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Time Traveling
April 15, 2021
“Time travel offends our sense of cause and effect. But maybe the universe doesn't insist on cause and effect.”
Edward M. Lerner, science fiction novelist
I have a fascination with the concept of time. I enjoy stories of time travel; they spark my curiosity. What if...? What would it be like...? And I confess to having a particular, nearly obsessive, desire to alter time: throughout my life, I have wanted to stop activities midstream and begin again. A do-over. A re-start.
Chronos and kairos
During seminary, I learned that the ancient Greeks had two words for time: chronos and kairos. Chronos refers to sequential time, time that is measured, the ordinary time to which we refer when we ask what time it is. Kairos refers to an opportune time, a perfect moment, the right time to take a decisive action - such as letting loose an arrow from a bow. The archer focuses all awarenesss in that moment - highly attentive, completely receptive, ready for an inner signal of inspiration. In that moment, time seems to stand still or to expand - it has a dynamic quality radically different from its usual tempo.
Does time change in that moment? Can time stand still or expand? I don't know. What matters to me is I like being in that kairos moment. A moment of inspiration, of pure creativity, and sometimes a moment of transcendence - extending beyond the limits of ordinary experience. Time may or may not have changed, but I have changed.
Those moments are a gift of grace, and I would love to have more of them in my life. It's one of many reasons I am passionate about meditation practice. I have found that the more I meditate, the more those moments occur - both in and out of meditation.
Undoing the past in the present
I have found past-life regressions to be similarly capable of altering one's experience of ordinary time. Not only can a person in an altered state of consciousness experience events from a past life while simultaneously being aware of their present life, they can transform the present-day effects from that past life. In other words, they can undo the past in the present, and thus release the future. Maybe the universe doesn't always insist on cause and effect....
- What if circumstances in your present life could be related to an experience in a past life?
- What if you could gain healing and enrich your present life with a better understanding of past-life events?
- What if you could achieve this understanding through regression therapy, thereby empowering yourself now, in this lifetime?
Many Lives, Many Masters: The true story of a prominent psychiatrist, his young patient, and the past-life therapy that changed both their lives....
This book changed my life too. Decades ago, it sat untouched on an end table in my living room, highly recommended by a friend who had loaned it to me. I don't recall what made me pick up the book - maybe it was a feeling of guilt that I hadn't yet read it or the ever-present desire to clear clutter from my home...or most likely it was a nudge from my higher self.
At the time, I was studying meditation in earnest and exploring new-to-me spiritual and cultural traditions like feng shui. Yet by nature I am logical, rational, and therefore highly skeptical of many books I would peruse in the New Age section of my local bookstore. But this book had me hooked from the moment I read the back cover:
"As a traditional psychotherapist, Dr. Brian Weiss was astonished and skeptical when one of his patients began recalling past-life traumas that seemed to hold the key to her recurring nightmares and anxiety attacks. His skepticism was eroded, however, when she began to channel messages from the 'space between lives,' which contained remarkable revelations about Dr. Weiss’ family and his dead son. Using past-life therapy, he was able to cure the patient and embark on a new, more meaningful phase of his own career. A graduate of Columbia University and Yale Medical School, Brian L. Weiss, M.D., is currently Chairman of Psychiatry at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami."
It was the author's credentials that got me to open the front book cover, and the astonishing portrayal of events that kept me turning the first several pages. What stayed with me the longest and spoke to me the loudest, however, were two things. First, the experiences came unbidden to, and were unwelcomed by, Dr. Weiss. Second, they were so compelling that he risked his professional reputation and a successful career to become a leading proponent of this contemporary - yet timeless - healing therapy.
The time machine
At the same time of my introduction to this book, and unbeknownst to me, my mother was studying past-life therapy in depth. Eventually she became certified as a past-life regression therapist, and it was she who facilitated my first past-life regression session. Still somewhat skeptical, I was open-minded enough to try it. And it was an amazing, unbelievable experience for which I will always be grateful - I could deny neither what had occurred nor the truth that resonated within me. And for a while the mundane recliner in her office became my personal time machine.
It wasn't until after my mother's passing that I pursued any serious study of the subject myself.
To be continued....