Clock Time and Psychological Time
This is an excerpt from Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now regarding time:
There are two kinds of time Eckhart Tolle discusses. They are:
1. Clock time - Time that deals with practical aspects of life. Clock time is constructive.
2. Psychological time - Identification with the past and continuous compulsive projection into the future. Psychological time is destructive.
Clock time is not just making an appointment or planning a trip. It includes learning from the past so that we don't repeat the same mistakes over and over. Setting goals and working toward them. Predicting the future by means of patterns and laws, physical, mathematical, and so on, learned from past and taking appropriate action on the basis of our predictions.
But even here, within the sphere of practical living, where we cannot do without reference to past and future, the present moment remains the essential factor: Any lesson from the past becomes relevant and is applied Now. Any planning as well as working toward achieving a particular goal is done Now.
The enlightened person's main focus of attention is always the Now, but they are still peripherally aware of time. In other words, they continue to use clock time but are free of psychological time.
Be alert as you practice this so that you do not unwittingly transform clock time into psychological time. For example, if you made a mistake in the past and learn from it now, you are using clock time. On the other hand, if you dwell on it mentally, and self-criticism, remorse, or guilt come up, then you are making the mistake into "me" and "mine" - you make it part of your sense of self, and it has become psychological time, which is always linked to a false sense of identity.
There are two kinds of time Eckhart Tolle discusses. They are:
1. Clock time - Time that deals with practical aspects of life. Clock time is constructive.
2. Psychological time - Identification with the past and continuous compulsive projection into the future. Psychological time is destructive.
Clock time is not just making an appointment or planning a trip. It includes learning from the past so that we don't repeat the same mistakes over and over. Setting goals and working toward them. Predicting the future by means of patterns and laws, physical, mathematical, and so on, learned from past and taking appropriate action on the basis of our predictions.
But even here, within the sphere of practical living, where we cannot do without reference to past and future, the present moment remains the essential factor: Any lesson from the past becomes relevant and is applied Now. Any planning as well as working toward achieving a particular goal is done Now.
The enlightened person's main focus of attention is always the Now, but they are still peripherally aware of time. In other words, they continue to use clock time but are free of psychological time.
Be alert as you practice this so that you do not unwittingly transform clock time into psychological time. For example, if you made a mistake in the past and learn from it now, you are using clock time. On the other hand, if you dwell on it mentally, and self-criticism, remorse, or guilt come up, then you are making the mistake into "me" and "mine" - you make it part of your sense of self, and it has become psychological time, which is always linked to a false sense of identity.
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