On Time and Gravity

I’ve spoken before about time. Physics models time as a fourth dimension of spacetime. I agree time has some properties similar to space but also some that are quite distinct. For example, time flows whereas space is a vibrating field.

We may think of time as like the frames of a film, but science recognizes time isn’t discrete moments – that’s an effect of perception and memory. Again, time is a flow.

Time is also flowing relative to each observer. So there are threads of time from each observer, flowing together and interacting like currents in an ocean.

In this article, I’m going to muse about time and gravity and compare physics to what’s been experienced. I’m not a physicist but have studied it some in grad school.

For a while, physics has seen the world being driven by four fundamental forces: Electromagnetism, strong, weak, and gravity. Particle physics dominates the thinking because of a materialist paradigm common in the West. But how does a force influence something at a distance? They now describe even force and mass coming from an exchange of particles. This is viewing everything as purely physical, materialism.

Over time, they’ve found mathematical ways to integrate three of the forces, but not gravity.

Einstein proposed the curvature of spacetime creates gravity around a mass. They often illustrate this like a 2D sheet on which they place marbles and bowling balls, bending the sheet around them. Physicists also talk of gravity waves created by major astronomical events, rolling across this space-time manifold. Remember though: time and space are not a plane but are in every direction.

Physics has found that the farther we are from a mass like our planet, the faster time moves. Clocks in the space station tick slightly faster than those on the ground. It’s a slight effect, but required to keep our GPS satellites accurate. This is called time dilation. They’re proposing that this curvature or dilation of time we experience as gravity.

To someone on earth, the farther out into space we are, the faster time moves. And yet this is relative to the earth observer. For us in space, time is experienced at the usual speed. The difference is between perspectives.

This suggests time doesn’t actually dilate but our perspective does, changing duration. I’ve discussed the many ways we can experience time previously.

Further, we don’t experience changes in gravity when our experience of time speeds or slows.

Physics notes that space and time move at the speed of light. This speed can be exchanged in time or space. If we speed time, we reduce space. Inversely, larger space, slower time. We can experience this subjectively. For example, when we transcend into cosmic space, time slows way down. But again, this doesn’t affect our gravity.

As something picks up speed in gravity, it slows in time. All this is because of inertia, as we’ll explore shortly.

Photons (light) from remote stars can spend millennia crossing the universe to get to earth. And yet, for that photon moving at the speed of light, the trip was instantaneous. For objects moving at the speed of light, all of creation is instantaneous.

Our map of the stars is from the perspective of earth. From the star Alpha Centauri, the map of the sky and the zodiac are quite different. Thus, the cycles of time are different as well. Many stars that appear near each other to us can be at vastly different distances away. Because of the time it takes the light to get to us, we’re also seeing them at very different times. And yet again, for the light itself, the trip is instantaneous.

What all this means is that time is relative to the observer. Each of us has our own clock, our own flow of time intertwined with all others.

To the experience here, equating time and space as equivalent dimensions is misunderstanding causality. Time and space have different sources in self-aware universal consciousness.

Space arises from consciousness becoming self-aware. When it distinguishes itself from itself, it creates a distance or subtle space within itself. Think of it like when we see our reflection in a mirror. There is a space between us and the reflection. That space in consciousness is unmanifest, what I sometimes call the field of creation, prior to becoming. Space manifests as a quality or element at the bliss (causal) body when consciousness vibrates. As such, space is the most basic component of our universe. Everything arises within the space of consciousness. First as vibration, then geometry and field, then form.

Time is an effect of the process of experience, of the interaction of consciousness within itself. Rather than being a vibrating field like space, time flows. We don’t experience time unless attention is moving. When our attention becomes completely still, time goes to 0. We often describe pure consciousness as unchanging and timeless.

“Time allows change within the same space.” said Dr. Tony Nader recently. Put another way, change and the speed of that change lets us recognize time.

Time can be experienced various ways, depending on our relationship with experiencing. We’re all familiar with how time seems to slow when we’re bored and waiting. Or fly by when we’re absorbed in a project we enjoy. Many have also experienced time in other ways, like I mentioned above. Or perhaps as an eternal now or as everything happening at once. I list various styles here.

Our relationship with the process of experience determines how we experience time. Time is a perspective.

Time and space are both nested, spaces within spaces, time within time, threads of flow interacting with other threads. The space of creation containing the space of our universe, containing the space of our galactic supercluster Laniakea, containing the space of our galactic cluster, containing the space of our galaxy, containing the space of our solar system, containing the space of our planet, and so forth. Everything arises within the space of self-aware consciousness at every scale. Every form arises in its own bubble of space with its own laws of nature. Even conceptual things like countries, cities, and property have a space in consciousness with their own laws.

Similarly, each observer has their own flow of time, nested within collective, universal, and cosmic time.

We live mainly on the ground in a largely 2D life. Fish and birds live in a more 3D space, like being able to turn up. This is why flying an airplane is more involved than driving a car; there are more directions of travel. Ditto for a submarine. They take a different way of thinking about the world around us.

It’s often forgotten that “3D” space is just a way to model and measure space. Space itself has no dimensions. What does up or right mean in outer space? It’s purely relative to the observer. Buckminster Fuller used a 4D model of space based on the tetrahedron (vs the cube of 3D) which leads to somewhat cleaner mathematics. He called this Synergetics, Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking.

On the question of forces, physics is describing the effect, not the function. There is fundamentally 2 movements: expansion and contraction, looking out and looking in. Consciousness collapses to a point to experience a perspective or point of view. We call this our soul or jiva. Through experiencing, we expand back into our infinite nature. In the world around us, this expresses as movement (change, flow) through a field.

This movement is less a force and more a wave. We can also describe it as a geometry or relationship. This tells us the forces operate on the intellect and mental koshas but are driven by deeper flows in consciousness.

Similarly, subatomic particles are vibrations and a probability. Research has found that our attention on the experiment is what collapses the probability into an apparent specificity or “particle”. Our attention directs the detail of what manifests from the field of probabilities that play in collective consciousness. What do we amplify?

Note that subatomic “particles” are not forms, but fluctuations in the field of consciousness that give rise to forms. This is not fluctuations in consciousness itself, but fluctuations in the field created by consciousness. As such, consciousness itself isn’t the Unified Field of physics, but gives rise to it.

Particles express qualities of consciousness but don’t follow the rules of form. They also don’t have their own space because they’re not manifesting into a form. Rather, they vibrate space itself. Basic “forces” thus operate differently at the quantum mechanical scale. They’re not different forces (strong & weak) but different behaviours of the same two movements.

Those fine vibrations are the initiation of action and qualities for what follows.

The three gunas guide the tendencies to expand and contract. Sattva supports smooth flow and expansion. Tamas behaves like inertia, supporting contraction and resisting expansion & change. Rajas guna is the movement and transformation between these two.

Gravity attracts together. It is a movement to contract and to hold form. The more inertia a form has, the greater its mass, and the stronger its influence on other forms. This is gravity. Even Einstein said gravity and inertia are identical.

We see gravity and mass are an effect of tamas (inertia) guna. Antigravity or yogic flying are thus about the degree of sattva to counteract tamas or heaviness and resistance. Such things are not possible if we work only on the surface.

Electromagnetism (including light) is that tendency to expand, to radiate, and to flow. It behaves like the radiating waves when you toss a pebble into a pond.

But note that the medium or field itself doesn’t expand or contract. Radiation flows through it in waves and inertia mutes this flow like a barrier.

The subject-object polarity in consciousness manifests as energetic polarity and as direction in flow.

Direction is key as the sequence of events depends on direction. Given the flow of attention is different for different observers, we may not all experience the same sequence of events. Overall, we’ll experience the same net result in the collective though. We can travel by many paths to arrive at the same place.

Free will and determinism are perspectives of becoming.

Broadly, the current time has a pattern of flow and our interaction with that determines what happens next. The cycles of time prescribe what laws of nature are more dominant in a given period. That can affect what kinds of experiences are more likely to arise. Then how we’re all responding fine tunes what unfolds. Life adjusts to optimize the experiences that are arising to get the required result.

Everything arises to be experienced and thus requires an experiencer. There are no separate observers, just distinct points of observation in collective consciousness. We’re in this together.

When nature has a need for certain types of experience and someone resists stepping up to the plate, someone else will be called instead. Whatever role is required on the stage of life, there is someone there to play it, with many understudies.

Similarly, awakening and further shifts are called by the need of the time. They don’t happen when we want, but when it’s needed. It would be very difficult if too many people woke up at once because of the purification this would create for everyone. By rolling it out over time, rapid growth can happen and a golden age can unfold more smoothly.

Being prepared allows us to take advantage of opportunities so an opening can become a sustained shift. This is the value of spiritual practice. It also increases sattva.

While this may seem a musing about abstractions, we’re exploring the rules of the game of life. When you have a sense of the rules, it’s much easier to glide through life.

From consciousness, all things are born. Through consciousness, all things are experienced. Into consciousness, all things resolve. Consciousness is all there is. (From the perspective of consciousness.)

I’m not suggesting adopting a bunch of concepts. Rather, these words are to point us to perspectives of our own experience. This way, we optimize how we respond to life: flowing and allowing, not controlling.

The laws of life are far simpler than the mind often makes them out to be.
Davidya

Last Updated on May 9, 2022 by Davidya