Space and Time

Z: Oooookay!  So, 8, I feel as if I have finally readied myself and my mind to have a conversation, for which we have, quite literally, been waiting years.

8: It’s true! So much time has passed since you first realised you wanted to talk about time. And it’s going to be a truly fascinating conversation - a conversation of many delightful parts with numerous fun twists and turns.

But now, given that you have already waited SO long for this conversation, perhaps you will humour me and allow me a small tangent before we begin?

Z: Of course…

8: As we sit down to write this together, you have just concluded a time of the year known as the “festive season”. So, I would like to ask you first about this fellow Santa Claus who seems to make such an impact in many parts of the world.

Z: I… uh… Santa?

8: Yes. Could you describe him to me, please?

Z: Sure. I’m not sure where this is going but… sure. He’s known by different names in different parts of the world. Here inSouth Africa as children we called him Father Christmas, for example. But it doesn’t matter what he’s called, Santa Claus is a large, rotund, jolly old guy who wears a red outfit with white fur trim. He is known for making a big belly-laugh as he distributes gifts to children all over the world. He has a sleigh pulled by magical reindeer and…

8: … okay, yes, thank you. You are aware, of course, that you are describing a fictional character to me, aren’t you?

Z: Of course (I laugh), that goes without saying!

8: So, you can describe a person who doesn’t really exist. You can describe him in detail as if you have known him personally. And people all over the world, even people in far distant countries who speak entirely different languages, will also know of this fellow and describe him, his personality, his activities, his nature and his function in the world in very, very similar terms to what you would.  Am I right?

Z: Yes. I believe so.

8: It doesn't matter that he is a fiction. He is still understood the same by many people.  But equally, there are people on the planet who know nothing of him at all.

It’s superfluous to my needs to get into the complex relationship between the celebration of the birth of the Christ and the ancient pagan celebration of Yule and this jolly fellow who comes bearing gifts wearing clothing, the colour scheme of which is provided by a corporation that produces beverages. Suffice it to say that there are cultures on planet earth right now that do mark this celebration, cultures that do not mark this celebration and then there are even some small, remote cultures that are utterly unaware of it.

Z: Right. But what does dear ol’ Santa have to do with “time and space”?

8: We’re just about to get there!

Imagine for a moment what it would be like if your belief in Santa made him real. I mean really real. If you believe in him then, like so many children the world over: he is real for you. But the difference in this imaginary scenario is that, if you believe in Santa, his existence will stand up to careful scrutiny! If you believe in him then you see him… then you can travel to the North Pole and visit his workshop. And, if you are observant, you can see his sleigh whizzing by in the night sky on Christmas Eve, dropping off prezzies for all those believers who were “good” that year.

But of course there will also be those who don’t believe in his existence. For them there is no Santa whatsoever. He simply doesn’t exist and there is no evidence to gainsay their disbelief.

Can you see that these two groups of people cannot inhabit the same world?

There must be one reality for Santa believers and another for disbelievers. Quite simply, you cannot have a world in which they co-exist, because in the one reality there is empirical evidence for Santa and in the other it is totally absent. So these are different realities.

And “Space and Time” is a lot like that.  You see, “time” is one attribute of the 4^th dimension of reality. “Space” is another. If you really, really believe in this little fictional tale called “space and time”, then you can come to live in a reality in which it appears to be absolutely real. When asked, pretty much everyone who believes in “space and time” will describe it in the same kinds of terms. You’ll agree it is real and you’ll all be able to describe your own personal experience of it. There is clear empirical evidence for it and you can study it. And so it is that you are inside the reality of the believers. Only this time you are believers in space and time.

All of the above is really just my way of explaining to you that “space and time” are the same thing, that they are fictional and that they are consensus reality constructs. They are only real for you if you agree that they are real. But if you DO agree that they are real, then there is empirical evidence to show that it is so. And it’s very hard to argue against empirical evidence! So it’s almost as if they are real!

Z: “Almost”?

8: Yes. All illusions can be made to break down if you know where to look. And we will, in the discussions that follow, find some of those “frilly edges” where the illusion breaks down. But, for the main part, just as with your description of Santa, I will be describing the illusion to you: what it is and how it works. Even though I do not live inside the illusion, I am like a person from the world of disbelievers who knows a great deal about Santa and the world of believers. So I can tell you about it from the outside, looking in.

Z: Okay!  That sounds good. So where do we start?

The Torus of Space and Time

8: With a shape. Can you picture a torus?

Z: Yes. A donut-shape is called a torus.

8: That’s one kind of torus. I’d like you to imagine a shape that is halfway between a donut and an apple. Like an apple it is more-or-less round. It is slightly flattened at the top and bottom where it dimples inwards. Like a donut there is a hole that goes right through where the apple core would be. But the difference is that the hole tapers from both the top and bottom so that it meets in the middle at a point.

Z: Yes, I can imagine that.

8: Good. For what it’s worth, this is called a Horn Torus. And if you can imagine such a shape, then you are holding in your mind an image of the 4^th dimension of the universe you currently inhabit.

The form of your universe is, at the 4^th dimension, equivalent to the surface of a horn torus.

Perhaps this seems like a purely academic thought, but it has some striking implications that will actually give you access to insight and answers to some of the fundamental conundrums with which cosmologists at this point are still wrestling.

The difficulty that arises for anyone on earth that would ponder the nature of your universe is that you are 3 dimensional beings, living in, what appears to be, a 3 dimensional universe. It is nearly impossible for you to discern the form and nature of the 4^th dimension and beyond. But coming to these understandings is what will allow you to begin to understand your own true nature and your place in creation. And that is what we will be doing in this conversation.

Z: Wow, okay! I look forward to having you explain that!

8: Good. But before we proceed, I want to make sure that everyone who reads this is on the same page with us, as regards this very special shape. So I am going to place an image in your mind and ask you, please, to find a way to draw that for our readers.

Z: Okay (I get the image), got it. That shouldn’t be too hard... (I go away and do some graphics work and then…).

Okay… what do you think of this?

8: Not a bad job at all. So, what you have there is a 2-dimensional picture showing a 3-dimensional object that represents a 4-dimensional surface.  So it’s a nice picture, but please understand: it’s just a representation. The trick is to extract the understandings implicit in that representation without getting too attached to the universe actually looking like that from your 3-dimensional perspective.

Z: Okay. So, 8, if I understand you correctly then you are saying that the 4^th dimensional form of the universe is represented by the surface of this torus. How so?

8: Yes. Let’s get into that.  The first thing to be aware of, when looking at that image, is that you are looking at a representation of all of space and time right there in front of you. If you look at a normal map you look at a representation of a piece of land, right? Well imagine you could see a map that showed you that piece of land from the beginning of time to the end. Now imagine you can look at a map that shows you the whole universe for all of time. That is what you are looking at when you look at this illustration all of space and all of time represented in one picture.

If you travel inside the 4^th dimension, as you currently are, you do so in a time-like fashion. The easiest way for me to explain that concept is to begin with the bright light at the centre of the torus. See that? That is the universal singularity and is also where the event commonly known as the “Big Bang” occurs.

Let’s begin there.

At the beginning of time a vast quantity of energy is expressed at the Big Bang. From there, the energy expands into the funnel “above” or “after” (depending on your perspective) the singularity. As it expands, so the energy cools and condenses into less energetic states. It becomes matter. Space and time are already there. The form of the horn torus is already there. The energy of the matter is simply travelling across it.

There is more expansion and more cooling. And in this matrix of super-excited proto-matter, beings come and play. Perhaps you’d call them creator-beings. In a way they are like children playing in a stream of water (and they don’t mind me saying so either). They make patterns in the stream and watch as those patterns play out, spinning and whirling away, as the energy and matter continues to expand.  And, from here on out, the story gets more and more complex. Too complex to tell of today. The basic point is that there are more and more consciousnesses that come to play and to make and hold patterns in the energy, at every level of scale. Very early on, at the smallest scales, the energy is knit into sub-atomic particles. And then atoms and later molecules. At a larger scale the expanding gasses are given twists and swirls and, as a consequence of these playing consciousnesses, proto galaxies begin to form. And then, later, as those galaxies take shape, stars and planets are spun together inside those young galaxies.

And so, as the matter and energy of the universe begins to exit the horn at the top of the torus, it is already quite cool and there are many very well defined structures knit out of the available energy. And so it is that, at this point, you will find well-defined galaxies including discrete young suns and planets spinning and cycling like wheels within wheels as a consequence of the games of those creative consciousnesses.

From here the expansion continues. Energy expands and matter moves further apart. Stars and galaxies move further and further from each other, seemingly rushing away from each other into an ever expanding night. And from where you are right now inside this time-like progression it certainly might seem as if they will continue to expand eternally outward, as the expansion seems to just go faster and faster.

But, if one steps outside of the bubble of space and time, one can see that there is an equatorial high-point to all of this. Things only expand so far before they begin to contract. And then the matter and energy of the universe moves back towards singularity. As it does, it goes faster and faster. Galaxies begin to draw together. Space begins to shrink. And, at last, as the matter and energy of the universe begins to rush towards itself, it begins to heat up as it compacts again. As the matter of the universe rushes towards itself it begins to collide. Large objects are smashed together and broken into smaller objects. Molecular chains are broken. Then atoms are smashed into a super-hot soup of sub-atomic particles, then pure energy and then… singularity. The Big Crunch. At this point time slows down to a dead halt. All time is now. All space is here. All matter is energy and all energy is one energy. All is One. Singularity!

Z: Wow. That’s so elegant. I love it!

8: It is perforce a huge over-simplification of events, but it does at least give you an overview from which we can work.

Z: There is something I don’t quite understand though.  The first half of the journey is expansive from the Big Bang… and then the second half is contractive, ending in the Big Crunch.  But you just said it appears to us as if we keep expanding. Can you clarify that?

8: A good, observant question. It comes down to two reasons, both of which have already been covered. The first reason is that you can only see “backwards in time”. You can only see things the way they were.  So, as you reach the equatorial high-point of the torus, you can still only see the way things were. And since it is the objects that are the furtherest away that most powerfully show you how objects in the universe move, relative to your position, you will still see everything moving away from where you are. It will continue to look this way for a good while yet. In a few years time it might become possible to discern the changing tide but only to those that are specifically looking for this with the most sensitive of equipment. It will take perhaps centuries before astronomers will see a mix of expansive and contractive signatures in the sky. And it will only be as one enters the Big Crunch itself that an observer would be able to observe no evidence of expansion in the sky at all.

So that’s the first reason.

The second reason is, as explained, movement does not slow down. At the Big Bang, the stuff of the universe is ejected. It is flung outwards with a great deal of force. Things move apart. Then, at some point, those things are pulled towards each other by the contractive forces. If you look at the torus and imagine stars and galaxies moving over its surface, perhaps you can see why there does not have to be a deceleration for this to happen. And so, as astronomers examine the cosmos they notice that the objects of the universe are not slowing in their movement. Couple this with the fact that you are seeing the light of times gone past and logic would seem to dictate that the universe will forever expand. Though this is, of course, not the case.

Z: And, the other thing is, the way you described the movement across the torus, there seems to be a beginning and an end. But there isn’t really one, is there?  It just goes on and on.

8: Very perceptive. Energy constantly flows from the singularity and energy constantly returns. The Big Bang is right now. The Big Crunch is right now. But the wave your galaxy is surfing is between these two points.

But really, the first points that you can discover about space and time are already laid bare:

1.         It’s all an illusion and doesn’t really exist

2.         If you create that you believe the illusion, then you can experience it to be real by being inside of the illusion.

3.         Space and time, energy and matter are really “one thing”, although they appear to be separate and different things, and this is what creates the illusion.

Z: Okay, great. But I have some questions.

8: I’m shocked (he jokes). The aforementioned was really only meant to be an introductory framework. There is MUCH more to be said on the subject and this will come from your questions. So, go ahead, let’s hear them…

Can We Distinguish the Horn Torus for Ourselves?

Z: Well, the first thing that comes to mind is: looking at that shape - that horn torus - is it possible for us to discern that shape with instruments, such as telescopes or whatever? I guess what I am asking is, whether we, inside of the illusion, can find a way to see that torus for ourselves?

8: No. The best you can do is to infer its existence. The torus is the shape of the flow of time itself. You experience yourself to be living through moments of time. You can only perceive one “slice” of that shape at a time and, as such, would not normally be able to perceive the entire shape.

To facilitate your understanding of this I am going to remind you of an old friend. Remember Shadowman?

Z: Yes, the flat guy from the discussion on dimensions (Zingdad note: see Chapter 1.1 Dimensions).

8: Right. Well the thing is that he is a 2D being and, as such, cannot perceive depth. He would have profound difficulty even imagining things that are not flat as he is. Even though he is in a room that HAS depth, he can’t perceive that. He cannot perceive the shape of anything at all other than other 2D things, and they even have to be on the same plane as he is before he becomes aware of them. But, if he is a bit of a thinker, there might be ways for him to use what he can perceive of his world to hypothesise the 3^rd dimension. And that is exactly what we are doing here - finding ways for you, a 3^rd dimensional being to understand the 4^th dimension. You are inside a space that has four dimensions, but you can only perceive that indirectly. You are in a shape that you cannot see. You experience it only by travelling through it and you struggle to make sense of this travel.

And so, to come back to your question: I’m afraid no telescope of any kind will allow you to perceive the horn torus.  To do so, one would have to be able to see outside of time. Telescopes can, of course, not do this. Telescopes of all kinds appear to be able to look “outwards” - they appear to be able to look across great distances. But that is an illusion. What they are doing is powerfully magnifying a very small, dim portion of what is available right here and right now. It is a function of the illusion of the flow of time that telescopes therefore can only look in one direction… and that is backwards in time.

Z: Okay, so we won’t see the torus with a telescope. But you said something interesting there. What do you mean when you say it appears as if we can only see backwards in time with a telescope? 

8: Oh come on! You know this! 

Telescopes do not “look outwards”. All they do is concentrate and focus the light that falls upon them. But that light has had to travel some distance to get to the telescope. The very nearest star to your solar system is about 4¼ light years away. In other words it has taken more than four years for the light that shines from that star to reach earth. If you look at Proxima Centauri (the name that star has been given) then you are seeing the star as it was more than four years ago. You are looking into the past. And Proxima Centauri is your nearest star with the shortest transit time. Even with the naked eye you can see stars that are thousands of light years away and galaxies that are millions of light years away (though at such distances they appear to be a single spot of light). So, even with the naked eye, when you look out, you are looking back in time.

With the most advanced telescopes you are able to see some of the earliest  galaxies more than 13 billion light years away. If you wish to “see” much further back in time, you will need to look more for energy signatures and less for stars and galaxies. And it is so that there are those scientists who focus on this area of endeavour and they are indeed picking up energetic particles and electromagnetic radiations from the expansion of the singularity nearly 14 billion light years back.

At the risk of belabouring the point… they are not seeing the singularity as it now exists. To do that you would have to be able to see outside of time and that is not possible for you. They are seeing it as it was nearly 14 billion light years back.

Z: Which means it was 14 billion years ago?

8: No, not quite. Light years are a measure of distance. Years are a measure of time from your relative perspective. It would be nice if they equated directly, but they only are not actually the same thing. I am trying to be accurate without confusing you with too much detail. If you like we can address the idea of “relative time” later. It’s really quite interesting but it will take a little work for you to understand. So for now this will have to do: when you look out into the night sky, and particularly when you look with a telescope, you are looking at events in the distant past.

Z: But you said that this was actually an illusion?

8: Indeed. You seem to be seeing backwards in time. But that is a function of the way you are travelling across the surface of the torus. The effect of that travel is the appearance of the march of time. Time does not really exist. It is just movement in the 4^th dimension.

The concept I am getting to here is much more far-reaching than a simple understanding of what you are seeing through a telescope, though. So I’d like to take a little time to explain it properly.

The Universal NOW

All the matter, energy and light that you are able to perceive (directly or indirectly) is exactly the same age. Everything, from the matter in your own body, to the light that comes from the most distant of galaxies, was all expelled in the same moment from the singularity. You can only see (or in any other ways perceive) matter, energy or light that was expressed from the singularity at the exact moment that the matter that makes up your body was expressed.

Z: I don’t get that.

8: Stay with me. This is quite interesting and quite important. When you get what I am trying to tell you, you’ll understand something quite fundamental to the concept of space and time being the same thing.

The easiest is for me to give you another image; a very small variation of the first one. Here we go…

Z: (I get the image and draw it). Okay… How’s this:

8: Yes, that’s the idea. Now here is where it gets interesting. One of those lines - the one around the middle of the torus - represents the whole of the universe that you can interact with right now. Everything that you can see, or in any other way experience in each moment, is inside that one line. That line is one moment thick. And when you consider that a moment is one flicker of time and that each flicker is many trillionths of a second in duration, then you understand that this line is very, very, very thin indeed. And every single thing that exists within your universe is inside that line.

Z: There is a line just trillionths of a second thick and the whole observable universe exists inside it?!?

8: From the 4D perspective, yes, that is so. The universe you inhabit started out as a pulse of energy some 14 billion light years back at the singularity. It all started as a single point. Then, with its first moment of expansion, it became, on our horn torus, a very, very small little circular line around the inside of the horn. As the universe has expanded, so the circle has expanded; growing bigger and moving up the horn of the torus. The rate of expansion has been steadily increasing and so the circle has been getting bigger and bigger, faster and faster.

Z: Okay but… whew!... so many questions…

8: One at a time. Take as long as you need. You will understand this soon enough.

Z: Alright. First question: How can our whole universe exist inside that one very thin line? I mean, our universe is billions of years old. What does it mean that it’s inside a line trillionths of a second thick? And why is it that thickness? Why not ten minutes thick or a day thick? And also…

8: Wait, wait. Don’t overload the questions. Let’s start with the thickness of the line. You are a single-perspective being, right? What I mean is that the way you are experiencing yourself right now is that you can only observe one moment at a time. You cannot be here now, and also, at the same time, yesterday and also last year and also in another incarnation.

Z: Yes. Right. I do hope to become multidimensional in my scope but…

8: Yes, yes. Let’s stay focused. You can only observe one moment at a time; this is the point. This is so for everyone incarnated on earth. It’s how it is when you inhabit the 3^rd dimension.

So you can only observe this moment. But what is this moment? What does “moment” even mean?

The answer to that comes down to a concept that I shall call “quantum flicker”. It really means that your universe is flickering in-and-out of existence at a very high rate. Take light as an example. When a photon travels through space it doesn’t do so smoothly. In this moment it exists here and then, in the next moment, it exists in its next position. It literally disappears from where it was, and then reappears, a little further forward. The gaps between its possible positions are very, very, very small. They are miniscule even compared to atomic particles. And the photon flickers along from position to position at an incredibly high rate. In fact, it flickers across these smallest of gaps at such an incredibly high rate that, in aggregate, it travels at light speed. Which, as you know, is quite a fast rate of travel.

So, “one moment” is the length of time that a photon occupies one position before moving on to the next position. And that “space” that is occupied for one moment of time is the smallest possible unit of space that is still in three dimensions. This means you cannot discern, interact with or in any way measure anything shorter than that space. You also cannot discern, measure or in any other way interact with something that occurs for a time shorter than one moment.

Z: And each moment is many trillionths of a second in duration? EXACTLY how many trillionths?

8: Ah! I was somewhat hoping you wouldn’t ask for that level of accuracy. The actual number is quite large. I can’t find the word for it in your mind, the biggest number I could find with a name was “trillion”. And a trillion is a one with 12 zeros. Like this: 1,000,000,000,000.  And a trillionth is its fraction: one over a trillion.

Well the actual number we are looking for is a much, much smaller fraction 1 over a number with more than 40 zeroes.

Z: Hm. More than 40 zeros. Shorter than 1/10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000^ths of a second?

(I take a short break and do some research on the ‘net)

Apparently there are words for these really big numbers. A tredecillionth is one over 10⁴². So is it fair to say that a moment is about a tredecillionth of a second long?

8: Hm. Very approximately, yes. There is no way for me to give you the precise number without running afoul of the Law of Free Will.  If I try, we will end up muddling it with false information.

Z: Ahh… So this would be a “law of confusion” moment, as described to me by J-D in the early chapters of Book 1?

8: Exactly so. I’m pleased you remembered. Let me explain for those who don’t remember what that was about:

There is a fairly simple calculation that can be done to find out exactly how short this quantum flicker is, but there is no way for you to have the coefficients for that calculation in your mind. If I gave you that number, and it was later corroborated by someone who did manage to gain access to the correct information, then this would collapse your (and others’) free will right to doubt. It would make this little treatise “undoubtable truth”. Which it can’t be. It is, of course, just a perspective.

Z: I understand. Perhaps I could find some mathematician / scientist to work with on this to get that exact number?

8: Sure. If it is that important to you. But you’d have to find someone with good knowledge of these things who is also an unorthodox thinker. These ideas that I am sharing with you are, of course, not necessarily in alignment with the current conventional scientific view. Fortunately theoretical physicists are, as a group, fairly adventurous in their thinking, so perhaps you will find such a person to work with if that is your desire.

But back to the subject at hand. Do you now understand why a moment is approximately just tredecillionths of a second long?

Z: Yes. I think I get that, but what I still don’t understand is why you say the line on the torus of “all that we can perceive” is just one moment thick. I mean; let’s say I could get a telescope powerful enough that I could look at the first light that came from the Big Bang. Would I not be looking back 14 billion years into the past? Is the line not then 14 billion years thick?

8: I love the way you are thinking about this and I enjoy your reasoning but, unfortunately no, that is not correct.

To explain… let us go back to the very first moment when all that is in your universe was released from the singularity. In that moment there was a pulse of the maximum possible energy that could be released. That is to say, that particular time/space nexus was full with everything that it could contain. And it was as densely packed as it is possible for anything to be. That was the very first moment of your universe: everything that is, all compressed into one space. From this point there was only one possible thing for all that impossibly compressed “stuff” to do, and that was for it to expand outwards in the most violent explosion possible.

So the second moment in your universe contains all the energy that your universe now contains, just somewhat expanded one quantum flicker outwards when compared to the first moment.

The third moment in your universe contains all the energy that your universe now contains, just somewhat expanded another quantum flicker outwards when compared to the second moment.

And this is the process that has continued, moment after moment, right to the present moment where you now find yourself. Except, of course, tredecillions of moments are passing each second. But perhaps you begin to understand that, in any given moment, you can only see (or in any other way perceive) the energy that has come with your universe from that one first moment of the Big Bang. Some percentage of that energy has condensed into matter; some of it is available as light; but irrespective of the form the energy takes, it remains so that you can only perceive the energy that was born in the one same moment in which the matter of your body was also born.

You ask about looking with a telescope. Well, it doesn’t matter whether you look with your eyes, a telescope or some even more sensitive device; the principle remains the same: you are seeing the light that is here now. It might have travelled a great distance to get to you now, and therefore have originated a very long time ago, but you are only actually seeing now.

If you pick up on the radiations from some of the early reactions following the Big Bang, then you are not seeing the Big Bang itself, you are seeing the echoes and reverberations thereof that still persist and are falling on your telescope (or your cosmic microwave detector, more likely) in this moment now.

Z: My brain feels a bit over-heated but I think I actually do understand that.

So, wow, our whole three-dimensional universe exists from the beginning of the Big Bang to the end of the Big Crunch as a line, just one moment thick, travelling across the surface of this horned torus in the 4^th Dimension.

The Eternal Om and Alternate Time Lines

8: Yes. And your experience of that travelling line is the process of time.

You can imagine that moving line as a pulse, or perhaps a drum beat. In a manner very similar to a sound wave, a wave is set up at the Big Bang and that wave propagates outwards across the surface of the torus before collapsing again at the Big Crunch. That wave is your whole 3-dimensional universe and the movement across the surface of the torus is the change of time.

Now let’s have some fun.

That wave is of course not the only wave. If your wave is one drum beat, then there are many, many, many more. In fact the whole of the surface of the torus is evenly covered with a non-stop succession of waves.

And just as it is with sound, a single beat is just that: one beat, but many beats in quick succession is a tone. And so it can very accurately be said that the whole of this creation - all the universes all taken together - are a resonant harmonic tone.

As you no doubt know there is a tradition in some of the most ancient Eastern religions to meditate on the sound “Om”, or as it is more correctly rendered, “Aum”. Well, what you perhaps did not know is that this is so because they believe that creation began with The One creating form (the universe) with the vibration of this sound: "Aum". They believe that, before this sound, there was the potentiality for everything but nothing was manifest. And then “Aum!” and with this sound, they say, God took form. The universe was manifest. And the Aum is eternal. It resonates on forever and ever, without end.

Doesn’t that sound very much like what I am proposing; that the beat, which is your universe, is one vibration of an eternal sound?

And isn’t it really neat that they also believe that the three parts of that sound, A… U… M… represents The One in three forms: The “A” is for Brahma who is the god of creation and therefore the Big Bang. The “U” part of the sound is for Vishnu, who is the god of continued existence such as you now experience. And the final “M” sound is for Shiva, who is the god of destruction and release and therefore the Big Crunch.

When taken together “AUM” therefore is the wholeness and totality of all universes created at this frequency for all eternity.

Beautiful, isn’t it?

You can see that the information codified and still remembered in these ancient religious ideas is really quite profound. It comes to you from civilisations that predate yours. The civilisations themselves are long forgotten but the information passed on from them can still be found if you know where to look. And here it is: high-order physics and cosmology explained in terms understandable by all.

Z: Wow! That certainly is beautiful.

But as much as I find myself in wonderment at the intersection between this ancient wisdom, science and this new information you are sharing, I have to say that I am suddenly a little troubled by its implication too!

If our whole universe is one beat. If that beat is just tredecillionths of a second long. And if there are many billions of years worth of beats then… that’s a lot of universes!  And they are all chasing each other over the surface of the torus, one after each other? Is that what you are saying?

8: Well… yes and no. It depends on your perspective. From inside the illusion of space and time it can seem as if there are all these many, many separate universes, each originating as a beat of the Big Bang and propagating across the torus. From outside of time it is apparent that the whole of this creation is right now. The illusion of time-like change is just a function of the way you are moving across this creation. From outside of time this time-like progression is not readily observable. What is apparent from this perspective is a non-linear dance of fractal patterns that interplay between this torus and the other tori that this one is a part of.

Z: Uh oh! Wait, stop the bus! Which other tori?

8: You thought there was only this one torus? This, your “home” toroidal frame of space and time, is just what occurs at one particular frequency. There are many, many other toroidal frames of space and time, each occurring at their own frequency (their rate of quantum flicker). One way to understand this is that the other tori have a different speed of light from yours. Since each exists at a different vibratory rate from yours, you cannot in any way shape or form interact with these other realities. They are invisible and immaterial to you.

You can, if you like, imagine that your torus is like a layer of onion skin. Outside of yours is the next layer at a slightly higher vibratory rate and inside is a layer at a lower vibratory rate. And though it will confuse you for me to say this, I’ll say it anyway: the outermost skin is the inner-most skin. Exactly how this is so has to do with the next dimension, the 5^th, where there is a “folding back” of all of these realities. But since we aren’t talking about that now, I shall simply affirm that, yes indeed; there are many, many other tori present in the greater creation that is Separation. But I don’t wish to confuse you by broadening this discussion too far. So I’ll say just one thing about these other tori. They too are actually one with the torus of your reality. All the tori together exchange energy at the singularity. At the singularity they are all one.

I raise this additional layer of complexifying information just to bring to your awareness that there is always more to every picture of reality than you can imagine. There is always more. And, yet, for all that, it always folds back to Oneness.

Z: How many times in one conversation can a mind be blown and still keep functioning (I laugh).

There is this question that I am clinging onto as I try to process this avalanche of new information. You are saying that this torus, my home torus, that I am now living inside of, which contains our universe at the 4th dimension, also simultaneously contains many other universes?

8: Indeed. “Many” is, however, too small a word. And while the number is not infinitely large, it is large enough that you can, from your limited perspective, think of it as such.

Z: …And that is just this torus!  You went on to say that there are many more tori…

8: Yes. Again, a large number. Not infinitely large but a very large number.

Z: So then there must be an insane number of different universes!

8: “An insane number” is quite descriptive.

Z: And they are all different? Totally unique?

8: “Totally unique” is a tautology. They are all different but the degree of novelty varies. Allow me to explain it in this fashion: your universe is as you experience it to be. Exactly one moment “behind” your universe is another that is very, very similar to yours. If you were to be “bumped back” to that universe you’d be very unlikely to notice any differences. If we were to transfer you to a universe a larger number of iterations back, you would encounter some noticeable differences. Perhaps you’d find yourself in a universe in which, for example, you had allowed yourself to be more motivated by fear and less by love. A universe in which you had not found the courage to follow your heart and publish book 1 of The Ascension Papers. Perhaps in that universe you are still doggedly clinging to a life in which you pursue the solution to your own sense of lack. Perhaps you feel motivated to do whatever is necessary to earn money rather than seeking your highest, most authentic expression, as it is for you in this universe.

Z: Really? Is there such a universe in which I am still just chasing money?

8: I was using that as an example so that you and our readers might understand the concept. As it happens, no, it is not your soul’s purpose that you become so entangled. The purpose of this lifetime, for you, was awakening. Remembrance. Self-discovery. What we have called “ascension”. So you are not present in a very broad band of possible alternate universes. You are not present for choices that are not congruent with your ascension. You make the kinds of choices you are now making or not at all.

Z: So… I make the kinds of choices I now make or I die?

8: No, you don’t understand. You don’t die as a punishment for wrong choices. That’s just silly. Death is a means of transitioning your consciousness out of that reality without harming the Veil. That’s all. Death has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

What I am saying is that each soul finds itself present in a number of “alternative” universes. You are either present in a universe or you are not. It comes down to the choices which your soul wishes to explore. I’ll give you an example: there is a universe in which you explore music as your primary expression. You become quite a talented musician and do quite well with this. The music becomes, for you, an expression of your spirituality. It is every bit as meaningful to you there as the words you now write are to you here. That is a valid choice for you. Your soul wanted to explore that. So there is an alternate “you” who does that. You can feel his influence, as he can feel yours, since you are of course the same person; just exploring different possibilities. You find yourself in this universe as it closely reflects your choices and beliefs back at you, while he is in a slightly different universe that reflects his choices and beliefs back at him. Your universes are slightly different, but your experiences of those respective universes is quite starkly different.

Z: Can you give me an example of how they differ?

8: There are many, many small differences and some really big ones. He, for example, does not have Lisa as a partner. Lisa plays a particular role in your life. Without Lisa there is no Ascension Papers. Lisa has an innate facility with “truth” that you have relied on in so many ways to make this kind of expression possible. This was desirable to your soul and so it is. The version of you who explores musical expression requires different influences. His life is quite different from yours, even though his universe is not very far from your own.

But let us leave this line of inquiry there. I don’t want to get too deeply into your personal story as it is not relevant to the discussion at hand and things are different for other souls. Some of your readers might, for example, have a fairly wide range of possible experiences. Their “footprint” might be much larger than yours. Which is another way of saying that they might be expressed in a broader band of concurrent universes.

Z: All right. So there are other universes that are very similar to this one close behind it. The further behind you get, the more dissimilar they become?

8: Yes. And it goes “forward” too. The notion of “backwards” and “forwards” are not actually significant. But never mind that right now.

Z: Whew!  This whole conversation is just about at the edge of what my mind can cope with. So, someone might choose one thing in this universe, but is choosing something else in another?

8: That is exactly what happens. You have heard of the concept of “time lines”? Well, the word is nonsensical since there is nothing linear about it other than your 3D thinking. There is a range of potentiality. As your Inner-Self, you decide what will be possible for you. Then, as the Outer-Self, you explore one subset of those possibilities. There are other Outer-Selves of the same soul who explore other possible variations. But the notion of Outer-Self is just a temporary illusion that you hold. What you are not aware of is that you can (and often do) move from one universe to another. Every time you make a choice of any significance - a real choice - a choice about who you really believe yourself to be, then you find yourself at a nexus point. Depending on what you choose, you shift your perspective; you move yourself to a reality that is congruent with that choice. As you change yourself, so you change your whole world. If you are the version of self that, for example, decides to love, trust and respect yourself unconditionally, then, as you enact that choice and make it real for yourself, so you navigate to a reality that reflects that back at you. You find yourself surrounded by others who feed that back to you; others who are respectful of you; others who show you love; others who are trustworthy and also trusting of you. You become a greater version of yourself and your world becomes a brighter place.

Z: Woooow! You see… I know this stuff to be true! I mean, I know it works like that. From my spiritual practice and from processes I engage upon with my Soul Re-Integration clients, I have seen that it is an absolute fact that, for each of us, our reality reflects ourselves back at us, but now I understand how that is possible!  It’s because there are these alternative universes!

But explain further why you say these are not “time lines”?

8: The concept of “time lines” implies that, once you are on a line, you are going to one fixed destination. Like being a train on a track. And nothing is further from the truth. You are a conscious being. You are the part of your Inner Self that gets to choose and decide which, of all the possible experiences, you are going to observe as your life. You can move far faster and further than you might believe when you reach a place of being willing to radically alter your beliefs and self-conception. You have no idea how powerful you really are since it appears to you as if the world around you is a fixed thing. You really have no idea!

Z: I am totally intrigued by this! 

So tell me, 8, if I am only present in this narrow band of universes then obviously my experiences of life are all quite similar to this one?

8: Yes. As Arn, you are only observing a small range of possibilities.

Z: So there are universes very, very different from this one that are still on the same torus?

8: Vastly different, yes. This torus is really just a particular tone of the 4^th dimension. It is a frequency. Everything that every soul ever wanted to experience at this tone must be accommodated. It must be possible somewhere. So there are many different universes that are composed with different rules and different consensual structures.

Z: Examples?

8: The overwhelming majority of what is “out there” further away from your universe is so different from what you know that you would find it unimaginable. For this reason it would be nearly impossible to describe to you. Small changes in the mechanics of the universe result in wildly different outcomes. The planets and stars you take for granted are not even possible in most universes. These magnificent, complex organic life forms that populate many planets in this universe are quite unusual – certainly not common to all universes! Elsewhere life forms are so inherently different from yours that you would simply fail to imagine. What I am saying is that the kinds of life-forms and experiences that would populate even your most outrageous sci-fi or fantasy story would actually take place either in your universe or in a universe quite close to your own.

Z: Fascinating…

And what about “past lives”?

8: Good question. Of course past lives are no more “in the past” than your alternate possible lives are. When you really begin to understand this, you will get that there is actually no “past” and no “future”. It’s all just experiences in the topography of the torus.  So “past lives” do not happen “before” this one – even if you chose to remember them in that fashion. These other incarnations are also alternates to your current one but, since you are telling yourself some very different story and holding some very different beliefs and self-conceptions in those lives, you find yourself exploring a different universe or, quite likely, a different part of a very similar universe.

So it is, of course, possible that you might have an incarnation in another time frame of this exact same universe. It is equally possible to incarnate into a different time-frame of a different universe. Anything is possible. It’s all up to what your soul wishes to explore and what the very best setting for that exploration might be.

Z: Okay. And then what about the other tori?  Take one that exists at a faster flicker rate, for example. Can I also incarnate there? And what would life be like there?

8: Yes. The basic answer remains the same: you incarnate wherever you need to. It’s not about the place it’s about you. Before incarnating you begin with the question, “what beliefs and self-conceptions do I wish to hold in this incarnation?” You are placed in a reality that permits that.  That is about the simplest way I can explain this.

Again, the tori closest to your own in flicker rate are most similar to your own. I don’t wish to get bogged down trying to explain all of this to you though so I will simply offer you some examples from your own soul’s journey: your wizard lifetime (Zingdad note: please see The Ascension Papers, Book 1, Chapter 1. An Introduction to Zingdad) occurs in a reality structurally similar to the one you now inhabit. This is because it traveled somewhat in parallel to this one. But that lifetime played out in a torus that existed at a very slightly higher flicker rate. This higher flicker rate is what permits activities that you would now term “magic”.

To be continued…

Well, friends, I do hope you have enjoyed that which I have offered thus far. I publish this in its existing form on my website for your enjoyment. I am actively writing again so there will be more to follow soon. Please make sure that you have registered for membership here on my site if you wish to be updated (by newsletter) as additional material is made available.

Some of the issues I intend to still take up with 8 include:

*  The nature of the torus itself (how it comes into existence and what it is made of)

*  What is dark matter and dark energy?

*  What is light? What are photons?

*  What IS time? He has talked a lot about it but I want a deeper understanding still.

*  Why is time relative (a’la Einstein)?

*  If everything is alive and conscious… is the universe itself alive? And if it is, is it self-conscious? Is the universe a “someone”?

*  What’s the deal with black holes? What happens if something falls into one?

*  What about quantum weirdness such as Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Why does it work like that?

I hope to get to some (most? all???) of these questions in the remaining parts of this chapter.

Please note that the preceding work is only the provisional version. I will thoroughly edit this work, possibly re-writing portions of it for greater accuracy or, as clearer insights arrive, before it is published in ebook and paperback form.