Time

Time may be an invention of man but it allows man to know when certain happenings in history and his life took place. Time is something we all know about but do we really?

Since the beginning of human history, man has used nature in order to tell time. He devised methods of recording the passage of the constellations throughout the sky, the phases of the moons in order to know when it was time to plant and a time to harvest. Later on man devised the sun dial and other devices to help him tell time, determining the number hours in a day and even the number of days in a year. In China and India and other parts of the world, water clocks were being used as early as 4000 BC. Water clocks advanced in sophistication for countless years until the development of the mechanical and electronic clocks of the type we use today.

When I was a young man, I read several articles by prominent scientists on the subject of time. Each man had a different interpretation on exactly what time is. However, each man conceded that he just didn't know what time really was.

"Time exists as an expression of change. Our human reality is a three dimensional material universe that includes movement and, therefore, a passage of time with the aging of all things physical. However, in the spirit world Souls exist in a NOW moment which is not on any kind of timeline and is not absolute". (The Newton Institute: The Spirit World and The Soul)

In the spirit world, time has no meaning for those who are there. Life consists of a multitude of "now" moments strung together so that they blend together without any kind of division. The spirit world consists of perpetual daylight with a constant warm temperature making it impossible for a person to know the passages of time, something that becomes irrelevant and of little or no importance the longer an individual is there.

At certain times of the year, those who live in the most northern countries on earth require a clock to tell time due to the fact that they experience night for weeks at a time. The only way they can tell time without a clock is by the requirements of their physical body. Those in the spirit world have no physical body, but a spirit body that has no physical require-ments. The passage of time is indeed a human invention and is extremely important to him. However, time is really irrelevant because life is continuous without a beginning or end.

For a person in the spirit world, life is filled with pure happiness. On earth life is quite different in that it is often filled with chaos, stress and despair, to put it mildly. But all is not lost, for life in the physical provides an individual with experiences that cannot be experienced in the spirit world. It is for this reason that spirit people come into this physical world.

The physical world provides the spirit person an opportunity to grow spiritually through the multitude of challenges that the physical has to offer. As a physical being, the individual then has an opportunity to once again find and live a spiritual life needed for true spiritual advancement.

Like so many of my human friends, I find it difficult to understand why anyone would choose to live in a place where there is war, famine, sickness and upheaval all the time. I can only hope that it is the kind of life that those individuals require as a way in which they can develop a greater faith and knowledge of God.

We all need to experience physical life, maybe many times, in order to truly be able to grow spiritually. Time spent in a physical body is a means, however short, to grow.

At the internet site: library.thinkquest.org/16665/afterlifeframe.htm is I listing of the beliefs of the numerous religions of the world concerning heaven titled (The Great Unknown - Some Views of the Afterlife).