TIME AND ETERNITY
754. The »past present ? future« direction is the course of missed opportunities and not the direction of the process of neglecting, which is »future ? present ? past«.
755. The past has the strongest connection with neglecting. There is past because man continuously misses opportunities, he fails to collect and hold together the totality of being.
756. There is past because the presence of man in the present is not sufficient.
757. We have temporality because our experience of the present is not intense enough. If it were completely intense, there would be no temporality, the temporal present would absorb both past and future, and Time itself too.
758. Future is some sort of potentiality: things arrive from the future, then they become present, and turn into past when man fails to reunite the fragmented existence.
759. There are three fundamental ways to observe time: the linear view in a horizontal sense, the cyclic view and the linear view in a vertical sense. The latter could also be called radical, since it is the conception of the outbreak from the cycle, and that of entering into the timeless and motionless centre.
[Contemporary study of religions perceives only two of the above: the linear view in the horizontal sense, and the cyclic view.]
760. »The birth of the gods« and the »twilight of the gods« is a cum tempore beginning and a cum tempore end: they do not happen in time, but with the time.
761. (The hierarchical grades of infinite time) Æternitas: is a timeless, and super-temporal, absolute and endless time. Æviternitas: is the endless time manifesting together with time watched from the side of timelessness, while sempiternitas: is the endless time manifesting together with time watched from the side of time. Perpetualitas: is considered to be an endless duration; while diuturnitas: is a finite but very long duration. Perennitas - that is eternally valid - is the light and imprint of æternitas on time.
762. Perennitas is the manifestation of the absolutely hyper-temporal, timeless and endless time. It is the shining of æternitas in time, the manifestation of the incorruptible in the perishable world. Perennitas is the eternal-validity, which enters and exists in the perishable world, and which represents the absolute endless time.
[As the aphorism suggests it below perennitas may appear as traditio perennis, religio perennis, sophia perennis or philosophia perennis etc., i.e. the eternally valid tradition, the eternally valid religion, the eternally valid wisdom, and the eternally valid philosophy.]
763. Sophia perennis, religio perennis, and philosophia perennis i.e. the perennial wisdom, perennial religion and the perennial philosophy are perennial not in the sense of being absolutely timeless or becoming and ceasing together with time, but in the sense that they appear in time, in the perishable world, and they represent a timeless eternity in this perishable world.
764. From the spiritual point of view perpetualitas, i.e. the tendency towards the realisation of infinity in finiteness, has only the slightest importance and validity. This is the Hegelian schlechte Unendlichkeit, the »bad infinity«, the inadequate effort to realise infinity, apart from the fact of whether it is possible or not.
[cp. perpetuum mobile]
765. The timeless eternal is the centre and ruler of the temporal world.
766. Timeless eternity (æternitas) is the hyper-temporal condensation of all temporal beings. The hyper-temporal contains everything: not only past, but future as well.
767. The one who could grasp the point-like nature of the present would directly step on the path of leaving temporality, since the basis of leaving time behind is the transcending intensification of the present.
768. Present is the gate of eternity.