"...other things talking in unkown tongues,
And notes of busy life in distant worlds
Beat like a far wave on my anxious ear."
(Tennyson)
I once heard a philosopher speaking about eternity, they defined it as 'an infinite extent of time, in which every event is future at one time, present at another, past at another.'
I found this an interesting definition, which caused me to think about how infinity looked. Does infinity have no beginning and no end? What is time that has no beginning and no end? And can time be defined without eternity or eternity without time? All good questions I thought to myself, (or maybe I need to get out more). I mean, could it be that eternity time is going on forever but in two different directions? The remarkable Meister Eckhart thankfully brought some order to my chaos. He suggests that the Biblical God gave His name to Moses as 'I am' and so concludes that this is indeed a most profound statement - further suggesting that it is the same as Christ saying, 'I am', that is, he is in eternity itself while Abraham is in time - therefore, he 'was' not 'is'. Those who live in the light of eternity always are and are never subjected to the becoming of 'was' and 'will be' (I know, it hurts my head too).
Eckhart concludes that 'eternity is the absolute present, and the absolute present is living a sono-mama life, where life asserts itself in all its fullness.
As i say, I probably need to get out more, but my thinking comes from thinking about the soul and where it resides and journeys to. Maybe our soul is the invisible geography that invites us to new frontiers? Mystic friend John O'Donohue speaks of the idea of expulsion being at the heart of birth (Eden). He begs the question, maybe the reason Adam and Eve left Eden was not so much that they were expelled but that they were banging on the door/gates to see what else was out there. That maybe the screams of a new born baby are the cries that long to be led back to shelter because they think they are about to die - the scream is 'let me back to shelter'?
And so maybe that's how we view death and eternity - because we only see it from one side
I don't know, not even sure what i'm trying to say. All i know is that this rambling is a search for, and longing for the real presence of the divine, that pure presence where we get clarification of our own blurredness so we can maybe enter into that presence of God. It seems to me both death and birth are closer companions than we realise.
As i've said before, too many of us i think neglect our minds and so never awaken our hearts....
