I Fully realise why many, including scientists, would object to the notion that time travel is a matter of the mind. One reason is simple: there is no way to argue or discuss the matter in terms of a repeatable experiment. How would we do so? When it comes to the technology of time travel, this objection probably doesn’t arise. It is certainly difficult, perhaps impossible, to create the sphere of many radii in a laboratory. Nevertheless, the possibility holds a scientist’s attention because if the device could be built, the experiment could be carried out - just gather together the necessary ingredients, follow the recipe, and voila! You have a time machine. Whether or not it works becomes a question of technical skill.Time travel as envisioned through the mind, though, is a very different thing, and bringing it into the discussion immediately plunges us into the areas of psychology and spirituality. The mind is not objectifiable; hence, experiments dealing with it are ultimately indirect - including experimentation on human and animal behaviour and its possible modification through physical means or stimuli of some kind. Using the mind for time travel is not only indirect, it is also highly subjective. As such, it becomes part of spiritual discipline as much as of psychology.I briefly explained [how] time travel using the mind gives the traveller a whole new vista of possible exploration, but it also requires a sacrifice. Many of us feel the need to carry lots of baggage when we travel any distance; however, to time travel we must leave some seemingly very important luggage behind. That baggage, which is our egos and our sense of individuality, may be something we would rather not and, indeed, may not even be able to leave. It is this luggage that prevents the time traveller’s access to the future and the past. We have spent our lives developing our sense of who and what we believe we are. The ego appears to us as robust and indispensable, yet ancient spiritual teaching tells us that it is only an illusion through which each of us conceives of ourselves as a singular entity or “I”. Just as all movies do, this illusion captures us, and we soon feel that we are no longer an audience witnessing but actual characters in the film.Excerpted from ‘The Yoga of Time Travel’, published by Wisdom Tree
