We may talk a good game about living in the present, but then turn around and face periods of depression, anxiety, uncertainty and disharmony. Who wants to be present with that?

So, we keep turning away, only to find ourselves lost in a maze of unhappy emotions. How do we find our way out?

It’s like this. Imagine we live in a great big house that has one room we don’t use, so it becomes a room for storage. We toss a few things into it helter-skelter, and if we had to tidy it up at that point, it wouldn’t take too long.

Imagine over time we let things pile up until that room is filled to the brim. We’re lazy and don’t want to hassle with sorting things and putting them away as we go.

Now we’ve got a tougher job on our hands.

It’s just like this with the time we have at our disposal.

El costo del retraso

Let’s say we have a problem area and at the first sign of feeling troubled, we heed it saying, “Now what am I really feeling? Why am I just a little disturbed?” We do this instead of packing it away in the storeroom of our unawareness.

Then we will be able to sort out what it’s about in no time.

But if instead we let it ride, pushing it out of our mind, it will fester underground. Now it starts to create negative patterns and vicious circles, which seem to trap us in unpleasant chain reactions. These snowball into tightly interwoven knots that become very hard to disentangle.

The snowball grows, our mood gets worse, and it becomes increasingly more difficult to restore things to order. Now it will take much greater effort to undo the knots of wrong thinking, negative effects and painful interactions.

These are what send our energy currents into destructive places they shouldn’t have gone. This is a huge waste of time that will now take so much work to sort out. So, we turn the other way and let things pile up some more.

Until eventually things collapse or explode.

This is why we need to learn to make better use of our time, especially when we feel any discomfort or disharmony. And this is also why it is not quite right for us to believe bad times are such a hardship.

In truth, the only way to safeguard ourselves against further future misery is by letting ourselves get shaken up by our struggles. We can use them to bring out whatever is hidden. In fact, we can only uncover what needs healing by facing all that touches us.

If we heed the early signs, we can do some clearing as we go. Then the problems won’t build up.

The trouble is that we wait—often through one incarnation after another—before we look at ourselves in truth. We’d rather say we’re haunted by bad luck or are the sad victim of someone else’s malice than look at what we don’t wish to see in ourselves.

Usando el tiempo en la Tierra

Human beings living on Earth are bound by time, which is a creation of the mind. Without our minds, time wouldn’t exist.

Beyond this, we live in a dimension where time is a separate element from space and movement. But later in our development, as we reach higher degrees of awareness, our reality will shift, more and more, to where time, space and movement become integrated into one.

Para aclarar esto, considere que en nuestra dimensión, el tiempo y el espacio son dos factores separados. Si nos encontramos en un lugar determinado espacio, tomará time para trasladarse a otro espacio. Movimiento is the bridge that combines time and space.

In the next dimension, where the experience of time is wider and less fragmented, movement, time and space are one. Meaning, if we’re in one space, we only need to have a new thought to be in another space. Movement is not required. Thought itself becomes the bridge.

Given the material nature of life on Earth, we cannot bridge distance with thought.

That said, our spirit, or psyche, experiences this constantly, even if the brain doesn’t think of it in these terms. Currently, however, the human body is bound by a separation between time and space that can only be bridged by movement.

When material and technical means are invented to leave this dimension, we will have a sense of what is going on here. Certainly, it is a reflection of our overall readiness to grasp higher truth that we have gained our current level of technical astuteness, bringing us closer to this possibility. But that doesn’t mean we will automatically grasp the more profound meaning.

It all depends on people’s willingness and capacity to understand.

And if, in spite of our growth, we don’t learn the deeper meaning, our discoveries will stagnate. They will then turn destructive instead of helping humanity gain broader awareness.

The litmus test for whether a scientific discovery—or really any influx of knowledge, perhaps in art or philosophy—will be beneficial depends on whether humanity understands cosmic law better after its unfolding than before. If so, it will lead to greater freedoms, faster growth, and more peace and justice.

If we looked at history from this point of view, we would see that every upheaval on planet Earth has resulted from an ignorance about the real meaning of a new broader knowledge.

For historians to identify these links, they themselves will need to be undertaking a self-searching process of personal development. Then dots that were previously obscure will start to line up.

Usar el tiempo sabiamente

Coming back to the topic of time, it’s not quite right to say the next higher dimension is timelessness. There is a spectrum of time-realities we will experience on our way to timelessness.

Our current position on this spectrum, as humans, makes it hard to fully grasp this. The best we can do is sense this truth occasionally.

Time is a fragment, cut from a wider, freer cloth of experience. As such, time is very limiting. At the same time, it has the benefit of motivating us to grow and fulfill ourselves.

In this way, it moves us toward the maximum happiness and freedom we can hope for in this dimension. If we use it right, we will reach our potential, and in that case, the limitation of time won’t be a hardship.

Por otro lado, una persona con potencial de crecimiento, pero que no lo aprovecha, será más problemática que alguien que se esfuerza menos, pero trabaja más cerca de su potencial. Por eso debemos evitar juzgar.

If we have consciously embarked on a spiritual path of personal development, it is possible that we will still miss the boat from time to time. We’ll make our way through a difficult period without exploring what it’s about, simply waiting for it to pass on its own.

Cuando ignoramos nuestro mal humor, invitamos a la depresión, la ansiedad, la incertidumbre y la discordia a aparecer una y otra vez. En estas ocasiones, no aprovechamos bien el tiempo. Como resultado, el tiempo se convierte en una fuente de conflicto y una carga.

But if we search for the root of our problems, we will unfurl a deeper understanding that leads to liberation. Then our trust in life takes root in firm soil, and our exhilaration with ourselves becomes a more permanent state instead of a periodic one-off.

We will organically become more and more at one with the element of time.

What our emotions reveal about time

En último análisis, podemos considerar cualquier emoción no deseada como resultado de no usar nuestro tiempo sabiamente para llegar al fondo de los conflictos y confusiones internas. Estos incluyen aburrimiento y apatía, frustración y tensión, ansiedad y hostilidad, impaciencia y nerviosismo, apatía y depresión.

Those who are already fairly far along on their path of self-discovery will know of the influx of joy and strength that comes from unraveling any issue all the way to the origin of the negative emotion. Those who haven’t yet had this experience should know that this could be yours.

If, that is, you are willing to follow the threads of your own inconvenient feelings. We just need to not shirk the effort of looking within, which will lead us to this feeling that we are one with life.

We may be saying, “Remind me, what does any of this have to do with our relationship to time?”

Here it is: Any negative emotion essentially conflicts with the limited fragment of time we have. Conversely, feelings that are positive, constructive and realistic don’t conflict with time because we’re using time the way it’s supposed to be used.

This is good fodder for deep meditation.

La tensión del tiempo

Our vague awareness that time is limited creates a special tension in us. We strain against time the way a dog pulls on a leash. It holds us in its grip and we feel strangled by it.

In our unconscious minds, we hold a memory of another greater timelessness where we had limitless freedom. But we can only get back there by fully accepting and utilizing the fragments of time we now have.

Podemos hacerlo de dos maneras: transitar hacia la libertad de forma natural con un mínimo de conflicto, o seguir luchando contra la transición. Dicho de otro modo, podemos afrontar las tensiones y los conflictos directamente y encontrar la libertad, o podemos vivir con la tensión y los conflictos creados por nuestra evasión —nuestro mal uso del tiempo— y quedarnos estancados. Es nuestra decisión.

Why should we believe any of this is true?

Fortunately, there is a simple way to test whether any spiritual concept is truthful: Does it have any practical application? If we can’t take an idea and test-drive it, what good is it really?

So, let’s look at this topic of time as it relates to people on a day-to-day basis.

En nuestra realidad cotidiana, intentamos alcanzar esa dimensión más libre del tiempo esforzándonos por alcanzar el mañana. A veces, esto es evidente con solo observar nuestros pensamientos superficiales. Otras veces, simplemente hay un clima general de tensión difuso, difícil de identificar.

We strive toward the future for mainly two reasons. First, we’re not enjoying the present moment, so we hope the future might offer us something better. Or second, there is some aspect of life we fear and want to leave in the past.

As a result, we have this fuzzy belief in a happier future coupled with some dissatisfaction or annoyance about the present that causes us to avoid living in the Now.

We need to learn to draw everything we can from each moment. This is where we put these teachings to work. If we were to explore each difficulty fully, instead of straining away from them, we would be living each moment to the fullest.

Además, solo aprovechando al máximo los fragmentos de tiempo que nos otorga esta dimensión podemos superarlos. Experimentarlo todo, entonces, y no forzar la distancia, es la manera de fluir automáticamente hacia la siguiente dimensión temporal.

Aliviando la tensión

In this directive to live in the Now, great confusion arises regarding using our time to reflect on the past or to plan for the future. As with most things, what matters less is what we do, and what matters more is how we do it.

Meaning, we can think about the past in a constructive way to help us understand ourselves and our present problems better. This, in turn, will help us resolve them so we are better equipped to live in the Now.

Or, if we prefer, we can run in circles and hold onto the past, thinking about it in a destructive way. We can sit around blaming fate or someone else for some unpleasantness in our life. We can become consumed with resentment. It’s up to us.

The same goes for the future. We may, on one hand, take responsibility for our future in a flexible way that doesn’t fixate on it. Alternatively, we can hang out in some hazy future tense that never quite becomes the Now. Or when it does, the disillusionment is tremendous. No es así como fantaseábamos que sería.

No, it’s not impossible to experience happiness in the Now. But to do so we need to not run from whatever is unwelcome in the present.

This could include fear, doubt, self-dislike, resentments or loneliness. Whatever it is, it’s all fair game for further exploration. But whenever we’re busy running from what’s disturbing us, we can’t be present for whatever might be beautiful in the moment.

For example, let’s say we have a tendency to worry. We think, “My goodness, if I face my worry, I won’t be able to be present in the Now.” This is why we run from it.

Instead, we could try saying, “I am worried about thus-and-such. And even though I know it is irrational, this is how I feel. I feel worried in this moment.”

Entonces, al estar presentes con la preocupación, podemos relajarnos. Seguiremos preocupados, pero nos resultará menos perturbador. Esto creará espacio para comprender la preocupación y partir de ahí.

Nuestro malentendido es que creemos que no deberíamos preocuparnos. En ese momento, no estamos en la realidad. No estamos presentes con lo que realmente es. Este is the problem—not the worry.

We think we must first free ourselves from our problems before we can live in some faraway spiritual land of the Now. It doesn’t work that way, and it never will.

Enfrentando lo que es

We are mistaken when we believe that living in the Now means we live in a state of bliss and beauty. We want blissfulness when in fact unblissfulness is still in us.

But we don’t want to acknowledge it.

If we live our unblissfulness though, it will be much less unpleasant—if we really enter into it and don’t play evasive games. 

We are not separate from Now, unless we separate ourselves. Our Now is what we feel at this moment. Five minutes from now, we might feel something different. So our Now will be different, if we are in the dynamic flow of our feelings.

The more truthfully we face ourselves, the more real time will be for us. This doesn’t require some special time-travelling ability. We just need to learn to be present with what we think, feel and experience now.

We can start by admitting that we don’t want to face our current unpleasantness, if that is what is present in the moment. Simply be fully with that.

This isn’t something reserved for spiritually evolved people. Rather, it’s the doorway to becoming spiritually evolved.

No special gifts or stunts are required.

Ironically, the ability to be in the present is naturally already in us. This means it is easier to summon the present than to go through our usual elaborate efforts to evade the Now.

It’s just that we have trained ourselves—over hundreds and hundreds of Earth-years—to jump out of the present moment. This is actually quite a feat, requiring far more effort than simply being with what is.

Simply put, the doorway to spiritual enlightenment is being present with what is.

La ilusión de la muerte

Where do we start? Awareness is always the first step. Once we see that we do indeed struggle away from the Now, we’ll realize that we haven’t yet found the reason why. Our investigation will give us an inkling about it.

But we must realize there’s also an opposite side to this conflict. For we also fear this future we are striving for, whose hallmarks are death and decay.

Así, nos esforzamos simultáneamente por alcanzar el futuro mientras queremos detener el paso del tiempo e incluso retroceder a nuestra juventud. Huelga decir que el alma sufre de tensión cuando se ve atrapada en esta lucha inútil que desperdicia tanta energía.

Fear of death opposes the natural movement of time, which is steady and harmonious. If we can feel into this rhythm, we can come into harmony with it.

Admittedly, we may not yet be in the highest state of being. But we will be in a state of being which is a match for the dimension of time we are in. Then we just follow the flow.

This wave will carry us naturally and gracefully to the next dimension of time—the one we fear so much because we can’t prove it is real. Our haste, on the one hand, to get into the new dimension, runs up against our fear of the unknown. This sends our soul in opposite directions.

The result? Stagnation of growth and more veering away from the fullness of Now.

Finding freedom in the present

If we can locate this tugging in diametrically opposing directions, we may be motivated to unearth the nature of it. What particular functions in our life could stand to be improved?

If we jot down notes about our inner experiences throughout the day, we’ll start to make recognitions. These can then lead to reigniting our full spark of aliveness.

Que los reconocimientos sean poco halagadores y desilusionantes, incluso dolorosos, no disminuirá la gran experiencia de paz dinámica que sigue. Al contrario, podría confirmar la verdad de estas enseñanzas.

Si la confrontación con uno mismo, al final, no conduce a una experiencia edificante, todavía no hemos llegado al final. No se impaciente ni se ponga tenso, más bien observe que en algún lugar, de alguna manera, estamos cubriendo la verdad. Cuando esto sucede, simplemente no queremos ver todo lo que hay para ver.

Why does it happen that after a painful or unflattering awareness—provided we go all the way to its depths and don’t stop halfway—we experience such a state of aliveness and harmony? It’s because in that moment, we have fully used the fragment of time at our disposal.

Whenever we feel listless or depressed, the material is right there in front of us, overlooked. We’re right in the middle of it but we are blind to it.

We don’t focus our attention on it—we merely try to get out of this Now without using it. That’s the forward movement that pushes us toward our fear of death.

De ahora en adelante, si queremos experimentar un flujo ininterrumpido de tiempo que nos lleve a dimensiones extendidas, debemos usar cada momento como se describe. Entonces no estamos hablando de conceptos que podamos aceptar o rechazar, con los que estemos de acuerdo o en desacuerdo.

We’ll have our own inner experience of realizing that the present matrix of time is just one fragment of another greater matrix. Glimpsing this will, in itself, bring the knowledge that death is but an illusion.

It’s a transition into a different dimension.

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Leer Pathwork original^® Conferencia: # 112 La relación de la humanidad con el tiempo