What is the truth about time?

Devotee: Master, what is the truth about time?

Marcos Gualberto: Time is something present in the world of the mind. The mind always lives within time: either it is in the past, in the future or believes to be in the present. This time is a fictional distance created by the imagination that something happened in the morning or something will happen after lunch. In order to approach this “something that happened in the morning” or this “something that will possibly happen after lunch,” you need an element: imagination. Without imagination, without thought; without thought, without time. Without imagination, there is no image, there is no object, there is no thought, and therefore there is no time.

So, what is time? Time is this fictional movement that imagination sustains as reality through the thought. Here, we are only dealing with a phenomenon called “thought.” Actually, there is not this psychological time! Psychologically speaking, there is no time! The only time we have is chronological, time for practical purposes in this world of dream we call “human life.” This time is also determined by the distance between objects.

When you look at the skyline in the morning, at some point the Sun appears. The impression one gets is that the Sun will start to rise and then it will set. From sunrise to sunset, everything is happening. Everything is happening between distances in space, in the movement among objects. This is the time we know: the time of the clock, the chronological time. But there is also this fictional time sustained and maintained by the thought. This is what imagination does! This psychological time is the time of the “person.” You, in your Natural State, give no importance to imagination.

Devotee: Does imagination still appear in the Natural State?

Marcos Gualberto: The vitality of the image thought creates, needs this movement. This is called “to imagine.” This completely loses the purpose when you are in your Natural State. Only the Now is enough! Just the Now is Real! This is always like this! So, this movement of past and future, as well as the ideas about the present, is typical of this vitality that imagination gives to unobserved thought. Every thought is just an object.

Devotee: What is the basic difference between imagination and thought?

Marcos Gualberto: Imagination is the vitality of the thought. Thought is just an object.

Devotee: Can we say time and space are in imagination and not in the thought?

Marcos Gualberto: Yes. Thought is just a phenomenon of the presentation of the object. Imagination is the movement of this object in a fictional space. Here is the vitality of imagination.

Your question was, “Is there imagination in the Natural State?” In the Natural State, what matters is what is practical, what has reality, and this is out of the subjective movement of imagination, of thought. Although thought, as something practical, can appear as an object, it is no longer an element to sustain an identity present in that experience, which is what imagination does.

The egoic mind lives in constant movement. Notice your inclination during each hour of the day: either you are remembering something or anticipating something (psychologically speaking). This is the unnatural state of being. It is the mental state of existing. This is the movement of this false identity. It lives and perpetuates itself in time. So, it is always in the past, which is memory, or in the future, which is anticipation, which is desire. It always expects something, and therefore it is always anticipating what is good by desiring and what is bad by fearing. It lives on a subjective world. The “person” is nothing but a belief you have about yourself. And who is this one who has this belief about oneself? We are only talking about thought! There is not any element having anything about itself, for there is not an element imagining!

When we talk about imagination, we are not talking about a special energy that comes from an entity. We are not saying there is an entity that consciously or unconsciously imagines. We are talking about the own natural movement of the unobserved thought. If thought can be observed, it is a sign it is not You, then its movement can be stopped. In other words, imagination can be broken; and when this happens, there is no room for this movement of “me,” because this false identity only lives in imagination.

Therefore, thought is not the problem! It is an “enemy” only when it is at the service of imagination. But, if there is no imagination, thought is just thought. Thus, it loses importance, and so it is natural that it disappears.

Life happens now! There is no Life in the past or in the future. Everything is happening now! Breakfast is happening now; dinner too. You ask: “And why do not I see it?” Who can see it? Who can see breakfast or dinner? Who can see morning or night? “Me!” Imagination! And together with imagination, breakfast, dinner, morning, or night. However, Life is not in this imaginary movement! Life is now, so everything is now!

When were you born? “In 1900 and something...” What are you talking about? You are using the same thread of imagination you use to talk about that breakfast, to talk about dinner at night. But, where is all this?

The nature of the egoic mind is movement. When we talk about egoic mind, we are talking about the movement of thought that sustains the sense of time and space and, therefore, of separation. The egoic mind naturally has this movement of psychological continuity or, in other words, the element “imagination.” In order to be able to stay in this movement, it gives itself a name, which is the main and primordial object of this process. It calls itself “me” and tells that it was born in 1900 and something. It tells it had breakfast. It tells it is going to have dinner in the evening. It tells it is going to die… This is within this imaginary process we call “egoic mind,” which is nothing but a simple movement of thought that here we call “imagination.”

So, what is time? An idea, a concept, a belief, a thought. Does imagination happen in the Natural State? No! Natural State is the Freedom of Being what, in fact, You are, and this can only be Now. Therefore, imagination is dispensable. But, for that “me,” which imagines itself as the primordial object in this process of imagination and needs to create time and space, imagination is everything! Without it, the “I” is not there.

Thus, we come to a point: as long as the sense of “me” – which is nothing but this idea of being “someone” – is present, illusion of time will be present. We are talking about the psychological time, in which “you” are a supposed entity that moves itself in an imaginary world sustaining suffering. Suffering presupposes to come into conflict with what is, with what is present here and now.

So, this element needs imagination to sustain conflict, which is suffering. Once this psychological imaginary movement ends, suffering also ends. As long as this element “me” is present, this movement of going away from this moment (imaginary, psychologically) will be present, and therefore suffering will continue to be present.

*Face-to-face meeting transcription, originally held on a Carnival Retreat, on Itamaracá Island/PE, Brazil, on February 25th, 2020. First published in Portuguese on March 2nd, 2020. For more information about how to participate:click here.