You seem to be implying that there is a direct relationship between the models of time we are aware of and the perspectives we are able to adopt. Can you clarify this?

Ok... When I talk about viewing life from a particular perspective, I'm referring to the way we focus our attention.

The models of time we use simply provide a framework that can help us interpret and understand things. But no matter which models we use, we find our attention focussing in a variety of different ways at different times... Sometimes we focus on the immediate short-term, sometimes on the longer term and occasionally on the entirety of time (or "eternity"). When we focus on eternity, we are adopting what I would call a spiritual perspective. This perspective occurs when one feels oneself to be very detached from the physical body, the extreme example of which is an “out of body” experience.

These different perspectives or ways of focussing attention are fundamental and everyone experiences all of them at least sometimes, quite irrespective of what beliefs they hold about time.

So you're saying there isn't a relationship between the models of time we hold and the perspectives we adopt?

There is a relationship, but it's not straightforward. I'll try and explain...

Although most people are well aware of their ability to see things from short-term and longer-term perspectives, if they believe that time progresses in a straight line, they will find themselves unable to conceptualise or understand what an "eternal" perspective is... the idea simply cannot fit into their way of thinking. Indeed, if one believes that the future has not yet happened, the idea of a perspective encapsulating the entirety of time is a logical impossibility. Thus most people simply deny the possibility of such a perspective; and whenever memories-of-the-future arise in the form of intuitions or premonitions, they tend to be interpreted as amounting to nothing more than delusory fantasies and are simply dismissed or repressed.

However, when one adopts a model of time that enables one to conceptualise the perspective that includes the entirety of time, such memories-of-the-future are likely to resurface and come to play a much more significant role in one's daily life.

I'm sure a lot of people would find it quite hard to imagine how simply adopting a new theory of time can really have that much impact on how they feel about their lives or how they respond to other people. I myself have always tended to think that big changes only come about when one has some sort of profound spiritual experience like, for example, a near-death or out of body experience.

Certainly people do have experiences like the ones you mention, in which they are overcome by feelings of unity, love and an awareness of the perfection of all-that-is. Indeed, such experiences are not all that uncommon and can be even be triggered by psychotropic drugs. But unless those experiences precipitate significant changes in understanding, their effect is only very temporary and limited.

Perhaps one of the biggest misunderstandings about the nature of spiritual awareness is that it is dependent upon such experiences. Really, it is the change in understanding that is all-important; and although profound earth-shattering experiences can help precipitate or reinforce such a change, they are not absolutely necessary.

The development of a deep spiritual understanding takes time. It's as if understandings start off in your head, but need to work their way down into your guts. You have to become the embodiment of them. In order for this to happen, every aspect of your life and behaviour needs to be reassessed in the light of the new understanding. It is a gradual process.

But as this process progresses, many experiences that previously would have been interpreted in a mundane way themselves start to take on the guise of profound spiritual experiences. So it's equally possible that such experiences may only start to come to you after you have developed a deep spiritual understanding. It can happen either way.

What about meditation, prayer, and other so called "spiritual practices"? Do they help in the development of such an awareness?

When one is detached, one naturally finds oneself feeling like a passive observer and it is then that the experience of the spiritual or eternal perspective arises. The most extreme and clear-cut examples of this are the so called "near-death" or "out-of-body" experiences that you mentioned. Whereas when one is performing physical activities or making effort to think about or do something, one finds oneself experiencing a more short-term, physical perspective.

You cannot, however, force yourself to be detached from the physical body and its senses by "doing meditation". It's not quite that simple. Although you may be able make yourself sit still and stop yourself moving physically; simply being physically still does not automatically mean that your focus of attention will also change.

Ultimately, a detached perspective arises when it is destined to; there's no reason why it should arise at other times and there is nothing we can do to make it do so. So the idea of being able to adopt a spiritual perspective at will is not really a sensible one.

So there's no point trying to meditate?

There is no doubt that when one sits to do meditation there is a good chance that new insights and understandings will arise and those insights may well precipitate some sort of spiritual experience. But the idea of actively "practising" meditation is a bit of a self-contradiction. All the same I must admit that I myself spent years trying to do just that, and hoping to achieve inner stillness as a result. Nowadays I still sit and meditate, but I've given up trying to use force to get results.

I guess the same could be said of prayer. We all find ourselves spontaneously praying for things from time to time. It usually involves a sort of concentrated focus of attention on a particular desire for the future. If you believe that behind each such desire lies a subconscious memory-of-the-future, it's quite easy to imagine how the more strongly you focus on a particular desire the clearer and less ambiguous that memory is likely to become. In this way one is increasingly able to know what the future holds and to act wisely, in accordance with that knowledge. But again, the idea that one can just decide to sit down and pray, and make prayers come by force, seems to me a little unrealistic.