You’ve experienced Space and Time. Not fascinating enough to blow your socks off.
What’s fascinating is that there is a trinity to everything. Completeness always lies in threes.
So you say, Length, Breath, and Height. And I say yes… perfect… that’s only the Space dimension.
Then you say Past, Present, and Future. And I agree… you have the components of the Time dimension.
So you ask, “Do we have three dimensions or four?” And I counter, “Or six or nine?” Now it’s getting fascinating.
Why must we think in threes?
We humans exist as a trinity of the body, mind, and spirit.
Space, being a physical construct, is housed in and around the Body.
Time, being a mental construct, exists in the Mind (note how 2 minutes aren’t the same for men and women 😉).
And what is the Spirit equivalence? Is there one? Why isn’t anyone talking about it? This article serves to explore exactly this!
Where do we find the Spiritual construct?
First things first: Spiritual is NOT religious. Spiritual is derived from our third dimension, Spirit, which is the way we are – energetically/emotionally.
Feeling delighted = High spirits; Feeling depressed = Low spirits. So the concepts of Spirit and the state-of-our-energy are interchangeable and synonymous.
Now, to appreciate this in a practical sense, here is a conversation about their interplay – and mindfulness – picked up from the book, The Emptiness of Success.
“When we meditate, what do we do?” Shekhar asked.
“We ‘Be in Awareness‘ as Guru Pranachandra says,” Andrea replied.
“In awareness of what? Not necessarily our thoughts. We focus on our breath, our activities, even a candle or anything else single-pointedly, right?”
“Right!”
So far so good.
“Now as Guruji says, when we stay in the present, we keep in oneness with thought. This means, when we meditate, we are in the NOW!” Shekhar continued with emphasis on the last word, “This means we are being in awareness of the moment and mindfully relating it with what we know from earlier experience.”
“Exactly!” Andrea interjected and continued, “Like when we eat mindfully, we are acutely aware of the tastes. That’s how jungle-dwellers differentiate a poison from a nonpoisonous substance without chemical tests.”
Relieved to have had a moment to think, Shekhar continued, “Perfect…so what helps us to be mindful is the time gap between a thought arising and our acting on it, isn’t it? That is the gap in which we can change our response because we remember the true nature of the stimulus. But we can do this only when we are not emotionally trapped by the thought…hence we are detached.”
“Aha!” Andrea exclaimed excitedly and recalled, “Top footballers often say that they see the ball move slowly as it approaches them. This slo-mo perception allows them to swing their leg and send it towards the goal. What they’re effectively experiencing is mindful detachment, as they meditate on the ball and get fully aware of it in that fraction of a second!”
Shekhar’s excitement grew with the progression of the conversation.
“Bingo! This time can’t be measured in microseconds. It has to be another dimension of measurement, which expands to allow the player to meditate mindfully. Despite all the hustle of movement, he is still able to arrive at the ideal location to place his foot!”
Andrea’s excitement was palpable as she deduced further, “This is mind-blowing! What I’ve come to realize is that in mindful detachment, our focus isn’t on individual thoughts but on the gaps between them. These gaps of silence are the heroes because they slow the flood of thoughts and change the aspect of time Itself! It’s that profound stillness amidst the hustle you pointed to.”
Shekhar too was piecing the ideas together and wondered aloud, “Seems so, and since emotions are only resident in thoughts…in the space between thoughts, there is detachment!”
With a pause, he added, “Since emotions are energies in motion, aren’t we changing the energy of the moment as we observe it?”
Space. Time. Energy?
Andrea reflected on the question and contemplated in a soft voice, “Intriguing…when we observe the space between thoughts we expand the time for response because we change the energy, right? Isn’t that what we’ve figured?”
Out of the blue, she posed a disjointed question, “Do you practice Qigong?”
“No. What is that?”
“Qigong literally means energy work. It is the mother of all forms of energy medicine, therapies, healing and all the new-fangled ideas modern masters are promoting about working with energy. I bring it up because Qigong practices help us relate on all three planes: body, mind, and energy.”
Thrilled to have Shekhar’s rapt attention, Andrea continued, “Qi is Mandarin for life force energy while Gong means to work with it. Through Qi-Gong or energy-work, there is a development of internal alignment—harmonizing the mind, body, and spirit as a habit. I bring this up as the body is connected to space and the mind is tied to time as a mental construct. I am wondering about the energy—or spirit—equivalent.”
Fascinated by this perspective of energy, Shekhar requested her to continue.
“So let’s see,” she continued, “in the Chinese pictorial script, the word Qi itself was arrived at as a combination of two words that they used for ‘Air’ and ‘Rice’. Even in those times 4000 years ago, they knew that air and rice were the only two sources of our day-to-day energy. Modern science has a formula for rice, which is glucose, and when glucose reacts with oxygen in space and time it produces carbon dioxide, water, and heat. This heat is Qi.”
Shekhar was astounded. “Are you saying that the ancient Chinese knew organic chemistry?” he asked, genuinely surprised.
“No,” Andrea clarified and explained, “they had a deep understanding of how to connect internally with their energy centers and map them. Doing so provided profound insights into the external world. When I practice Qigong, I can directly sense this heat, this Qi.”
Andrea paused for a moment and then continued, “However, I’m still trying to comprehend what they utilized this energy for, how they harnessed it to extend the space-time continuum.”
“Telekinesis? Time travel?” Shekhar offered, his voice betraying childish excitement.
“Perhaps there’s a phenomenon where space and time are compressed or juxtaposed, purely through the principles of quantum mechanics inherent in mindful meditation. Or might the very fabric of the space-time continuum be perceived as a trinity? Could ‘Possibility’ be the third aspect?” Shekhar quizzed himself aloud.
Andrea’s face lit up with this idea.
“Possibility! Time travel Telekinesis! Teleportation! The observer makes the observed vanish. The Zone. X-Files. Extra Sensory Perception. All these concepts are about possibility, aren’t they?” she asked excitedly.
“Remember,” Shekhar said with a glint in his eyes, as though he had mentally pieced it together already, “Guruji had written that the body-mind-spirit trinity is similar to ice-water-steam? Steam has the power to melt ice and boil water…and similarly, energy can change our bodies and our minds.”
Andrea mirrored his shiny eyes and exclaimed, “Yes! The catch is that the mind might not allow it…Water can—quite literally—water down the power of steam.”
“And in this case, analogously,” Shekhar reasoned and remarked, “Time can alter Possibilities. When we talk about opportunity knocking once and that time and tide wait for no one, we are alluding to this. As you said, with mindfulness, when time expanded for the footballer, the possibilities of where he would place his foot in space changed!”
“Taking abstraction to the next level, what was there before space and time? Only possibility, no?” Andrea whispered and continued her trail of thoughts, “Steam became water and water became ice. Likewise, energy manifested as frequencies like OM, which, through our mental perception, filled physicality.”
As their conversation rose to this level, Shekhar and Andrea sensed the need for a contemplative silence. They needed to ponder the profound implications of the Space-Time-Possibility trinity.
Shekhar searched his brain for the rudimentary Sanskrit he had once learned in school. Sambhavana is Possibility. Sam is oneness. Bhavana is emotion. Oneness with emotion. One energy in motion. One energy moved to create all there is. We had always known about this!
The third, fascinating dimension, is Possibility
So here we are, with a hypothesis: Space-Time-Possibility. Let’s explore deeper… does Possibility also relate in three sub-dimensions, the way Space and Time do, as we agreed at the start of this article? Evidently yes!
1. Velocity: Motion gives rise to possibilities. Circular motion would cancel them out. Undirected motion will disperse them. However directed motion – with speed and direction = Velocity – opens possibilities along the path of the object in motion. Conversely, an object that stays at zero point (not in motion) exhibits infinite latent possibilities, but by virtue of being infinite they cannot be manifested and therefore only the smallest Velocity can open possibility.
2. Coincidence: Much like fission and fusion in the quantum field, when objects split or come together, energy is manifested. This manifestation changes outcomes of all phenomenon in the ambience, not just the objects themselves. Coincidence (at the same time in the same space) has the same effect. The possibilities that emerge consequently could not have been imagined without the particles splitting or combining. Coincidence changes energy.
3. Surrender: When one entity drops its presence in favor of another, we consider using the word Surrender. In the context of individual humans, this happens largely when we give in to circumstances. When we suppress the ego-mind voluntarily and allow input from another space or time. By doing so we create options…we clear bottlenecks…we find solutions. In other words, Surrender opens possibilities as it invites energies from external sources.
Now, as you will see for yourself, we can combine these three.
A flash of inspiration arises from a quick (high Velocity) move to Surrender.
Synchronicities are unplanned and unexpected Coincidences arising in motion (some Velocity).
A brainstorm is nothing but collective Surrender in a Coincident setting – to deliberately allow new possibilities to emerge.
“Doctors are shocked by how the cancer miraculously disappeared” = Surrender + Coincidence.
“I don’t know how I did that” (say I won the race) = Surrender + Motion.
What is even more fascinating to note is that these three Possibility sub-dimensions also come together the way they do in Space and Time.
In Space, we represent them in a spatial, graphical form. If we bring ourselves to zero in length, breadth, and height, we become non-entities.
In Time, we observe past, present, and future as a continuum (though that’s easily faulted since Time is a construct of a non-continuous mind).
In Possibility, like Space, we can bring Velocity to zero and by doing so, we are left with unlimited possibility. We cannot manifest anything despite this…unless we move.
When we bring Coincidence to zero, we do it by being extremely deliberate about our every move (our ego drives this)…and eventually possibilities also come to zero.
And when we slide Surrender down to zero, by implication we run our lives with a high dependence on self (ego), which requires high effort for mediocre outcomes.
That said and understood, let’s move to the most fascinating part…
What makes the NOW a portal?
NOW – this milli-moment of a milli-nano-moment – is generally understood as an aspect of time. It is the moment in which the footballer (ref Andrea’s example above) places his foot between the ball and the goal. He has no past, no future. It is a now-or-never moment…in which time has collapsed. In this very split-second he has determined all the angularities in the three spatial sub-dimensions. He has also (spiritually/energetically) acknowledged the coincidence of his presence to change the possibilities of the game; surrendered to the outcome; and generated a velocity directed toward the goal.
All nine sub-dimensions have converged at one point.
This-happens-only-in-the-Now. This is the state Mindfulness brings us into.
Now, there are five broad possibilities for the ball in the next few moments:
- It makes it to the goal: an intent-positive outcome
- It is intercepted before the goal: an intent-negative outcome
- It misses the goal: an intent-negative outcome of no further consequence
- It lands with another team player who moves it to the goal: an intent-positive outcome
- It bursts: an intent-neutral outcome. An infinite number of other such ‘freak’ outcomes are possible
Depending on the collective mindfulness of both teams, the outcomes can align with their intents. In an objective sense, there is nothing ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ about anything. Outcomes are always only intent-based, hence the qualifier ‘intent-positive/negative’ is mentioned.
Intent drives energy. Energy drives possibility. Possibility drives outcomes.
And the dimension of Possibility is accessible through mindfulness of the Now.
Next Steps
Mindfulness techniques are getting increasingly popular for wellbeing, stress reduction, and finding peace. With the understanding of the Possibility dimension, we can appreciate that these techniques facilitate the manifestations of new possibilities for the body, mind, and spirit respectively. When possibilities change, perspectives change. New perspectives offer different realities. Thus realities change.
Our most effective control mechanism for altering outcomes in any situation gets activated with three triggers: [1] Pause (find the gap/zero-point in Space) [2] Center (find the present moment in Time) [3] Drop ego (allow Coincidence and Surrender to tend to infinity and take Velocity to zero).
The above approach (obviously) requires us to operate from a higher level of consciousness. Paradoxically, the outcomes that our ego desires can be achieved when we annul the ego-mind. Research on inducing possibilities-on-demand to improve individual performance, team productivity, and thus organizational profitability – organically and sustainably – are underway by The RENEWALism Movement. You are invited to express an interest to collaborate.