, no injury, no tiredness, no sleep, no limits.  (Would seem to take all the fun out of team sports, eh?  Or even solo sport activities.  If you really want to know what your physical limits are, and what it feels like to have world-class physical prowess and the intellectual determination to achieve such prowess, you must come down here to discover it for yourself!)

When you think about the logical consequences and practical state of being-ness in the Afterlife, and you consider how it is different from the way things are here, you can see WHY you wanted to come here in the first place.  And knowing that you really did choose to come here on purpose is remarkably liberating.  To know that your challenges were chosen.  And if they are pretty horrific or psychologically or physically challenging, to know that you thought you were up to the task of having them, and that you were exploring Who-You-Really-Are by meeting those challenges; well it makes life here pretty interesting and pretty important.  I mean, there must be some pretty important reason why I would put myself through such heartache.  I sure will be looking forward to the Life Review to see how well I did.