"Everything you do has some weird failure in it." - Kabir (poet) as translated by Robert Bly

Earlier we briefly considered two ends of the scale of temporal aperture sizing.  There was the case of infinite temporal aperture, which is reserved only for Deities, and the minimal version for a one cell creature.  Human beings fall somewhere in between, and most persons would figure that bigger is better. In fact, evolution pushes in that direction. If a Deity has an infinite temporal aperture, why not aspire to that? Here are some tips directed to the Open Mystic visitor - you can start today so you'll be ready as we delve into Open Mystic mysteries!

+ Get into a quiet place and picture yourself as having an Infinite Temporal Aperture - "Pretend to be fully Enlightened" - Use your imagination to contemplate the implications as best you can.  Do this over and over again, but don't turn it into a delusion - a danger. As a review, an infinite temporal aperture would be a consciousness whose immediate here-and-now comprises the entire universe in every dimension for all time.  A great exercise for the imagination.  Imagine what it would be like to have such a consciousness. For instance, you'd have total ESP and clairvoyance since every single event ever is within your own temporal aperture - your capture opening in time. Wouldn't that be fun? Would you be able to deal with it? Why not? Why so?
One Benefit - most everyone alive can recollect scenes in their lives which now seem embarrassing, silly, or otherwise disturbing.  Sometimes the recriminations can be almost a debilitating distraction - mistakes made, silly moments, etc. The number of these may have increased as the person grows and accumulates further experience. You can think of a few right now as you read this read this, right?

If you were to magically become "totally enlightened" in, say, a Buddhist sense right this instant, then suddenly just about everything you've ever done in your past everyday life would be suspect and laden with one obvious error or another heretofore unseen and unknown.  Your new vast awareness and sensibilities could bring on a devastating realization of glaringly wasted, embarrassing, backward life events up to the Enlightened present.  The more aware and conscious a person grows to become, the greater the chance that earlier life events may seem riddled with error and simple dumb mistakes.

In that light, it's clear that you as a suddenly enlightened person would need to totally and absolutely brush off all such notions and continue on in the here-and-now. You would realize that recriminations over previous life events in a less aware arena are a total waste of time.  When you understand in your new state of awareness that every single life event is likely riddled with unknown and unseen errors that may later be subject to retrospective disdain, then any few events no longer singularly stick out to you as embarrassing snafus. This may be one meaning to the expression "here-and-now".  It would be impossible to become "enlightened" with a vast new awareness and then stick yourself with actually meaningless retrospective recriminations.

So in the process of "Pretend Enlightenment (as in Infinite Temporal Aperture)", you should include the notion that retrospective recrimination and agonizing over dumb past life events is a meaningless and often self-destructive waste of time and energy.  This is one good reason you may choose to follow this suggestion.

+ Stay in good physical shape. Exercise regularly. Lose destructive habits such as smoking and drinking.  Examine your diet and exercise patterns. Don't necessarily go overboard with it - but get in shape within whatever personal limitations.

+ Take up an art form - any art form you can enjoy. Could be anything - piano, painting, Native American flute, making baskets, whatever.  Dance is strongly suggested since it involves so much of a person - it is simultaneously physical, aesthetic, non-verbal, and social. Your arts choice must be something you enjoy and can be motivated to understand as deeply as possible. If you don't actively take up an art, at least passively study favorite art forms to as much understanding as possible. Learn to use your "right brain" as effectively as possible. Poetry and other word based arts are fine as long as you get to where you can "read between the lines" for hidden meanings embedded by the writers.

+ Learn some science - any science or technical area - Learn to use the left brain as best as you possibly can. 

+ Learn as much as possible about your own physiological and psychological processes and weaknesses.

+ Get into a quiet place and picture yourself as having an Infinite Temporal Aperture - "Pretend to be fully Enlightened" - Use your imagination to contemplate the implications as best you can.  Do this over and over again, but don't turn it into a delusion - a danger. As a review, an infinite temporal aperture would be a consciousness whose immediate here-and-now comprises the entire universe in every dimension for all time.  A great exercise for the imagination.  Imagine what it would be like to have such a consciousness. For instance, you'd have total ESP and clairvoyance since every single event ever is within your own temporal aperture - your capture opening in time. Wouldn't that be fun? Would you be able to deal with it? Why not? Why so?
One Benefit:

+ Never do anything that is destructive - to yourself or others. Paradoxically, an infinite temporal aperture necessarily includes all evil and violence - the worst things you can imagine and horrors you can't imagine. It is sufficient to accept the presence of these possibilities without actually doing them.  Aggression, etc. can be studied in play such as sports, stage drama, etc. Plenty of healthy opportunities exist to take these things out of the box, play with them, and then put them back. Absolute denial that they exist within you is unhealthy.

+ Become all inclusive -  this is the essence of the entire discussion. "All inclusive" means just that - all inclusive. Avoid "chakra favoritism". An infinite temporal aperture includes all of them. Don't get hung up or obsessed with any one chakra level. Observe them at their various levels and move on without attachment.

A. Become aware of hangups and snags in your everyday life - any "us/them" judgmental events are obviously contrary to the concept of a large temporal aperture - where there are no disparaging stereotypes. Inclusive means inclusive.

B. Study unfamiliar cultures, especially indigenous ones. Your hypermodern SUV rocket ship mass media culture doesn't have all the answers. Never rip off indigenous cultures, but do listen and know them as best you can while avoiding the hazards of fakery. Again, an expanded temporal aperture is all inclusive.

C. If you have areas of discomfort in your life, make it a point to study these most carefully since they will be a sticking point. Fears, paranoias, and worries are key areas to examine carefully. An expanded temporal aperture would make these easier to understand.

+ Become totally flexible - do whatever you can to become more flexible. After all, awareness expansion, aka growing your temporal aperture size, amounts to continuous change. So practice perhaps by altering your daily schedule and breaking whatever habits you can, etc. You will need mental agility.

+ Declare that problem solving is your highest pleasure.  You'll get an endless free supply in life, so why not take advantage of the situation? As you improve your skill and creativity at solving problems, you'll find that other people not so graced will want to pay you $$$$ to solve their problems, such as with the computer, their corn crop, or whatever your focus is. Most importantly, you will be creating the demand for your own temporal aperture growth as you encounter novel situations.  It's a regenerative positive feedback scenario.

+ Follow your positive interests to the limit.  Once again, it is at the limits in whatever pursuit you choose where the opportunity and demand will be present to increase your temporal aperture extent.

+ Hazards - don't say you weren't warned.  Besides the self-delusion and fakery issues above, there are numerous pitfalls to awareness expansion. 

• If you successfully can enlarge your temporal aperture, that is,expand your awareness, your identity will increasingly blur.  This can be psychologically uncomfortable - but you'll get used to it. You can create new ones as you move along and grow.  All the world's a stage as Shakespeare said, so enjoy it to the max with the biggest temporal aperture you can put together.
• Any form of learning and awareness expansion brings with it the complication of conflicts as new knowledge contradicts the old.  These conflicts are stressful.  Your stress management skills will be seriously tested. If they aren't, then that's a clue that you haven't been successful in your temporal aperture expansion process.
• If you successfully expand your temporal aperture through problem solving, learning, and contemplating, you will become more aware of nuances in your everyday surroundings.  You will also become more aware of nuances within your own psyche. In that area, small psychological and emotional issues can become much bigger ones.  A stable person with a nominal temporal aperture volume may become an mentally unstable person with an expanded awareness.  This is a most significant hazard. Minor neuroses could become major psychoses.
  
  Consider an ordinary hand held police scanner. All users of these radios know that the receivers produce "birdies".  If the receiver is inadvertently tuned to the frequency of an internal birdie, it will lock up and no longer receive outside signals - a working micro-definition of psychosis. Similarly, a person with newly heightened awareness can conceivably be overwhelmed by their own internal "birdies".  The same sensitivities that beautifully acquire the outside world will also acquire an inner world - thereby causing latent weaknesses to become disastrous distractions.

Summary: Everyone has an available infinite temporal aperture. However, your human machinery filters almost all of it out. What remains is just your everyday experience - a tiny fraction of the whole. It is an ultimate joy to see if you can reduce the filtering as much as possible and see more of what's already and constantly there. All that's required is a strategy for both the filter reduction and dealing with the limitations and conflicts you will inevitably encounter in such growth - the ultimate life challenge.

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