From What is Mind? it’s also worth noting the mind’s relationship with time and space. Science suggests that time is a fourth dimension of space but this is inaccurate.
Space arises in self-aware consciousness. We can say the boundary condition created by consciousness curving back on itself defines space. As mind is the lively inner edge of that self-aware consciousness, it can be said to be the boundary condition but not the origin of space. That space however is not limited in any way. No dimension or distance is yet defined. As consciousness also becomes self-aware at every point within itself, space is nested – there are spaces within spaces, just as a room is within a floor is within a house is within a town. Once we get down to a scale the local experiencer can comprehend, we begin to measure. Then we tend to ignore the infinities we live in.
Three dimensions are a conceptual way to measure that space – they are not defined by space itself. I suspect the nesting nature of space is what is leading scientists to propose extra “curled up” dimensions, much as they have proposed dark matter to balance the equations. The world is remarkably complex but the basics are simpler than that. Space is just space, the content of the container of open self-awareness, Atman.
To demonstrate how time is not a dimension of space, we only have to notice how our state of being changes our perception of time. Now certainly this can also affect our perception of space, but only in terms of scale. Our perception of time can change dramatically, like being in the present now or all time in the present or being eternal or timeless.
This distinction is because time arises as a function of the process of experience. Thus when our relationship with the experiencer changes, it shifts the process too and changes how see perceive time. Space, on the other hand, is recognized by experiencing but is formed prior to it in consciousness curving back on itself.
Not to worry if you don’t follow all this. It makes a lot more sense when it is experienced directly.
Davidya
Last Updated on November 8, 2014 by