The difference between past, present and future is only stubbornly persistent illusion
(Albert Einstein)
The German series Dark begins with this quote by Einstein and prepares the viewer for an unusual experience of time travel and parallel worlds. The voice in off warns:
We believe that time runs linearly. That it advances uniformly, forever, to infinity. But the difference between past, present and future – it’s just an illusion. Yesterday, today and tomorrow are not consecutive, but they are connected in an infinite circle. Everything is connected.
But Dark is not an isolated initiative of developing these ideas. There have always been filmmakers very interested in these themes. At the beginning, surrounded by very rough scenarios, the “Time Machine” appeared – a contraption where the character would spin in and out, towards who knows where.
But now, more than ever, movies and series are going into so much credible detail, full of technology and scientific concepts, that the message is getting stronger and stronger: we are beings of time and we live cloistered in our worlds!
Yes. If you look, you will see that the characters have their own timeline and think, feel, and act upon their own little world. Therefore, they conflict with others, suspicious that someone is pursuing them. Each one feels that he is on the side of Good and that the others may be the great Evil Demon. The tension builds up to an almost unbearable level until it explodes in the threat of the planetary apocalypse!
The plot almost starts dissolving, which explains why the timing of films is fragmented by countless flashbacks, but it also slides like a fantastic spider web into possible futures, according to a plot generated by the dramatic action of relationships between the several groups.
As the movies unfold, everyone gets lost: us viewers, because we can’t remember (at all) the names of all the characters; and the characters themselves, because they found themselves (sometimes literally) in various levels and mazes of time.
Names, places, relationships, everything becomes relative. In this marathon of so many coming and going, each character ends up asking: who am I after all? What is the time that defines me? What is the true relationship I have with my friends, family, neighbours, schoolmates and coworkers? And finally, already tired of fighting against time, all shrunken, each one in his/her little world, they realize that the union of all towards a common goal can set them free from this network of illusions. Then, they move from mental eloquence and emotional battles to concrete action – here and now.
As for ourselves as spectators, we have no alternative but to study the metaphor which presents itself as a life lesson. We are characters, we act in many fronts, we dress the social roles like clothes chosen by others. But… what about the real Self behind all this? How to reach it? When can we be aware of this true being?
This is a process we need to start now! And the steps of the way have already been pointed out by the initiatory schools of all time: discernment, yearning for salvation, self-surrender, new attitude of life and transfiguration. This is the path of the new consciousness, which begins with self-knowledge (we are cosmic beings), goes through the desire for liberation from all our cultural ties (we are beings renewing each day), and suddenly we find ourselves no longer drifting, but with a single purpose, serene, carried by the current of life (as one who gives himself totally to the force of the original energy that created us). That goal is the realization of the true being. Then our attitude of life becomes one of seeing the world and beings for the first time each day – without the shackles of cultural behaviour, opinions and beliefs. These are the signs of the transfiguration, the emergence of a being that is beyond the common being.
But what do we mean by “transfigured”? It means that once we are totally transformed into our physical, vital, emotional, mental body structure, we will no longer be just a drifting character, but a real living being: the true protagonist of this magnificent process – a whole new being in terms of will, love, intelligence, harmony, wisdom, dedication, and consequently, a whole new action.
For this being, space and time – which were the self-knowledge tools for the travelling character – are no longer limitations. His connection with the other beings in the universe is totally unified. He is no longer a simple individual, but multifaceted energy, in permanent union with the original source of all beings.
Universal wisdom has always hinted at this process of the transfiguration of travelling beings, who become immortal beings. Many philosophers, scientists, clergymen, artists and thinkers from the beginning of space-time refer to various dimensions that relativize what is outside or within us, as well as what is above or below our consciousness. We are all, small or large, travelling characters in search of our eternal origin, in the no-time and in the no-place.
Among all the authors who developed this idea, we highlight Catharose de Petri, founder of the School of the Golden Rosycross. In her book The Living Word, she comments that this “journey between the various dimensions” is possible and necessary for the human being to gain self-knowledge, to transform, to transmute and to transfigure himself. She states:
The fourth dimension is just the door to the fifth, the sixth and seventh dimensions. (…) The human being is omnipresent, but it is not aware of it. (…) Intuition is the door to it. The new vision is the first realization of the fourth dimension.
Stay tuned. From a simple movie or series, you can become aware of your essence and make effective decisions for this structural transformation of your being to take place.
So, as a state of consciousness is a state of life, we trust that, beyond all the conflicting feelings, all the automatic repetitions of everyday life, all the expectations that accumulate in time, we can, indeed, open a chink to No-Time, to roll up our sleeves and get out of our little worlds towards a much larger, fuller dimension: Eternity, without beginning or end.
