Let’s accept that time is real. By that, I mean that the present doesn’t just emerge out of nothing and disappear into nothing.
The alternative is pretty radical to contemplate. If the alternative were true, then every instant would be a pure creation of everything out of nothing over and over again.
Any scientist, even one totally committed to the materialistic, deterministic, probabilistic model of explanation, has got to have trouble with the idea that everything is created out of nothing every instant. Occam’s razor doesn’t have to be very sharp at all to get rid of that incredibly complicated assumption.
Time and Space Are Relative
The much simpler alternative is that Einstein was correct when he said time and space are relative. The past is a place that we have already visited, but continues to exist even though we aren’t there any more. The future is a place that already exists even though we haven’t visited it yet.
However, the future is clearly different from the past. Our experience of the future is that there are a number of possibilities that we can choose from. We make our choices in the present. The past is the fixed result of whatever choices we make.
Alternative Universes
According to one of the more popular current cosmologies, there are many alternative universes at the cosmological level of reality and at the quantum level of reality. If we accept that this is true, then it also makes sense for alternative universes to exist at our human species level. The present can be seen as a succession of instants in which we choose among the alternative futures available to us and, thereby, we establish a fixed past that is the path through those alternative universes that we have lived.
All of the alternative universes exist in the future, in the present, and in the past. In our succession of presents, we simply select one alternative future from the alternative futures available to us, actualize it in the present, and then pass it on to our past as the one that we lived, surrounded by all the ones we didn’t live.
The range of alternative futures that we can access is limited by the structure of our consciousness and by our psycho/physical reality. I can’t be paying attention to my breathing with a useful visualization while I’m typing, if I haven’t learned how to do that. Right now, I could be in many different places in Oakland California, doing many different things, but I can’t be in New York without pursuing a specific track of instants that are involved to get there.
Integration of Alternative Futures
We choose among alternative futures in each instant, but these instants combine to make up the larger scale alternative futures that we embrace to create the paths that our lives take. And all instants are not created equal. The choices we make in some instants essentially are choices among paths rather than just a choice on a path. Choosing to get married or take a particular job are, obviously, choices of a different order than choosing what to have for breakfast, even though the same process of choosing among alternative futures exists in both cases.
As we make our choices, the range of choices among alternative futures on a path or among paths evolves, closing some doors and opening others.
The Alternative Future We Want Already Exists
So, what this means is that the alternative future that we want for ourselves and our species already exists in a place along the continuum of time that we haven’t reached yet. From the perspective of Planetary Philosophy, the alternative future of a fully safe, sustainable, resilient Earth inhabited by a healthy, prosperous, peaceful species already exists. In that alternative universe, the Planetary Movement has already won and we have accomplished our One Purpose so that our One People are living well, at peace with each other and at peace with our One Planet.
Our choices help to bring a Planetary Alternative Future into existence. However all the other alternative futures also exist and many people are making choices that tend to manifest ones we don’t want.
Choosing the Alternative Universe We Want
Through Consciousness Practices, we can strengthen our ability to bring about the Planetary Alternative Future we want and need. We can help get to it by Visualizing it. We can even catch true glimpses of it in our Vision Meditations in ways that can offer us guidance. Consciousness Practices can strengthen our ability to acquire the knowledge and take the actions that are needed.
Every time we visualize it and meditate on it and learn more about it and act to exemplify it, we make the path to this Planetary Alternative Future easier to follow and we strengthen our ability to travel that path. The more of us that do this and the more powerful those of us who do this are, the more effective we become. That’s why we need a large coherent Planetary Movement.
If time is real, then so is the future. And if the future is real in its alternative forms, then the best way to make the future we want fully real in our present and our past is to envision it powerfully and exemplify it now effectively. The more of us that do that, the closer we get to the future we want, the stronger we become, and the more powerful the Planetary Movement becomes.
One Planet, One People, One Purpose.
