The Great Tao flows everywhere,
   (Like a flood) it may go left or right.
The myriad things derive their life from it,
   And it does not deny them.
When its work is accomplished,
   It does not take possession.
It clothes and feeds the myriad things,
   Yet does not claim them as its own.
Often (regarded) without mind or passion,
   It may be considered small.
Being the home of all things, yet claiming not,
   It may be considered great.
Because to the end it does not claim greatness,
   Its greatness is achieved.  (Tao Te Ching, Chapter 34, Lin Yu Tang trans.)

Well, It’s been a while. The holidays and traveling have taken their toll.

Along the way, I have been thinking about a couple of topics. The first one is time and the Tao. How does that work? The second one is why the manifestation? As I’ve said before, Lao Tzu taught that the manifestation and the secret of all life were both part of the Tao. But why does the manifestation exist? That is the topic for the next post.

Time is an interesting thing. Back in Lao Tzu’s day, time was not important. Night and day and the seasons were all that those people were concerned about.

Seasons were pivotal to them for planting, harvesting, and other seasonal activities. That was all they needed.

Over the centuries, time has become more focused, and people have begun to depend on it for many things. But these changes happened gradually.

Believe it or not, the most critical change in the use of time in the Middle Ages concerned the Catholic Church and times for prayer-not only during the day but also during the year.

One of the reasons the Copernican theory of the universe was accepted was not that they thought it was correct but that it predicted important times for church rituals better than anything they had.

Clocks were invented to measure and “tell” time. Water clocks and candles that melted by the hour were often used as timepieces.

Mechanical clocks were developed that evolved into the modern timepieces of today.

Railroads were another reason time became standardized. Traveling across the country involved passing through time zones. Before the railroads, local communities often were at different times. The railroads eventually established standard times that applied everywhere.

That way, schedules meant something from place to place.

I have given you a little history of time. Now, I want to discuss how time as we use it fits into the Tao. Also, should we be concerned about time? Is It important for our spiritual journey? I will answer these questions here.

As I have said before, the Tao has two natures. One is the Secret of all life, which is experienced through meditation. The second is the manifestation, experienced through ”passion,” as Lao Tzu says.

Because the manifestation is where we live and encompasses the entire universe, it is all part of the Tao.

Therefore, everything within that manifestation is the Tao. That includes our concept of time.

Time is simply a convention based on observable events. The rotation of the Earth produces day and night. One revolution around the Sun is a year, and so forth.

Our system of 24 60-minute hours and 60-second minutes dates back to the Ancient Sumerians, who developed it over 5,000 years ago.

Today, time is an integral part of our life experience. We think of it as fixed, but Einstein taught that it is relative. Living here on Earth, we can’t notice this relativity. However, on a cosmic level, it becomes important.

You may have heard that time changes the faster you go. As you approach the speed of light, time slows down. Several movies have been about time travel. One of my favorites is Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, in which several people were abducted decades before the movie’s time, only to be returned without aging.

Even though we learn new things every day, we don’t know much about time and the universe.

That said, the question here is, what has time to do with Tao?

From the perspective of the secret of all life, time is meaningless. Our true selves are immortal, and time has no meaning to an immortal being. So, it is irrelevant to our true selves.

However, as I mentioned before, it is important in manifestation. It governs our lives. We have to deal with time every day, every season, and every year.

As we age, time seems to speed up. At my age, the months and years seem to fly by. Yet, time is a constant in the framework we call Newtonian Physics, which is the world we dwell in.

Time is one of the features that brings us to this dimension- the physical plane. In the higher planes of existence, there is no time. Things happen instantly. We can cross the universe in the blink of an eye.

Things happen slower here, sometimes a lot slower. That allows us to experience things more deeply. It also makes us plan and think about what we are doing, what we will do tomorrow, next month, and even years into the future.

Yes, the future and the past do not exist. But we can plan for a future that doesn’t exist. Yes, plans can change, but, as Yogi Berra once said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re liable to end up someplace else.”

The idea of living our lives like free spirits—beholden only to the way the wind blows—is romantic but unfeasible. It doesn’t work unless you are wealthy, not attached to anyone, and have no responsibilities.

Life in the second quarter of the 21st century is complex. It requires work to earn money to live. Relationships need nurturing and bear responsibilities.

Our true selves put us here for a reason. That reason involves living in the manifestation, using it, and building upon it. For some, it means wrecking a part of it.

Regardless of what we do here, we exist in time. It is an integral part of the manifestation; we must live with it.

As life plays out for each of us, we gain the experience that brought us here.

Learn the lessons and enjoy the ride as best you can.

Namaste,

Michael Tavella, author of

“Break Through To Your True Self”

Yourtrueself.blog