Mastering Time as a Spiritual Practice
© 2007 Corinne McLaughlin

Do you find that you’re always trying to “beat the clock” to “save time”?  But did you ever ask yourself what you are saving it for?  People say, “Time flies when you’re having fun.”  But when you’re having a good time you don’t really worry about saving time, do you?  And they say that “time heals all wounds” when enough of it has passed.  So time is clearly a subjective, psychological experience. I’ve learned a great deal about myself spiritually by studying my relationship to time as a spiritual practice and using it more consciously.

How can we make time our friend, rather than an enemy we have to beat?  How can we fill it with magic and meaning, rather than with stress?  Can we see time as a clarifier of values, rather than as a taskmaster or an obstacle to overcome?

Many of us have a scarcity consciousness around time—there’s only 24 hours in the day, we say. Is our sense of accomplishment based on how many things we can get done in a given day--or is it based on the joy we experience each day and how much we’ve grown spiritually or helped others in some way?

I’ve found that time management is not about getting more things done or being busy. It’s about prioritizing what’s important—what our heart values.  Many people put off what’s most important to them in order to get all the other stuff out of the way first. Then they never have time for what’s really important. But how many people on their deathbed say, “I wish I had spent more time at the office?”  Most people say they wish they had spent more time with family, friends, or their spiritual practice.

Time management is essentially self-management and self-discipline.  Unconscious, habitual behavior actually consumes a great deal of our time, so becoming more aware of our patterns and how much time they take can make a big difference. 

I’d like to explore our relationship to time from several perspectives:  how to slow down, simplify and focus; how to use time as a mirror for understanding your values and relationships; how consciousness affects our experience of past, present and future; and how to relieve time stress.

Slowing Down, Simplifying and Focusing

Can you overcome the modern addiction to the adrenaline rush of urgency?  I find it really helps to eliminate an obsession with busy-ness as a way to feel important.  Here’s a few things that you might find helpful:

You also might want to enjoy the pleasure of a slow walk, whether in town or out on a country road.  I noticed that it makes me feel like I’m on vacation when I move slowly.  There’s now a “slow food movement” in Europe (instead of “fast food”) encouraging people to take time to savor a good meal, and it’s beginning to catch on in the U.S. 
 

Time as a Mirror for Values and Relationships

How we relate to time can tell us a lot about our values and our relationships with people.  Ask yourself in the last month, when did you say, “I don’t have time for this”?  What type of activity or people were involved?   Then reflect on when in the last month did you say, “I’ll make time for this”?  See what patterns in values or relationships emerge.    

Another exercise is to notice who keeps whom waiting and what it says about the power dynamic in the relationship. In Washington, D.C. where I lived for many years, this was a  practiced art, as people are obsessive about measuring their power and status.  Who are you willing to wait for if they’re late—and how long are you willing to wait?  Do you know some people who are always late?  How many of us are usually five or ten minutes late for everything?  Consistent lateness reflects our unwillingness to surrender our will to social agreements with others. When we honor agreements about time with people, we show respect and build better relationships.

When we’re impatient and want something urgently, could it be a subtle demand that other people fit their priorities in with ours? 

It’s also helpful to notice “rhythmic entrainment”--how our rhythms fall into synchronicity with others. Two out of sync pendulum clocks put side by side will start ticking in rhythm.  Nature likes harmonization, and we as humans also fall into rhythm with each other.  Primitive societies used drums and dancing to get people into rhythm with each other.  When we’re in a busy room, or even a busy city like New York, do we find ourselves moving and talking faster?  And what happens to our sense of time when we’re in a mellow, laid-back environment such as a small town in the countryside or a place like Hawaii?
 

Consciousness and the Experience of Past, Present and Future

Time is actually an illusion produced by a succession of states of consciousness.

Time seems to go faster or slower depending on our state of consciousness.  If we are in a higher state of consciousness, we can become detached from events and see the "big picture" or we can "zoom in" on specific events.  We can see the causes of events, think more clearly and accomplish more in less time, because we synthesize.  The closer in consciousness we are to an event (the more involved), the less we see of it.  The more detached we are from it, the more we see of its wholeness--past, present and future. This is the significance of the "witness or observer" consciousness.

All the opposites come from cutting time up into sequences, and not seeing the whole. Good eventually comes from evil, if we can see the whole picture.

When we are in higher consciousness, our vibration speeds up, energy is released and we process change more quickly.  Higher states of consciousness use subtler (lighter or quicker) energy to process experiences faster, thus handling physical change much quicker than lower states. Higher states "eat" time at a faster rate and so time seems to fly by and expand.  Lower states of consciousness use denser and slower energies to process experiences more slowly, thus giving the experience of time passing slowly.

Accepting an experience, no matter how unpleasant, speeds the processing rate; resisting an experience slows the processing rate. The higher the consciousness, the more expansive and inclusive of past and future. Resistance to the past creates detriment, while acceptance can empower the future.  The greater our ability to include and learn from the past, the more optimal will be our potential future, as we harvest lessons from the past.

If you speed up your consciousness--thinking more clearly and synthetically, seeing the big picture, the larger context, you can make better choices and be more efficient.

Follow your intuition and inner guidance about right timing—in order to not miss important opportunities.  By studying synchronicity--an alignment of events in time—you can recognize an important relationship.

The ancient Greeks referred to Chronos as the linear measure of change, or what we’d call clock time.  Kairos is spherical time, beingness time, the eternal moment, when we are in the rhythm of divine life force and higher consciousness.  We can learn to be fully present in the now (Kairos) by practicing mindfulness--identifying as the observer or witness, the eternal soul within us, which is beyond time.  We need to avoid living exclusively through memory and anticipation—desiring either the past or the future—and instead be in the present.  Notice that everything we see in the world is a result of past thoughts and actions and thus is an effect, not a cause.

It’s helpful to surrender any inner resistance to the present moment.  Accept the present moment fully as it is, without labeling or judging, as if it was chosen.  Be totally present in the moment, alert and awake, giving each thing you do your full attention. Notice when you are not present – for that will bring you into the present. Give more attention to how you are doing something, rather than what you are doing and wanting to achieve.

You can also be more effective in your use of time by going with the flow of cycles.  There is a time for everything, as noted in the wisdom of the Bible and in the Chinese I Ching, as well as in modern “bio-rhythm” mapping that studies a person’s physical, emotional and mental cycles. 

Techniques for Reducing Stress and Being More Fully in the Present

Here are some practical tips for relating to time in a different way when you feel especially harried: