Linear Time and Heaven and Hell
There is an assumption that time is linear,
that is, that it moves at a constant pace and that time can be measured in the
same way as distance can be measured. In many respects the idea of linear distance
doesn't hold up too well. If we are traveling in a car then 10 Kms may not seem
like much, but if we are walking then it's a lot. If we are flying then 100
Kms may be nothing. If you work in a boring job then the day may go very slowly.
If you are constantly occupied then the day will seem to fly past. People who
have been in accidents often report that time appears to go very slowly, almost
stop. The few seconds preceding the accident seem like years.
There is a difference between the physical measurement of distance and the measurement
of time though. Distance is tangible, it can be measured and re-measured whereas
time once gone can't be measured again. This makes time essentially subjective.
Certainly we can measure the movement of a hand around a clock, the movement
of the earth around the sun or the vibration of cesium atoms as atomic clocks
do, but this is not measuring time, it's measuring movement or vibration. The
relationship between the physical and the temporal is an interesting one. Mystics
often say that people are not 'in the present'. They fantasise and these fantasies
take their consciousness away from the present.
When people fantasise they are brought 'back to earth' by their senses. If you are walking down a street lost in thought you are brought back by sounds or maybe a road junction, although people have been known to walk across a street into traffic while their mind is engrossed in some abstract thought. When you die your consciousness leaves the body. You go to where your thoughts take you but because you have no body to bring you back you are at the mercy of your thoughts. If you're thoughts take you to pleasant places then that's where you make your home. If your thoughts take you to unpleasant places then you make your home there. That is what people call heaven and hell. Many people are taken from one place to another on a hellish journey that they have no control over.
After death the associations with experiences are not the ones you may think they are. The associations are with what I've called the impressions. For example, you may enjoy going to discos, listening to heavy metal music and chatting up the opposite sex. When you die this takes on a sinister aspect. The heavy metal music has a darkness to it and the face of attractive girl your are kissing suddenly turns into a putrid mass of revolting puss. You constantly attempt to find the attractiveness of someone new only for the same thing to happen, again and again. Eventually you learn that the superficial attraction of sex is, quite literally, skin deep and you learn to treat people as individuals.
