Since I was a child, the thought of eternity, either in heaven or in hell always scared me. Just being somewhere for the rest of time regardless of heaven or hell always scared me. Even if I was in Heaven, it seems as though it would get 'boring' for lack of a better word.
I recently have been struggling through some hard times, and had (still having) a crisis of faith if you will. Up until a few days ago I never really believed people who said they had visions or divine dream. To be honest, I thought the people who made these claims were people just looking for attention. That changed though when I had two of the most real dreams I have ever had. In one dream, an angel or celestial being came to me and took me into clouds filled with the light of the Lord. The other was quite opposite, as i found myself in a world that had been burnt to a crisp, filled with soot, and filled with torment. Not exactly sure what they mean yet, but I did experience one thing that i could have never grasped before.
These dreams were without time. As time has always been a part of human life, experiencing a life without time was mind blowing. Im not saying i experienced what is eternity but what i am saying is i experienced what it is like to be in eternity.
For my whole life, I, and everyone who has taught me about eternity has compared it to a never ending time. Ive been told that eternity is just like time never stops. My dreams though showed me otherwise. Im not sure if any of you believe in divine dreams, as a matter of fact, I'm not even entirely sure that these were divine, however these dreams that I had did show me what it eternity would be like.
As I said, people often compare eternity with time. However from this dream i now look at eternity entirely different. I no longer compare eternity with an infinite time. "Why?", you might be thinking. This is why: In my dreams there was no concept of time, it was like i never even knew what time was. Not to get too into the logic of it but basically for events to happen and to experience things, it must mean that time is moving forward. Picture this, each event is a rung on a latter, and each step you take up the latter take time to get to the next rung. So wouldn't that have to mean eternity has to have some sort of concept of time? The experience i have had showed other wise. In order to have a dream, it must mean that events happen, as dreams are not just static images, they are experiences, things you go through, sort of like a movie, so that means time passes, right? Wrong, my dreams had events, but each event had no measure of time to it. For example in my dream, an angel/celestial being appeared to me, took my hand, placed me on its back, took me into the sky and made its way to these clouds filled with light. So the event of me flying, i experienced, but with no correlation of time. The event happened but for how long, there was no answer to. the event lasted for however long i seemed to want it to last. I think of flying though the sky with this eagle in one way and it seems like it could have been ten minutes, but i think of it again another way and it could have been 10 years. It didn't matter how long or short it took because the nature of eternity has no correlation with time.
I find the infinity sign or the number 8 to be a one of the closest ways to grasp this. Imagine there is a dot moving along the line of the number 8. It is moving, events are happening, but it doesn't stop. Another way that i could best describe it, would be like if life had a play button, fast forward button, slow motion button, and a reverse button. Imagine combining all of those buttons and what they did into one button. Like a universal speed button. It fast forwarded, slo-mo'd, reversed, and played all at the same time. Trippy, i know, but that was what it was like. It was like i could make an event last for however long i could imagine it to last, then choose to go to the next event when I wanted to. Another way i could compare this is flipping through the pages of a book. I can take my time and read every word of every page from start to finish, or i can thumb through them from start to finish in a matter of seconds, perhaps I could thumb through them from finish to start, I could even just stay on one page forever. I could read every word of the book backwards from finish to start. I could even read left to right of each page but flip the pages from finish to start, i could even read the word from right to left but starting at the first page and ending on the last page. The point I'm trying to make was that eternity isn't just like reading the book like how we were taught to read the book, (from left to right, start to finish, in chronological order) it is like any way you 'view' and 'expirence' each event. As for the fear of eternity becoming 'boring' imagine the best page of this book and the event that happens in the book. Once you read it one time, its like wow that was amazing! but the second time you read it, you already know what is going to happen because you know what will happen, so if you kept reading it over and over and over and continuously read the same page, after a while it would get really really boring and less appealing each time, to the point where you would almost become annoyed by it. However, to compare this with this abstract idea of eternity, reading the same page over and over would never get boring. Why? Because once you read this page and started reading it the second time, it would be like reading it for the first time, like you had never read it before. Each time you read it, the experience is just as good as the first. I kind of compares to the law of diminishing returns, as you keep doing something it gives you less and less of the experience each time, but throw the law of diminishing returns out the window when in eternity.
I am no expert in logic, so I don't know if this is a sound comparison. This is the best way i could possibly try to put it into words.
What are your thoughts?
I recently have been struggling through some hard times, and had (still having) a crisis of faith if you will. Up until a few days ago I never really believed people who said they had visions or divine dream. To be honest, I thought the people who made these claims were people just looking for attention. That changed though when I had two of the most real dreams I have ever had. In one dream, an angel or celestial being came to me and took me into clouds filled with the light of the Lord. The other was quite opposite, as i found myself in a world that had been burnt to a crisp, filled with soot, and filled with torment. Not exactly sure what they mean yet, but I did experience one thing that i could have never grasped before.
These dreams were without time. As time has always been a part of human life, experiencing a life without time was mind blowing. Im not saying i experienced what is eternity but what i am saying is i experienced what it is like to be in eternity.
For my whole life, I, and everyone who has taught me about eternity has compared it to a never ending time. Ive been told that eternity is just like time never stops. My dreams though showed me otherwise. Im not sure if any of you believe in divine dreams, as a matter of fact, I'm not even entirely sure that these were divine, however these dreams that I had did show me what it eternity would be like.
As I said, people often compare eternity with time. However from this dream i now look at eternity entirely different. I no longer compare eternity with an infinite time. "Why?", you might be thinking. This is why: In my dreams there was no concept of time, it was like i never even knew what time was. Not to get too into the logic of it but basically for events to happen and to experience things, it must mean that time is moving forward. Picture this, each event is a rung on a latter, and each step you take up the latter take time to get to the next rung. So wouldn't that have to mean eternity has to have some sort of concept of time? The experience i have had showed other wise. In order to have a dream, it must mean that events happen, as dreams are not just static images, they are experiences, things you go through, sort of like a movie, so that means time passes, right? Wrong, my dreams had events, but each event had no measure of time to it. For example in my dream, an angel/celestial being appeared to me, took my hand, placed me on its back, took me into the sky and made its way to these clouds filled with light. So the event of me flying, i experienced, but with no correlation of time. The event happened but for how long, there was no answer to. the event lasted for however long i seemed to want it to last. I think of flying though the sky with this eagle in one way and it seems like it could have been ten minutes, but i think of it again another way and it could have been 10 years. It didn't matter how long or short it took because the nature of eternity has no correlation with time.
I find the infinity sign or the number 8 to be a one of the closest ways to grasp this. Imagine there is a dot moving along the line of the number 8. It is moving, events are happening, but it doesn't stop. Another way that i could best describe it, would be like if life had a play button, fast forward button, slow motion button, and a reverse button. Imagine combining all of those buttons and what they did into one button. Like a universal speed button. It fast forwarded, slo-mo'd, reversed, and played all at the same time. Trippy, i know, but that was what it was like. It was like i could make an event last for however long i could imagine it to last, then choose to go to the next event when I wanted to. Another way i could compare this is flipping through the pages of a book. I can take my time and read every word of every page from start to finish, or i can thumb through them from start to finish in a matter of seconds, perhaps I could thumb through them from finish to start, I could even just stay on one page forever. I could read every word of the book backwards from finish to start. I could even read left to right of each page but flip the pages from finish to start, i could even read the word from right to left but starting at the first page and ending on the last page. The point I'm trying to make was that eternity isn't just like reading the book like how we were taught to read the book, (from left to right, start to finish, in chronological order) it is like any way you 'view' and 'expirence' each event. As for the fear of eternity becoming 'boring' imagine the best page of this book and the event that happens in the book. Once you read it one time, its like wow that was amazing! but the second time you read it, you already know what is going to happen because you know what will happen, so if you kept reading it over and over and over and continuously read the same page, after a while it would get really really boring and less appealing each time, to the point where you would almost become annoyed by it. However, to compare this with this abstract idea of eternity, reading the same page over and over would never get boring. Why? Because once you read this page and started reading it the second time, it would be like reading it for the first time, like you had never read it before. Each time you read it, the experience is just as good as the first. I kind of compares to the law of diminishing returns, as you keep doing something it gives you less and less of the experience each time, but throw the law of diminishing returns out the window when in eternity.
I am no expert in logic, so I don't know if this is a sound comparison. This is the best way i could possibly try to put it into words.
What are your thoughts?
