Updated May 16, 2023

What you think you see now is composed of many images, which, as rays of light, have travelled each their distance to you, where the brain compiles them into one image, edited as it sees fit. For example, in this picture, the sun is about eight minutes older than the palm trees in the front of the image because it takes the light eight minutes to travel from the sun to the Earth. And everything between the palm trees and the sun is between a split second and eight minutes old. But the completed image is a bit older because it takes time for the brain to compile all the images into one. In other words, the brain deceives you into believing your present experience happens now, while it happened in the past and maybe not at all, because to save time, the brain may have left out details or replaced everything with a similar image from its store. Read about the brain’s ways in Duality Hack #6 Happiness is to be in touch with the brain. Photo © Alexius Jorgensen.

NOW IS CONSTRUCTED BY PAST
If you look at the sun now, you see how it looked eight minutes ago because that is the time it takes for the light to travel from the sun to you. Consequently, what you think you see now is the past.

Since the distance to the stars is enormous, it takes so long for their images to reach you that they may not be there anymore when you experience seeing them now. However, something close to you also has travelled in time. That is why everything you believe in seeing now is a collection of past images selectively put together by the brain as one image. Sometimes it uses an old image that looks similar to speed up things. In short, now is an illusion.

THERE IS NO PAST
Imagine the sun has consciousness or special equipment to see what happens on Earth. In that case, it will know how you looked eight minutes ago. Then imagine observing you from a star so distant from the Earth that what it sees now is your birth.

Science has recently found a point so far away in the universe, that they can almost watch its beginning as if it happens now.

And go on to imagine points further away in the universe from where the birth of your mother and grandmother is experienced by the universe now – also the birth of itself.

In the eyes of the universe, there is no past or future but one perpetual present. Photo © Alexius Jorgensen.

THERE IS NO FUTURE
When your mother’s birth is seen from a specific point in the universe, it appears as if there is a future for her, but from another location in the universe, her death is seen at the same moment as her birth.

THERE IS NO TIME
From the limited perspective of the Earth, there seems to be a past, future, and now in between. But, seen from the universe’s perspective, there is no time. Everything co-occurs.

There is no before and after – and consequently no reincarnation. It is an idea made up to make the experience of being someone in a world of linear time seems as if it is going to last.

A TV can illustrate this. For example, it may have one channel showing a sci-fi movie, another one a film from the past and yet another one a documentary. But due to limitations, you only watch one at a time, although they all play simultaneously.

Linear time is a simulated reality layered on top of one perpetual present.

In linear time, it seems like an explosion from a black hole expanded into a world defined by time and space. In reality, though, it contracted the exact moment it expanded. Thus nothing is left but memories of the expansion. However, when they are replayed in linear time, it appears as if there still is a world defined by time and space. Read more about that here. Photo © Alexius Jorgensen.

THERE IS NO UNIVERSE
According to science, all the elements coming out of the big bang quickly organised themselves into a super pattern that would have stagnated if perfected. However, due to a few gaps, it expanded into what became the universe.

But everything that expands is bound to contract. Actually, it has already happened because everything co-occurs. Hence the universe begins and ends at the same moment.

NOTHING TO HOPE FOR
The hope for a better future upholds the belief in a universe of linear time. Especially because hope always is accompanied by fear. First, for not getting what you hope for, and if you get it, you fear losing it. However, if you wish for nothing, there is not something to lose, thus nothing to fear, wherefore you are free.

Reality is that which is One and since it is formless, thus endless, a world defined by time and space is a hallucination.

THERE IS NO FREEDOM
But since reality is oneness, and it takes more than one to be free, there is no freedom. However, while you appear to be in a world where there seems to be more than one, the relief you get from hoping for nothing sets you free from belief in being there.

Instead, it is something you pretend. And where you pretend to be, you are not. So even though you appear to be in a world where there seems to be more than one, you are not there, nor anywhere else, as that requires more than one, and there is no more that which is One. That said, although everything happens simultaneously, this seems to take a while when you appear as someone in a world where there seems to be more than one.

NOTE: This article is part of Duality Hack #1 Every experience is make-believe.