Sometimes a person feels compelled to
try to shatter the entire body of experience he or she has creat ed over the
years; people who suddenly change jobs or plunge into divorce without
provocation are often motivated by an inability to revise their inner world.They may project the blame outward, onto an unsuitable job or unloved
wife. What has actually becom e intolerable, however , is their internalized
experience. Toxic memories have accumulated inside the person to the
point where perfectly neutral situations—meeting the boss at the water
cooler , watching the wife brush her teeth in the morning—arouse deep-
seated negative emotions. Running away is an attempt to relieve these
emotions, but the tactic rarely works because what we want to run away
from has become part of ourselves. Time-bound versus Timeless Awareness
Throughout this book I’ve argued that how you age depends on how you
metabolize your experience. And in the final analysis, how you metabolize
time is the most  important aspect of this process, because time is the most
fundamental experience. A key lesson in the spiritual teachings of J.
Krishnamurti was this: “Time is the psychological enemy of man,” meaning
that we are psychologically undermined and deprived of our real selves by
the feeling that time is an absolute over which we have no control. We
somehow forget that we can choose whether to make time our enemy in the
first place. It’s possible to have actual experiences of timelessness, and when that
happens, there is a shift from time-bound awareness to timeless awareness. Time-bound awareness is defined by:
•  Exter nal goals (approval from others; material possessions; salary;
climbing the ladder of professional success)
•  Deadlines and time pressure
•  Self-image built up from past experiences
•  Lessons learned from past hurts and failures
•  Fear of change, fear of death
•  Distraction by past and future (worries, regrets, anticipations,
fantasies)
•  Longing for security (never permanently achieved)•  Selfish ness, limited point of view (typical motivation: “What’ s in it for
me?”)
Timeless awareness is defined by:
•  Internal goals (happiness; self-acceptance; creativity; satisfaction that
one is doing one’ s best at all times)
•  Freedom from time pressure; sense that time is abundant and open-
ended
•  Little thought of self-image; action focused on the present moment
•  Reliance on intuition and leaps of imagination
•  Detachment from change and turmoil; no fear of death
•  Positive experiences of Being
•  Selfle ssness; altruism; sense of shared humanity (typical motivation:
“Can I help?”)
•  Sense of personal immortality
Although I have described them  as opposites, there is in fact a whole
range of experience running from completely time-bound to completely
timeless awaren ess. A person who dreads his mortality , who is consumed
by success and deadlines and depends solely on external motivations, would
be almost pathologically time-bound, yet we can all see some of these traits
in ourselves. On the other hand, the saint who lives only for God, whose
experience of Being is constant and certain, represents the extreme freedom
of timel essness. Most people do not manifest either extreme; and yet in
many ways our deepest traits and attitudes are based on how we relate to
time and metab olize it. To discover where you are on the scale of time-
bound versus timeless awareness, answer the following questionnaire. QUESTIONNAIRE: HOW DO YOU MET ABOLIZE TIME? Read the following sentences and check off each one that applies to
you fairly often or that you generally agree with. Some of thestatements in Part 1 may seem to contradict others in Part 2, but that
doesn’ t matter . Even if you have seemingly opposed traits and
opinions, answer each statement on its own. Part 1
  1. There’s barely enough time in the day to do all the things I have
to. 2. I’m sometimes too exhausted at night to get to sleep. 3. I’ve had to abandon several important goals I set for myself
when I was younger . 4. I’m less idealistic than I used to be. 5. It bothers me to let unpaid bills sit around. 6. I’m more cautious now about making new friends and entering
serious relationships. 7. I’ve learned a lot from the school of hard knocks. 8. I spend more time and attention on my career than on my friends
and family . 9. I could be a lot wiser about how I spend my money . 10. Life is a balance of losses and gains; I just try to have more gains
than losses. 11. In a loving relationship, the other person should be counted  on to
meet my needs. 12. It sometimes hurts to remember the people I have let down. 13. Being loved is one of the most important things I can think of. 14. I don’ t like authority figures. 15. For me, one of the most frightening prospects about old age is
loneliness. Part 1 score ______
Part 2
  1. I do what I love, I love what I do.  2. It’s import ant to have a greater purpose in life than just family
and career . 3. I feel unique. 4. Near -death experiences are very real. 5. I often for get what day it is. 6. I would describe myself as a carefree person. 7. It’s a good thing to bring sexual issues out in the open, even
when they are disturbing. 8. I work for myself. 9. It doesn’ t bother me to miss reading the newspaper or watching
the evening news. 10. I love myself. 11. I’ve spent time in therapy and/or other self-develop ment
practices. 12. I don’t buy into everything about the New Age, but it intrigues
me. 13. I believe it is possible to know God. 14. I am more leisurely about things than most people. 15. I consider myself a spiritual person; this is an area of my life I
work on. Part 2 scor e ______
•   •   •
Evaluating your score. Although everyone usually checks at least a
few answers in both sections, you will probably find that you scored
higher in one section than the other . If you scor ed higher on Part 1,  you tend to be time-bound. For you,
time is linear; it often runs short and will eventually run out. Relying
on outside approval, motivation, and love, you have not grappled
with your inner  world as much  as with the external one. You are
likely to value excitement and positive emotions more highly than
inner peace and nonattachmen t. You may cherish being loved by
others too much and lose the opportunity to find self-acceptance.If you scored higher on Part 2, you tend to be timeless in your
awareness. Your sense of loving and being loved is based on a secure
relationship with yourself. You value detachment over
possessiveness; your motivations tend to be internal rather than
external. At some time in your life you have had a sense of being
larger than your limited physical self; your life may have been shaped
by decisive experiences of God or your higher Self. Where others
fear loneliness, you are grateful for your aloneness—solitude has
developed your ability to know who you are. Most people have very little notion of how much effort they expend to
keep themselves trapped in time-bound awareness. In their natural state,
both body and mind attempt to dischar ge negative energies as soon as they
are felt. A baby cries when it is hungry , thrashes when it chafe s, and falls
asleep when it becomes exhausted. Once you reach adulthood, however ,
spontaneous expression has largely been squelched in favor of behavior that
is safe, socially  acceptable, calculated to get what you want, or simply
habitual. This loss of spontane ity is a result of not living in the present,
which I discuss ed earlier. But there is another result I haven’ t discussed : the
loss of timelessness. When the human organism is dischar ging its negative experiences
efficiently , the mind is empty of past or future concerns; there is no worry ,
anticipation, or regret. This means that the mind is left open to Being, the
simplest state of awareness. To support the mind in this open state, the body
must be relaxed and flexible. Without stored stress, the aging process
cannot gain a foothold. Thus, the most natural and easy experie nce anyone
can have is that of timeless mind and ageless body . Unfortuna tely, normal
life is far from this state. We are all time-bound, and only on the rarest
occasions—generally when we least expect it—do we manage to break in to
a conscious experience of our true nature. And in a world hungry for
spiritual contact  and so desperately lacking it, one taste of the timeless
creates an earthquake in a person’ s awareness.I’d like to offer an example of someone whose life was completely
changed by such an experience,  the spiritual teacher and writer Alan Watts. As a young man, Watts was inspired to try to find the right attitude toward
meditation. He knew that meditation was practiced in the great spiritual
traditions so that a person could escape the bonds of everyday existence, but
his medi tations were uncomforta ble, boring, and did little more than remind
him of how limited he was. Watts had noted  that many of the methods of the East are contradictory
and mutually exclusive. Some masters say the mind should watch itself,
some say that it is absolutely forbidden for the mind to watch itself. Some
say that the mind should be controlled like a wild elephant tied to a stake,
others say it should be allowed to run free. In sheer disgust he decided to
reject them all. One day he took no special attitude and found, amazingly ,
that this letting go of expectations was enough to free him. “In the force of throwing them away ,” Watts wrote, “it seemed that I
threw myself away as well. For quite suddenly the weight of my own body
disappeared. I felt that I owned  nothing, not even a self, and that nothing
owned me. The whole world became as transparent and unobstructed as my
own mind. The ‘problem of life’ simply ceased to exist, and for about
eighteen hours I and everything around me felt like the wind blowing leaves
across a field on an autumn day .”
This is a wonderfully evocative depiction of what it is to go beyond time
and space. The sense of freedom, of throwing away the old baggage, arises
automatically once a person stops relating only to his limited self. What is
this thing you call “me”? A reference point built up from memo ries. Just as
a bride has a specific referenc e point that she can call on to relive her
wedding day, the content of your mind is built up of similar reference points
—holographic packages of old experience—that you use to define who you
are. “I” am the one who was born in 1946, went to Catholic school, was
afraid to tell my mother I wet the bed, got a stuffed elephant for Christmas
when I was 8, married too young, dropped out of college, and so on,
endlessly . The buildup of memory accumulates until a rigid structure has
been amassed. This is your self-image. In moments of deepest awareness we completely transcend self-image. Paradoxically , this is when the spiritual masters say the Self is trulyexperienced, for the total absence of self-image leaves pure selfhood
exposed. Compared to the rigidity of your ordinary sense of “I,” the Self is
a living, flowing sense of identity that is never exhausted. It is a state
beyond change, no matter whether you experience it as a baby , a child, a
young adult, or an old man. Alan Watts had an unobscured experience of the Self, which is available
to everyone. You don’t have to do anything to find the Self—you have to
stop doing anything. You have to stop identifying with your self-image and
its context of memories and linear time. “I use memory ,” an Indian master
once remarked,  “I don’t let memory use me.” This is a crucial point. Memory is just frozen time. It is impossible for the time-based mind to see
the timeless, for what we call time is actually quantified bits of immortality . Reality is an ocean, but we take it away in teacups. When Watts fell into Reality , the ocean of timelessness, his perception
changed. Instead of feeling bound up and suffocated (which is how all of us
feel, although we might not be able to articulate it), he had an “oceanic
feeling,” a phrase coined by Freud to indicate the sense of merging with the
whole. Time-based existence isn’t whole and never can be, because it is by
definition made of fragments. Toppling Linear Time
When Einstein popped the bubble of the space-time illusion, he didn’ t do it
just in his mind; something very real happened. One of Nature’ s absolutes
was suddenly gone. By taking down linear time, Einstein took down three-
dimensional space with it, for our perception of space from the air, showing
us that the runway lights are ten feet apart, totally changes when the
observer changes his position. From the vantage point of a higher altitude,
the runway lights get closer and closer together , until finally one rises to
outer space, and the lights disappear . At the core of reality , Einstein said, linear time evaporates completely ,
pooling out like a stream overflowing its banks. In the physics before
Einstein, a particle whizzing past an observer was thought to follow astraight-line trajectory , the kind that arrows, cannonballs, and bullets follow
after they are fired. Here are two points separated in time, and the arrow represents the most
basic event in the universe, the passage of time from point A to point B. The reason why you can move through time is that particles and energy
waves do, formi ng the basis of past, present, and future. Some particle was
once at A, is now traveling toward B, and eventually will get there. But
with great mathematical precision, Einstein (aided by a pioneering
generation of other great physicists) proved that reality looks more like a
pool of expandin g rings (see this page ). Time turns into probability waves,
and space is filled with ambiguous, foggy regions where a bit of matter
might once have passed through or could be expected to show up. Our two points A and B are known to be somewhere inside these
expanding rings, but there is no definite past, present, or future, only
possibilities of position. Maybe  a particle is here, maybe there. When the
position is determined, then the time scale emer ges with it. A and B could
be close together at the center or apart somewhere farther out. Linear time
fools us into thinking that one minute follows another with equal spacing,
but change your reference to subjective time: Two seconds sitting on a hot
stove are much further apart than two seconds with a pretty girl. Einstein
proved that the spacing betwe en any two events is totally arbitrary; in
reality there is only the possibility  of intervals. Toppling linear time didn’ t make Einstein very happy—he personally
preferred to believe that three- dimensional things and events  were real. Nonetheless, a supreme act of liberation was achieved for science. Younger
physicists were jubilant, and in Einstein’ s wake we now have “superspace,”
a realm exploding with new dimensions, new geometries, and any kind of
time one can imagine. In superspace, stars are no longer separated by black
emptiness; infin ite energy pulsates through the void, spinning itself out
along invisible strings and loops. Time can get sucked into black holes and
spewed out of “singularities,” compressed seeds of space-time  that enfold
infinite duration in zero space. In superspace time does not have any fixed direction; it can just as easily
go back ward as forward. A particle departing from A can show up at B
before it left, defying our linear expectations. This may seem impossible to
comprehend, but imagine a jet taking off at night. As a passe nger sitting
inside the plane, you see the runway lights rushing past you in a row,
following a sequence in time. Once you are airborne, however , you can look
down and see that the lights weren’ t moving at all. They exist in a pattern
that you experienced as movin g time. Linear time always appears to be
moving, but when you break out of the three-dimensional view point, it is
possible to look down, survey the larger picture, and realize that time itself
does not move. The standard picture of Nature endorsed by most physicists has two
layers that we can understand either through the senses or through scientific
theory:
PHYSICAL CREA TION
QUANTUM FIELD
The physical world arose from the quantum field, which is the source of all
matter and energy. But that raises the obvious question: Where did the
quantum field come from? Quantum reality is already at the very edge of
time and space; beyond it there is no where or when. Therefore, the source
of the quantum field must be nowhere and everywhere, and the date of its
birth was no time and anytime. In other words, the question has no answer
that makes sense within our ordinary framework of space-time.Here again, Einstein offered a solution. When he had completed his work
on the General Theory of Relativity , which some physicists consider the
most profound act of thought achieved by any single human being, Einstein
went on to postu late a unified field theory that would draw together all the
laws of Nature and give them a common foundation. His famou s theorem E
= mc2 had proved that matter can be converted into energy—in the
terminology of physics, Einstein had unified the two—and now he set out to
unify space and time as well. In essence he would replace the two-layer
model of the cosmos with a three-layer one (see this page ). Since he had already proved that space-time is an illusion, this new layer
of the unified field had to be the Reality behind the illusion, the wholeness
beyond all dimensions. Unfortu nately , Einstein died before he was able to
find mathematic al expression for his unified field theory . Thirty years after
his death, younger colleagues such as John Wheeler and David Bohm took
up the task, despite the fact that most physicists were extremely skeptical. It
seemed impossible to come up with a true unified field theory , because it
would have to be nothing less than “the theory of everything.” Today ,
skepticism has turned to hope, and a theory of everything is considered a
viable goal by such notable thinkers as Stephen Hawking and Roger
Penrose. PHYSICAL CREA TION
QUANTUM FIELD
UNIFIED FIELD
However , we do not have to wait for the theory of everythi ng to be
proved in order to grasp that the unified field is identical to the It of Alan
Watts’s timeless  experience, the totality that is perfectly ordered and that
includes all space-time events  in a seamless web. When the spiritual
masters declare,  “I am That,” they are affirming the most complete sense of
belonging. They realize that the unified field exists in, around, and through
them. However , for us to share this experience we have to overc ome a very
imposing obstac le—the fear of death. For the vast majority of people, death
represents the cutof f point where life ends and the unknown begins. But thepost-Einstein universe has no beginning and end, no edges in time and
space. To join this larger reality , each of us must redefine where our own
life begins and ends—or whether it begins and ends at all. OceanofPDF .comTHE SPELL OF MORTALITY:
Overcoming the Illusion of Death
The unified field is inside ourselves, anchoring us to the timeless world
with every breath, every though t, every action. Some people are much more
aware of this connection than others, and for them death becomes much less
threatening. Once, as a young man when he was at the depths of ill health
and depression, Einstein wrote to a close friend, “I feel myself so much a
part of all life that I am not in the least concerned with the beginning or the
end of the concrete existence of any particular person in this unending
stream.”
This sense of being one with things brings safety and the absence of
threat. If harboring threat insid e us is what gives rise to aging, then we
cannot afford to live with our present fear of death. In actuality , death is not
the all-powerful force our fear tells us it is. In Nature, death is part of the
larger cycle of birth and renewa l. This year’s seeds sprout, grow, blossom,
and set next year’s seeds. The cycles of endless renewal are not beyond
death—they incorporate death, using it for a larger purpose. The same is
true inside our bodies. Many cells under go aging and death as a choice, not
because they have been forced into extinction by the grim reaper . Even to assume that death exists  is a half-truth, for there are many levels
of yourself that know nothing of extinction. Your atoms are billions of years
old and have billions of years more life left in them. In the remote future,
when they are broken down into smaller particles, atoms will not die but
just get transformed into another configuration of energy. Atoms are
nothing but transformed energy to begin with, yet we do not say that the
primordial “ener gy soup” died when it got locked up into the orderly
patterns of hydrogen, helium, and the other elements. Gravity and itskindred subatomic forces holding your body together will never die,
although in some unknowable future they may withdraw into the larger
force fields that gave birth to them in the Big Bang. As long as we are
composed of these deathless ingredients, why not see ourselves in the same
light? In the Grip of Illusion
To break free of the grip of death, you need to see that it is based on a very
selective view of reality that was conditioned into you before  you had a
conscious choice. Go back in your mind to the time in early childhood
when you first realized that there was death. These first encounters are
generally very shocking. A 4-year -old is stunned when she wakes up one
morning to find that a pet canary , cat, or dog has simply stopped being
alive. What’ s happened? Where did my pet go? Parents rarely can supply a good answer to those questions. They say
something like, “Your pet has gone to heaven to be with God.” This usually
doesn’ t settle the matter . Saying  that a pet went to heaven conveys what the
parents hope  is true, but underneath they fear death as much as children do
and understand it just as little. Young children have good antennae for
parental doubts and evasions. The tears stop and the pain eases, but at a
deeper level a faint suspicion is born: Maybe this could happen to me. Then when a child is somewhere between ages 4 and 6, the parents
confirm that the fearful intimati on is true. “Grandmother has died and gone
to heave n, and one day you will die, and so will Mommy and Daddy .” You
may not remember this moment —many children prefer to deny it and vow
to be Peter Pan, forever young—but whether you remember it is irrelevant. The moment you confronted death, some psychologists argue, you bought
into a notion that has gripped humanity for centuries. Y our belief in death as
an extinction doomed your body  to decay , age, and die, just as did so many
before you in exactly the same way . It isn’t death that hurts us but the dread of its inevitability . We all felt an
ache, a hole in our hearts that was left when the first cherished thing in ourlives died. A gap was left for fear to fill, and since nothing else has filled it
since, we haven’ t yet been able to confront death. Loss is the most potent
cause of anxiety and also the most dif ficult to face. In adulthood, aging reminds us of loss; therefore it forces us to look into
this gap that was opened in childhood. To free oneself from death is the
goal of all religions: “O Death,  where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy
victory?” Saint Paul asks in his letter to the tiny Christian band in Corinth. He then supplies the answer: “The sting of death is sin,” mean ing error or
the fall from grace. In other words, death is the result of man’ s separation
from the Divine , which is witho ut death. By implication, immortality is our
true life. But what about the pet canary , cat, or dog who died in our childhood? It
perished withou t having any such theological beliefs. However , to say that
an animal died is to put things in human terms. Look out the window at a
tree. Is it alive or dead? It is both at the same time: Its old leaves are dead,
as is the seed the tree sprouted from. The wood inside the trunk is dead,
except for the thin ring of cambium, less than one-sixteenth  of an inch
thick, that feeds the leaves, which themselves are largely composed of
nonliving fibers of cellulose. When leaves turn in autumn, their dead
skeletons fall to the ground, but until then they are part of the living tree. Moreover , the food, air, and water circulating through the tree are no
more alive than when they were locked up in rocks and raindrops; the soil
that sustains the tree is only ground-down stone and decayed compounds
from prior trees. What we call a living tree is a composite of life and death,
and any division between one and the other is mostly in our heads. Any
plant or animal is just one stage in the constant cycling and recycling of
elements that goes on eternally . That whole cycle is life, and the cycling is
the living. The fact that we try to freeze the cycle into stop-mot ion and say,
“Now this tree is alive, now this tree is dead,” represents how our minds
work. Fearing decay and disintegration, we label them death when in fact
they are only change. Like the tree, the canary is just a stage of life. At an earlier time the
canary was an egg, before that a fertilized cell, and before that, birdseed
being eaten by its mother , who turned the food into the egg that was to be
laid. After the canary dies, it will decompose, its elements will nourishplants, and the plants will set seed to feed other birds. How much of this
endless round, if any, is death, and how much is just our view of things—
including oursel ves? You may think that death is an awful event awaiting
you in the future, when in actuality parts of your body are dying every
second. Your stomach lining dies partially every time you diges t food, only
to be replaced by new tissue. The same is true of your skin, hair, toenails,
blood cells, and every other tissue. You may assume  that death is your enemy , but all these cells are dying in
order to keep you alive. If your stomach lining didn’ t die and get replaced
over and over, gastric juices would sear a hole in your stomach wall after a
few hours, and then all of you would die. The line between what is living
and what is dead gets very blurry the closer you look. Parts of your body
are much more alive than others. Muscles have a faster metabolism than fat;
brain, heart, and liver cells rarely if ever duplicate after birth, while
stomach, skin, and blood cells replace themselves in a matter of days,
weeks, and months. A strang e fact of human anatom y is that if we could somehow remove all
the cells in our bodies, the remaining form would still look very much like a
person. Our structural parts resemble a free-standing coral reef composed of
mineralized bone, plus ligaments, tendons, connective tissue, and water ,
with all our cells tucked away inside, the way coral polyps are tucked in the
calcified reef they have secreted. Like the reef, which carries the ocean around within it, we are about two-
thirds salty brine. But these dead parts of ourselves exchange their atoms
freely with the environment: If hurt they heal; if pressure is put on them,
they slowly change form to relieve the stress. So how much of the body is
alive and how much dead? Even to say “my body” implies  a division that doesn’ t necessa rily exist. Is the air in my lungs part of my body? If so, what about the air I’m about to
inhale or the air I just exhaled ? The world “out there” is composed of
trillions of atoms that either once were or soon will be me, and the whole
packet of matter and energy we call Earth is necessary to keep me alive. I
could as easily say that I am just a cell in this larger body , and since I need
the whole planet to sustain myself, everything on Earth is part of my body . If that is true, then nothing should be considered dead—rotting carrion, theworms and fungi that feed off them, even the bones of my ancestors are
caught in the same tidal wave of life that carries me on its crest. Some people recoil from all this talk about death, denying any interest in
it. They  don’t fear death, they say, or if they do, it doesn’ t haunt them or
hold the kind of power over them I have been describing. Why dwell on
such a morbid subject? Isn’t it healthier simply to accept the inevitable and
live for today? The answer to this objection is that unconscious forces are at
work in us. We may all concede that we are going to die, but except in
moments when we have to be present with the dead or dying, our dread is
kept under wraps. This is almo st a biological necessity—I can’t imagine
how I could keep going if the thought of my own death came to the surface
of thought more than once or twice a year. (Being a doctor , I am forced to
see death much more often than that, but closing the eyes of a deceased
cancer patient doesn’ t automatically bring my own mortality to mind. I may
feel sad, but I do not see my own eyes closing.) The fact that we all protect ourselves from dread doesn’ t mean that we
have control over it. From within its dark pit, fear is still exerting control
over us. For one thing, the very fact that we can’t stand to imag ine our own
death invests it with tremendous  power , as if death had an electrified fence
around it with 10 million volts running through it and a huge sign reading
DO NOT TOUCH ! We don’t. And because death is fenced off in the mind, we
don’t really know much about it. Fear of death should be renamed
ignorance of death. I feel quite sure that nothing makes people age faster than fear. Grief runs
a close second; every doctor has witnessed the appalling deterioration that
can befall widowed men and women. But nothing beats fear at this
particular game : A patient who has received the diagnosis of terminal
cancer can withe r away very quickly , almost before your eyes. Not that this
always happens. There are inner qualities that fight off fear, such as courage
or faith in God,  and some people can summon these qualities in times of
dreadful crisis. But if fear gets through, it will do its work sure enough. The
point is not that death is a fiction, but that our belief in death creates
limitations where none need exist.The Uses of Dying
One assumption we all tend to make is that death is somehow unnatural
and, by implication, evil. I cannot agree. Nature is very tolerant and flexible
about how death is used, or not used; and in the larger picture, questions of
good and evil tend to look rather  arbitrary . If you consider how life operates
from the genetic level, DNA long ago discovered the secret of creating
ageless cells, in the form of amoebas, algae, bacteria, etc., whose
generations extend back without interruption. The appearance and
disappearance of any single amoeba is insignificant, for life keeps cranking
out amoebas from the same genes. Nature also went on to assemble more
complex ageless  creatures. The hydra, for example, is a prim itive water
animal that can grow new cells as fast as old ones are shed. Com posed of a
foot, a thin stalk, and a flower like cluster of tiny tentacles, the hydra is
always growing at one end and dying at the other , renewing its entire body
every two weeks. Its cells exist in perfect flow, with new ones moving
along the assem bly line to fill in the places where old ones are dying. This
is creation and destruction in perfect balance, leaving no room  for death. Time therefore cannot catch up with the hydra; it only dies by accident, lack
of food, drought, or some other external cause. The secret of eternal youth, then, is a balanced metabolism, a constant
chemical flow that processes food, air, and water in perfect equilibrium,
without losing a stitch to entrop y. DNA learned to manage this balancing
act hundreds of millions of years ago. In that sense, death is a late
development on the evolutionary chain, but even among higher  organisms,
DNA exerts considerable control over death. The common honeybee, for
example, can change its age at will. Every beehive needs young workers
whose job is to stay indoors to feed and care for newly hatching larvae. After three week s, these workers grow up and move on to become mature
foragers, the bees who fly from the hive to collect pollen from flowers. At any given period, however , there may be too many young workers or
too many old foragers. In the spring so many new larvae may be hatching
that the hive lacks mature foragers and needs more very quickly . When that
happens, some of the young workers age into foragers in one week instead
of the usual three and fly off seeking food. On the other hand, if a swarm ofbees splits off to form a new colony , it is likely to be compose d mostly of
old forager bees. Sensing a shortage of young workers, some of these old
foragers will reverse their ages and become young again—they regenerate
the horm ones of youthful workers and even regrow the withered glands
needed to produce food for the hatching larvae. When bee researchers first discovered this behavior , they were
astonished. They realized that aging isn’t a one-way process dictated by a
fixed timetable for the honeybee, aging is “plastic”—able to go back and
forth, slow down or speed up; the real mystery is why this does not hold
true for higher life-forms. I would contend that aging is always  plastic, but
that we have cemented it in place through our belief in death, the inevitable
end point on the fixed timetable of growing old. “Honeybee colonies are
rhythmic entitie s that must constantly cope with changes in population size
and structure, food availability , predators, and weather ,” wrote bee
researcher Gene  Robinson. With only slight changes, one could adopt this
model for the human body: It is a mammoth hive of 50 trillion cells that
grow old or stay young accordin g to what is needed by the whole colony at
any given moment. Floating inside every cell’s watery interior is a self-destruct mechanism
in the form of sealed packets of corrosive enzymes. These enzymes may or
may not be responsible for “normal” aging, but they undoubtedly serve
special purposes. After a scavenging white cell, or macrophage, has
ingested a large number of bacteria or viruses, for example, it eliminates
them by unleashing these digestive enzymes; in the process, the
macrophage also dies. This is not a random act of violence but a highly
conscious decision. For the overall good of the body , the cell destroys itself. The same deliberate self-sacrifice takes place millions of times  a day in
our largest organ, the skin. As a physical object a living skin cell is very
frail, far too tender to stand up to the elements. Our outermost layer of skin,
the epidermis, is therefore comp osed entirely of dead cells, which are hard
enough to stand up to all the bumping, scraping, jostling, and knocking
about that comes our way . These cells did not perish from exposure to the air. Rather , as a young
skin cell is produced in the dermis—the inner lining of the skin—it gets
pushed toward the surface by the pressure of newer cells growing fromunderneath. During this time the cell begins to accumulate a protein inside
itself called keratin, the same horny substance as that found in our hair and
nails. The keratin replaces the soft part of the cell, making it harder and
harder . By the time it actually reaches the air, each skin cell contains
enough keratin to protect our bodies against wind, sun, and rain. The cell
then fulfills its mission by dying, leaving no trace behind when it gets
sloughed off to make way for the next wave of growing cells. By knowing
when to die, the skin cell helps to ensure the survival of the whole body . At the opposite extreme, a cancer cell endangers the whole body by not
knowing how to die. A cancer cell is basically a runaway immortalist: It
tries to survive on its own terms, disregarding the fate of every other cell. Insane as this behavior seems, it still represents a choice woven into
Nature’ s scheme; every cell’s DNA is outfitted with specialized genes,
called oncogene s, that apparently switch on before cancer can be triggered. According to another recent hypothesis, there are genes in the first
chromosome of human DNA that would allow every cell to divide
indefinitely if activated. Scientists have not yet found a reason for cells to
pursue their own immortality . Perhaps this switch is a holdover from our
ancient evolutio nary past. Or is it a latent power we haven’ t yet learned to
tap? People exert much more choice over their aging and death than we are
ready to acknowledge. Although  we call ourselves “victims” of old age and
death, the stark truth is that for many of us, growing old and dying offer the
only escape from an unfulfill ing life. Such escapist motives play an
important part, I believe, in the phenomenon of early-retirement death,
discussed in Part One. Another variation on this theme is “anniversary
death,” in which someone dies on the same date as a beloved spouse or
child passed away . Studies of Chinese and Jewish communities have
disclosed that their mortality rate dips dramatically just before important
religious holidays, only to rise immediately afterward. People were waiting
for one more New Year or Passover before they finally let go. It shouldn’ t
take a study to tell us that people cling to life when somethin g dear is at
stake. The most recent instance I saw of this occurred with an old man, the
victim of several severe stroke s, and his grandson. The man had finallyreached the point of incapacity and was hospitalized with little hope of ever
going home again. He drifted along in a weak, semiconscious state; every
time he was lucid enough to speak, he pointed to his grandson’ s picture and
mumbled, “Where is he, where is he?”
The dying man’ s children called the grandson, who rushed to Boston. When he arrived at the hospital, a change came over the old man. He smiled
and caressed the young man who meant so much to him. They held hands
and chatted quietly, alone together for most of the day. When the grandson
left, expecting to return in the morning, everyone told him how much better
his grandfather looked. Two hours later the old man died in his sleep. As I
think about this incident, I wonder how any researcher could hope to
quantify the forces that sustain life as long as there is hope or love to look
forward to. From the outside we cannot know with any certainty what a
person’ s body is responding to. The whole af fair is much too personal. When the handbook on suicide, Final Exit, became a surprise bestseller
several years ago, its primary audience consisted of people afflicted with
incurable disease or chronic physical or emotional pain. Nature’s form of
slow suicide, aging, was not quick enough for them. Appalling as that may
sound, a life of pain and sickn ess would be even more appall ing without
some release. “If it were not for death,” an Indian guru once told his
disciples, “we would all be condemned to eternal senility .”
Even without senility , life can simply run its course. “I look forward to
death,” said Redden Couch, a retired farmer from Port Angeles,
Washington, “because of all the things I’ve done that I can’t do now. I don’t
have any fear of death at all. If I were to die right now, it would be just fine. I’m ready anytim e.” Do these words express resignation, seren ity, apathy ,
courage, defeat? We cannot know . As it happens, Redden Couc h made this
statement on his 100th birthda y and was still alive at 104. Despite his
words, his deeper self apparently had more living to do. All these examples show that death doesn’ t have just one value, either
positive or negative. Dying is a form of change, and as such it has to be
seen within the larger framework of non-change. “People have a wrong idea
about death,” Maharishi once remarked to me. “They see it as an end, but it
is really a beginning.” You may call that an article of faith, but to me it’s a
realistic stateme nt of fact. In the flow of life, destruction never has the lastword; creation brings a phoenix out of the ashes every time. Every cell
knows how to divide to form two cells; every shattered atom can regroup
into new atoms;  every thought is followed by a new inspiration . How , then,
can we learn to live within this continuity that is the wholen ess of life? What about a parent’ s emotional devastation when a child dies, or a wife’ s
when she loses her husband? These feelings are natural, of course; there is pain at the loss of anyone
we love. But the pain does not have to be deep and enduring if you have
absorbed the reality of life as an eternal flow in which there is no loss or
gain, only transf ormation. In one of his sonnets Shakespeare wrote, “I weep
to have what I fear to lose”—this is the inevitable result of attachment to
time-bound awareness. The new paradigm holds that aware ness is the
source of reality , and two wholly  different kinds of reality resul t from time-
bound and timeless awareness. RESUL TS OF TIME-
BOUND A WARENESSRESUL TS OF TIMELESS
AWARENESS
aging freedom, autonomy
entropy youthfulness
confusion knowledge of reality
fatigue unbounded ener gy
repression liberated emotions
feeling of victimization expansion beyond body and
ego
separation anxiety peace
conflict power
grief, sorrow harmony
imprisonment in ego and
bodyjoy
fear  
death  All of us experi ence aspects of both realities, because our awareness is
fluid: It can bring us devastating moments of grief and fear and wonderful
moments of peace and power . It can choose to identify with the limitations
of a physical body and a selfish ego or it can break free into transcendence
and expansiveness. This flexibi lity is the true genius of human awareness,
because it leaves all possibili ties open. Yet obviously there are great
advantages to living permanently in timeless awareness. India’ s spiritual masters believe there is a natural tendency for the human
spirit to seek unlimited freedom and fulfillment. Like the Gulf Stream
invisibly pushing its way through the Atlantic, our human minds contain
hidden currents ur ging our thoughts and emotions toward a higher reality . In
India this is called dharma,  an ancient Sanskrit word that can be translated
in various ways. It means law, orderliness, duty, and right behavior . A
person’ s dharma is his work or profession; it is also the duty he owes his
family , the higher purpose in his life, and the spiritual ideal to which he is
committed. The root word of “dharma” is a verb that means “to uphold.” In the
broadest sense, dharma is what upholds the universe; it is the guiding force
that makes order out of chaos. Thus, the ultimate way to avoid entropy ,
aging, and death is to live in dharma. The universe evolves because the
stream of dharma guides it; it is the invisible intelligence that weaves the
fabric of life. Human awareness is capable of touching dharma  directly , of
latching onto it and thus guiding its own evolution. This, finally , is what
makes us human—that we not only evolve but guide our own evolution. Dharma is not a set of religious teachings but an actual force that can be
discovered and used. In the following In Practice section we will see how this can be
accomplished, for with consciou s guidance our inner intelligence can create
a permanent state of ageless body and timeless mind. All of us experience
moments when  peace, power , and love arise spontaneously , only to
disappear . Far from being random, this drift in and out of Reality reflects
the mind’ s ability to stay on course, for if dharma is followed steadily , there
is no end to peace, love, and power. They are the natural results of the most
natural kind of awareness—timelessness.For me the great joy of writing  this book was to take a subject fraught
with fear—agin g—and make it a vehicle for fulfillment. Humans are not
trapped in time, squeezed into the volume of a body and the span of a
lifetime. We are voyagers on the infinite river of life. This is what Christ
meant when he counseled, “Be in the world but not of it.” This is what
Carlos Castaneda learned from Don Juan when he wrote, “Gone was his
feeling of detac hment, which was what had given him the power to love. Without that detachment, he had only mundane needs, desperation, and
hopelessness: the distinctive features of the world of everyday life.”
Although we often identify love with clinging and possessiveness, there
is a deep truth here: to lose the power of detachment means losing the
ability to love. Detachment is not cold disinterest or lack of feeling. Detachment is a free sense of self unhindered by boundaries. Our voyage
does not begin or end in the physical world. Earth is a beautiful  green-and-
blue jewel hung upon the tapestr y of eternity . However long we stay here to
drink the pure water and breathe the life-giving air, eternity is more truly
our home. We are of timeless essence. We were born in the bottomless pool that
sends up bubbles of time and space. One bubble is a moment, another is a
millennium. But the pool itself is pure spirit, and no matter how many stars
and galaxies rise from it and burst on the surface like fragile foam, nothing
has been taken away or added. Being is deep, clear , permanent, ever the
same. It is amazing to think that our everyday existence springs from this
infinitely renew able source, but life has no other basis. Unbounded
intelligence, freedom, and power are inherent in the unified field that
Einstein and the ancient sages shared in their vision. Immortality dawns
when you realiz e that you deser ve your place in the eternal flow. Knowing
this, you can claim your immortality here and now, in every second, for
time is nothing  but quantified immortality . Nature waits to lavish this
supreme gift upon you. Having nourished us for millions of years, the sea,
the air, and the sun are still singing the song we must begin to appreciate
once more. What is Nature saying all aroun d us, in the space between our atoms and
pervading every thought? The same breath, the same silent whisper courses
through every cell. It is the rhythm of life itself, calling to each of us withgentle insistence. I cherish a verse from the ancient Rig V eda that articulates
this eternal song:
Although my spirit may wand er the four corners of the
earth,
Let it come back to me again so that I may live and journey
here. Although my spirit may go far away over the sea,
Let it come back to me again so that I may live and journey
here. Although my spirit may go far away to the flashing beams
of light,
Let it come back to me again so that I may live and journey
here. Although my spirit may go far away to visit the sun and the
dawn,
Let it come back to me again so that I may live and journey
here. Although my spirit may wander over the lofty mountains,
Let it come back to me again so that I may live and journey
here. Although my spirit may go far away into all forms that live
and move,
Let it come back to me again so that I may live and journey
here. Although my spirit may go far away to distant realms,
Let it come back to me again so that I may live and journey
here. Although my spirit may go far away to all that is and is to
be,Let it come back to me again so that I may live and journey
here. Although my spirit may wander in the valley of death,
Let it come back to me again so that I may live and journey
here. Read this aloud  twice, then be with your body quietly for five minutes,
directing your awareness to every part of your body , knowing that this
awareness is Spirit. Spirit is healing energy, the flow of life and intelligence
in every cell. When we are once more attuned to the innate joy and delight
of our bodies, the signals of deep wisdom will reappear , creating healing
from within. An old Chinese poem by Chang-Tzu says:
That which fills the universe
I regard as my body ,
And that which directs the universe,
I see as my own nature. I hear silent music in these words, reminding me that the cosm ic breath is
my next breath and the cosmic dance the next beat of my heart. OceanofPDF .comIN PRACTICE:
The Timeless Way
The deepest reality you are aware of is the one from which you draw your
power . For some one who is conscious only of the material world, power is
limited to material forces; but at a more profound level there is a creative
power shaping mind and body—the power of evolution, or dharma. To get
in touch  with the core of life, you have to get in touch with the creative
power of the universe. That power expresses itself through your personal
creativity . When  you are in the field of creativity , you lose track of time. Only the flow exists. There are three forces pervading all life: creation, maintenance, and
destruction. All three are present in the life span of cells, stars, trees,
planets, and galaxies, since every form must come into being, be
maintained, and pass away . Even though each life span unfolds in a
sequence over time, the three forces themselves exist simultaneously . The
genes of every species include the code for creating new cells, maintaining
each cell for a certain time, and destroying it to make way for another
generation of tissue. This three- in-one intelligence is what you are trying to
affect when you consciously shape your life; it is up to you which aspect—
creation, maintenance, or destruction—is most dominant. Because you have
the power to shift the balance of forces, you are above and beyond them. As long as creation dominates your existence, you will keep growing and
evolving. Evolution thwarts entropy , decay , and aging. The most creative
people in any field intuitively draw on this understanding. They  grow with
full consciousness that they are the source of their own power , and whatever
their field, certain traits are generally shared by them:  1. They are able to contact and enjoy silence. 2. They connect with and enjoy Nature. 3. They trust their feelings. 4. They can remain centere d and function amid confusion and
chaos. 5. They are childlike—they enjoy fantasy and play . 6. They self-refer: They place the highest trust in their own
consciousness. 7. They are not rigidly attached to any point of view: Although
passionately committed to their creativity , they remain open to
new possibilities. These seven points give us a practical standard to measure how creatively
our lives are proceeding. The following exercise demonstra tes how to
develop and strengthen these areas. Exercise 1: Cr eative Action Plan
Everyone has a set routine that dominates his or her day. Most of us fill
our waking hours with the same activities—seeing the same family
members and friends, working with the same co-workers, driving the same
roads, even thinking the same thoughts (it has been estimated that 90
percent of the thoughts a person has in a day are a literal repeat of his
thoughts of the day before). This routine allows little room for genuine
creativity unless you choose to make room for it. Yet in quantum terms
there is infinite space for creativity , because every second is full of
unlimited choice  and unseen possibilities. Once you begin to make space
for the new and unknown, you open the way for deeper power s to emer ge
from the gaps of everyday existence. All the most extraordinary historical
events took place on ordinary days, and the most extraordinary thoughts
arose in minds that were having many ordinary thoughts. The following exercise gives you a way to open some space for growth in
your life, and the more consciously you follow it, the more unlimited the
growth will be.Write out an action plan for the next six months based on the seven
qualities of very creative people, listed on this page . You don’t have to
squeeze every point into each day—just make a commitment to allow these
aspects of your life to emer ge more fully . 1. Experiencing silence
First, block out some time to experience silence. Ideally this would mean
a short period of meditation (fifteen to thirty minutes) in the morning before
you go to work, then a second period just after you get home in the evening. This is a time simply to be, and yet its very simplicity can make it the most
important time of your life. Silence is a precious commodity , particularly in
the hustle-and-b ustle of modern society . In a world gone more than slightly
mad, finding your core of silen ce is like recapturing the fort of sanity and
peace. The mind replenishes itself in silence, the quantum source for all
activity . If your life is dominated solely by activity , you are spending more
energy than you are gaining; the most basic rhythm of Nature— activity and
rest—is being skewed too far in one direction. Silence is the great teacher , and to learn its lessons you must pay
attention to it. There is no substi tute for the creative inspiration, knowledge,
and stability that come from knowing how to contact your core of inner
silence. The great Sufi poet Rumi wrote, “Only let the moving waters calm
down, and the sun and moon will be reflected on the surface of your
Being.”
2. Spending time in Natur e
Plan to spend a period of time contacting Nature. There is no healthier
way to dischar ge pent-up energies. The mind-body system throws off its
excess energies spontaneously when you remove yourself from the artificial
confines of the material world and return to Nature. In city environments it
isn’t always easy to find a green, open space, an expansive view  of sky and
clouds, a lungful of pure air. But if you can find a patch of ground to lie
down on, shoes off and arms outstretched to the sun, take advantage of it.Short of that, seek out experiences of Nature where you live, getting up
early to appreciate the sunrise or stoppin g for a few moments in the evening
to watch the sunset and gaze at the moon and stars. Your body’s cells are exquisitely attuned to the cycles of the moon, sun,
and stars. When you drink Nature in through your senses, this invisible
connection is strengthened. Even in the heart of congested urban areas, you
can tend a windowsill garden so that you can watch a seed grow; walking
out onto the roof of your building to absorb the sun also affords some
contact with Nature. However you can manage it, capture at least a few
moments of freshness and feel the nourishing touch of earth, sun, and sky . 3. Experiencing and trusting emotions
Begin a journal of your feelin gs. This needn’ t be a complicated task. Simply make a list of some key emotions and note one example  of each as it
arises in your day. Start with key words for the basic positiv e emotions,
such as:
love joy
sympathy acceptance
happiness friendliness
trust compassion
Next, make a column for more abstract feelings associated with creativity
and personal growth, such as:
insight intuition
discovery transcendence
faith merging
forgiveness peace
revelation  
Last, note the primary negative emotions, such as:anger envy
anxiety sorrow
guilt greediness
distrust selfishness
Look at this sheet of paper in the morning and take it with you to work as
a reminder . Although you will get the most benefit by actually writing down
your feelings in some detail, making them explicit and reliving how strong
each feeling was, what kind of circumstances triggered it, and how much a
particular emotio n meant to you, you can do very well with a silent journal. That is, glance down the list and simply remember each emotion briefly . Your goals with this journal are as follows:
  1. T o discover how often you feel things that get overlooked. 2. To permit the spontaneous  release of emotions that you would
normally repress or try to for get. 3. To truly know your emotions. Many people cannot specif ically
describe what compassion or insight feels like, for example, but
by consc iously being on the lookout for an emotion, you will get
to know it intimately . This is the first stage of mastering your
emotions. 4. To make your emotions enjoyable. The life of feelings is meant
to be rich and satisfying, but if your emotions are strangers to
you, you cannot enjoy them. Many people have convinced
themselves that they have few if any emotions; yet, despite our
efforts to repress them, there is a feeling attached to every single
thought we have. Bringing all these feelings to light puts you
back into the wholeness of the mind-body connection, and
wholeness is the most satisfying state in which to live. In your daily inventory , don’t skip over any words on your list and don’t
dwell on any single category (even if you felt angry several times in one
day, think of only one instance,  then move on). Also, it’s important not to
focus too much on negative emotions, which are the easiest for everyone to
experience and usually are the most self-serving. I ask you to bring upnegative emotions so that you may gain insight into their origin. Being
aware of where an emotion comes from permits the dissipation  of negative
feelings (this is guaranteed to happen, although for stubbornly rooted or
repressed negativity , the process will take time). Negative emotions close
off and limit the world, while the point of this exercise is to awaken the
expansive, creative emotions. If you take your journal seriously , you will be amazed at how many
diverse emotions you have during the day without being conscio us of them. Whatever you pay attention to grows, and even though you may feel that
words such as insight  or revelation  apply to you only rarely , just by looking
at your list and focusing on each feeling for a few seconds you will create
space for them to grow . Being genuinely in touch with emotions tends to be tremendously
difficult amid work and other activities. Emotions don’t follow a routine,
and if you have a tendency to be removed from your feelings, the rush of
modern life makes it even easier to repress and escape feelings as they
arise. Yet nothing is more impo rtant than experiencing your feelings. They
are the most spontaneous part of your makeup, the most primary expression
of your awareness as it relates to the world. You are the totali ty of all the
relationships you have, and the most accurate mirror of them is your
emotions. 4. Remaining center ed amid chaos
In order to rema in centered and calm when everything around you is in
confusion, you need to develop  skills for finding your center . To do that,
isolate two times in your workda y when things are most hectic and stressful
for you (momen ts of heaviest workload are an obvious choic e, as is the
afternoon rush hour going home ). Now plan to take five minutes to center
yourself just before these two periods, using the following technique:
Find a place where you can be alone, one that is as quiet as possible. Sit
comfortably and close your eyes. Pay attention to your breathin g, focusing
on the passage of air into and out of your nostrils. See the air as faint swirls
coming into your nostrils and gently flowing out again. After two minutes,
begin to feel your body (i.e., note the sensations inside your body, on yourskin, the weight of your limbs, etc.). After a minute, gently bring your
attention to the center of your chest and lightly rest it there. Within a few
seconds your attention will probably be distracted by a fleeting thought or
sensation. Don’ t resist this, but when you notice what is happening, gently
return your focus to your chest. End the exercise by sitting quietly , doing
nothing. Although this is a very simpl e technique, the dischar ge of negative
energies it produces is often quite dramatic—you can feel a heavy burden
lifting off your shoulders and sense a lightness and calm infusing your
whole being. Most important, you will begin to experience  that being
centered is actually the most natural and comfortable way to be in any
situation, no matter how hectic. Centering is a way to return to your self and
become unmoored from the confusion around you. 5. Being childlike
Write down two or three thing s you can do tomorrow that are totally
childlike. Think of something that evokes childhood for you—eating an ice
cream cone, being on the playground, playing games with the shapes of
clouds. Begin to incorporate these activities more and more into your
present life. Your goal is to find that place inside you where you are still a
carefree child. The new paradigm tells us that no event ever disappears; it
only recedes out of conscious awareness back into the field. Therefore, your
childhood is still there with you, ready to be evoked and integrated into
your being. The activity you choose should be fun but not adult fun; even if you feel
you have outgrown hopscotch,  jump rope, or toys, find something that
irresistibly brings back your happiness as a child (baking a comforting
dessert such as apple pie or bread pudding is a good suggestion) . When you
carry out your childlike activity , be a child. Perhaps you will decide to go to
a playground to swing or to climb on a jungle gym or just to participate by
watching children at play. Put your mind into the innocent, carefree mode
that children exhibit. The feelin g you are trying to recapture here is not a
return to childhood but someth ing much more profound, as stated by the
brilliant writer and therapist A. H. Almaas.“When we look at a child,” Almaas writes, “we see that the sense of
fullness, of intrinsic aliveness, of joy in being, is not the result of something
else. There is value in just being oneself; it is not because of something one
does or doesn’ t do. It is there in the beginning, when we were children, but
slowly it gets lost.” What usuall y happens over time is that we lose track of
the joy inside us; there may be numerous sources of pleasure and success
outside us, but they don’ t match our feelings, which may remain at very low
levels of worthiness and satisfaction. Ultimately , the desire to be young again is a symbol of the deeper desire
to remai n new. Babies and young children have no problem with this. By
putting yourself back into the most childlike mindset you can imagine, you
open the way for learning, as Almaas puts it, that “we are the pleasure, we
are the joy , we are the most profound significance and the highest value.”
6. Being self-r eferral
The highest state of consciousness available to us is unity , which erases
the distinction between observ er and observed. In unity , everything you
once thought was “out there” is seen to be part of yourself. What prevents
this expe rience is a false sense of self built from images of past experience. Self-image is necessary to a very limited extent; you have to know your
identity and profession and other technical matters. But most people weight
their self-image with a multitude  of opinions, beliefs, likes and dislikes, and
other extraneous baggage. To get rid of this baggage and reexperience
yourself as a free, uncluttered person, you have to work at stripping away
the crusted varnish of self-image. Your action plan can take many different directions in accomplishing this
goal. • You can take up a new activity that is totally incongruous with your
self-image. Take up aerobic dancing if you are a gray-flanneled business
executive, or weight lifting if you’re a housewife. Expose yourself to people
and situations that challenge you to grow beyond old habits. • Volunteer to work with the homeless or the disabled. Being confronted
with people who are very different from you, learning to overcome yourinnate fear and resistance to them, and finally seeing yourself in them is a
powerful way to find your common humanity . • Write your autobiography . Putting down every detail of your life as
candidly and honestly as possible will help you detach from ingrained
attitudes by showing you wher e they came from. The act of writing also
forces you to articulate things you normally take for granted, such as how
you feel about your parents and your career . Be as detailed and explicit as
possible. Conce ntrate on how you felt at every period of your life. Don’ t
justify your actions or make yourself out to be better than you are. If you
find it difficult to express yourself, try to unlock the flow of words by
writing about yourself in the third person: “John was dominated by a father
he both loved and feared,” rather than, “I was dominated by a father I both
loved and feared.”
• Resolv e to take one step every day to correct some behavior that you
know isn’t an expression of the real you. For example, you may be an
habitual people- pleaser who always says what other people like to hear. The
next time you find yourself falling into that trap, say what you really feel. The situation doesn’ t have to be dramatic or earthshaking. Someone might
remark, “The bus is always late, isn’t it?” or, “Things are really running
down around here.” Instead of chiming in to agree with their complaint,
state how you actually feel about things. On the other hand, if you are
always outspoke n and tend to feel that others should listen to you, stop
yourself and listen to them for a change. These simple exercises can
actually be quite challenging; you need to learn to lower your social facade,
and the more you practice, the less critical you will find it is to wear the
mask. • Expand  your efforts in meditat ion, Yoga, creative visualization, or other
inner disciplines that take you outside your confined awareness.
_OceanofPDF.com_Ageless_Body_Timeless_Mind_-_Deepak_Chopra.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        Sometimes a person feels compelled to
try to shatter the entire body of experience he or she has creat ed over the
years; people who suddenly change jobs or plunge into divorce without
provocation are often motivated by an inability to revise their inner world. They may project the blame outward, onto an unsuitable job or unloved
wife. What has actually becom e intolerable, however, is their internalized
experience. Toxic memories have accumulated inside the person to the
point where perfectly neutral situations—meeting the boss at the water
cooler, watching the wife brush her teeth in the morning—arouse deep-
seated negative emotions. Running away is an attempt to relieve these
emotions, but the tactic rarely works because what we want to run away
from has become part of ourselves. Time-bound versus Timeless Awareness
Throughout this book I’ve argued that how you age depends on how you
metabolize your experience. And in the final analysis, how you metabolize
time is the most  important aspect of this process, because time is the most
fundamental experience. A key lesson in the spiritual teachings of J. Krishnamurti was this: “Time is the psychological enemy of man,” meaning
that we are psychologically undermined and deprived of our real selves by
the feeling that time is an absolute over which we have no control. We
somehow forget that we can choose whether to make time our enemy in the
first place. It’s possible to have actual experiences of timelessness, and when that
happens, there is a shift from time-bound awareness to timeless awareness. Time-bound awareness is defined by:
•  Exter nal goals (approval from others; material possessions; salary;
climbing the ladder of professional success)
•  Deadlines and time pressure
•  Self-image built up from past experiences
•  Lessons learned from past hurts and failures
•  Fear of change, fear of death
•  Distraction by past and future (worries, regrets, anticipations,
fantasies)
•  Longing for security (never permanently achieved)•  Selfish ness, limited point of view (typical motivation: “What’ s in it for
me. ”)
Timeless awareness is defined by:
•  Internal goals (happiness; self-acceptance; creativity; satisfaction that
one is doing one’ s best at all times)
•  Freedom from time pressure; sense that time is abundant and open-
ended
•  Little thought of self-image; action focused on the present moment
•  Reliance on intuition and leaps of imagination
•  Detachment from change and turmoil; no fear of death
•  Positive experiences of Being
•  Selfle ssness; altruism; sense of shared humanity (typical motivation:
“Can I help. ”)
•  Sense of personal immortality
Although I have described them  as opposites, there is in fact a whole
range of experience running from completely time-bound to completely
timeless awaren ess. A person who dreads his mortality, who is consumed
by success and deadlines and depends solely on external motivations, would
be almost pathologically time-bound, yet we can all see some of these traits
in ourselves. On the other hand, the saint who lives only for God, whose
experience of Being is constant and certain, represents the extreme freedom
of timel essness. Most people do not manifest either extreme; and yet in
many ways our deepest traits and attitudes are based on how we relate to
time and metab olize it. To discover where you are on the scale of time-
bound versus timeless awareness, answer the following questionnaire. QUESTIONNAIRE: HOW DO YOU MET ABOLIZE TIME. Read the following sentences and check off each one that applies to
you fairly often or that you generally agree with. Some of thestatements in Part 1 may seem to contradict others in Part 2, but that
doesn’ t matter. Even if you have seemingly opposed traits and
opinions, answer each statement on its own. Part 1
  1. There’s barely enough time in the day to do all the things I have
to. 2. I’m sometimes too exhausted at night to get to sleep. 3. I’ve had to abandon several important goals I set for myself
when I was younger. 4. I’m less idealistic than I used to be. 5. It bothers me to let unpaid bills sit around. 6. I’m more cautious now about making new friends and entering
serious relationships. 7. I’ve learned a lot from the school of hard knocks. 8. I spend more time and attention on my career than on my friends
and family. 9. I could be a lot wiser about how I spend my money. 10. Life is a balance of losses and gains; I just try to have more gains
than losses. 11. In a loving relationship, the other person should be counted  on to
meet my needs. 12. It sometimes hurts to remember the people I have let down. 13. Being loved is one of the most important things I can think of. 14. I don’ t like authority figures. 15. For me, one of the most frightening prospects about old age is
loneliness. Part 1 score ______
Part 2
  1. I do what I love, I love what I do.
An inability to revise their inner world and the accumulation of toxic memories.
What is the author suggesting as the reason why some people change their jobs or get divorced without provocation?
Death is not the cause of aging, but rather a natural part of the cycle of life and death.
What is the author arguing is not the cause of aging, according to Einstein's theory?
The belief in death, which is a result of our inner conditioning and lack of understanding of the true nature of reality.
What is the author suggesting as the source of our fear of death?
By recognizing that death is not an enemy, but rather a natural part of the cycle of life and death, and by learning to detach from the fear of death.
What is the author proposing as a way to overcome the fear of death and achieve a sense of freedom?
By recognizing the unity of all things and the interconnectedness of all life, and by taking steps to cultivate a sense of detachment from the external world and focus on the present moment.
What is the author suggesting as a way to overcome the limitations of our daily routine and find a sense of fulfillment?