Criswell Predicts

“We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future.”

‘Plan 9 From Outer Space’ remains perpetually on my list of movie favorites if for no other reason than the majestic scale of its unaffected weirdness. The poetic virtues of Criswell’s opening monologue notwithstanding, I’m obliged to take issue with his premise: none of us are going to spend the rest of our lives in the future because the future never gets here.

This is not to say that time doesn’t affect us; we move forward in time like fish swimming upstream. The current of time is an energy of Brahman – the source of all being – and as such is a divine and bewildering energy. But its influence is only felt in a state of separation from Brahman, when our cognitive faculty for perceiving transcendence is switched off. Living in the moment, being as fully aware of the present as we possibly can be, is an exercise that helps to turn that faculty back on.

But awareness itself is not enough; there has to be a quality to the consciousness we bring to each flowing moment of “now”. To really open the door to timelessness we need to endow our consciousness with the quality of love. And the means by which we can imbue our experience with true and selfless love, with love on a spiritual level, is by seeing the source of all being in everything at every moment.

Such vision is not self-generated; it’s a gift. And the only qualification for receiving this gift is the desire to receive it. Simply by looking for the Divine with a mood of devotion, the capacity for spiritual vision is given.  “But you cannot see Me with your present eyes. Therefore I give you divine eyes. Behold My mystic opulence!”  (Bhagavad-gita 11.8)

We only live in the future, in a manner of speaking, when our minds dwell on what the future might be, on how we want it to be, or on how we’re afraid it might turn out. But when we live fully in the present we find that we actually have time for everything. In fact, the more we slow down, staying fully present in each moment before racing into the future on the surfboard of the mind, the more time expands until it’s influence eventually stops being felt. We have a choice of either working hard to swim upstream against the current of time or we can step out of the river and, sitting on its bank, watch the river of time flow by without being affected by its force.

And once we’re free from the influence of the currents of time, we have as much time as we need.