Have you read a novel lately where all the characters were happy, cooperative and entirely at peace?

Why would you?

A novel like that would be, well, boring.

A novel of that sort wouldn’t be a novel. A novel of peace, love and harmony is usually a religious or spiritual work and often involves the distant past (like lost societies) or a distant future (post-life non-corporeal existence).

Peace and harmony is the past or the future, not the present.

Traditionally, a novel needs to have a central character (protagonist) who encounters some situation (a conflict) and we see how the central character and other characters change (character development). Not all novels follow this course, of course, but the most famous novels (and movies) you may find follow this pattern.

War makes a good setting for a novel because the conflict of war creates all kinds of personal challenges in terms of ethics, morality and character. War is sort of an easy way to have your work taken seriously. Invoke the horrors of World War II for greatest effect.

If we can’t imagine reading a book about peace and harmony, could we stand a life of peace and harmony? Or would it be simply too boring?

Third Dimensional Time

Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s there was discussion about whether violent video games made people (often young boys) violent. While that discussion has changed scope through our recent high-profile violence (Boston Marathon bombing, school shootings, etc.), I think it’s an interesting time to re-visit the question.

My own view is the violence stems from within but yet when projected outward, it seems to encourage and enhance the violent energy. While violent video games (and TV shows and movies) might not cause violence, they still feed the energy, like dropping sugar into yeast. The feeding helps the energy to expand.

Recently I happened upon a small book called “The Shift” that explains this phenomenon well. The author, Jim Self, says the third dimension is not structure but consists of three elements: time loop, duality and the rational mind.

Regarding third dimensional time he states that “it is an application that allows us to create a new set of experiences based on our past to be experienced in our future.”

Where’s the present?

Self states that there is a sliver of the present which he refers to as Reactionary Present Time.

If you meditate, you might find your teachers focusing in on the sliver of the present. Your mind, if you chose to observe it, often goes to the past or future. Keeping it in the present is the discipline of a lifetime.

The horoscope

The horoscope for all of us is the same with different elements enhanced or reduced. The planets revolve and rotate in a consistent and never-ending pattern.

Sounds a bit like the time loop.

Let’s say you have a desire to eat a lot of food all the time which might be represented by moon in Cancer. Every time a planet moves into Cancer, your desire to eat a lot of food is brought out in some way.

The sun goes into Cancer every year and so that period of time may bring lots of food. Saturn goes into Cancer every 30 years and during that time you may be reducing food or struggling for food. Jupiter goes into Cancer every 12 years and during that time there is too much food or gifts of food. Uranus goes into Cancer every 81 years and you may find unusual and drastic changes to food often brought on by changes to society.

The placement of the moon is triggered in a number of ways in a consistent and endless pattern.

Endless pattern.

If we lived for 500 years, imagine all the triggering (called transits) that would occur.

While peace and harmony may be boring, the endless triggering of repeated patterns is bit boring too.

Jumping out of third world

While studying Qi Gong in the east, the teacher provided an article that had reference to something called “jumping out of the third world.” Or something similar to that phrase – I can’t find the work right now.

When jumping out of the “third world,” you may not be so similar to the personality represented in your horoscope the teacher said.

If you’ve jumped out of the third “world,” you may have, as The Shift describes, jumped into the fourth “world” (i.e., dimension).

In that dimension, Self states, you live in the present.

Your corporeal body, of course, is still in the third. In the fourth dimension, however, you are removing yourself from the time loop and the endless projection of triggers.

Is peace and harmony still boring in the present moment?

If not, we can then have peace and harmony without having to die first.