Space and Time - Beyond the Veil PART I
Breaking the Time Barrier: Crossing the Veil of Cognition and Heart
For decades, I have carried an intuition I could not fully name. It first emerged during a pivotal moment in my life, when I had to reinstate my student visa for university studies in Florida. I had to go alone, right before my exams. I had little money, no one to accompany me, and I disliked the energy I felt around me while staying in Nassau, Bahamas.
So I stayed in my Caribbean hotel room, reading extracts of Sheikh Fadhlallah Haeri. In that quiet, reflective space, I realized something profound: all we have is not time, but our deeds. In that same moment, I decided not only to wear the hijab, but to be the first to graduate from my university wearing it, and the first in my entire city. A month later, I fulfilled that decision. That act — bold, unprecedented, and deliberate — became the first tangible expression of my understanding that our actions define our path through time, not the other way around.
Years later, this realization deepened: “Time is caused by our deeds.” Only much later did I discover the hadith of Imam al-Sadiq (ʿa):
“Time is nothing but your deeds unfolding before you.”
The Qur’an echoes this: “Indeed, We give life to the dead and record what they have sent ahead and their traces (āthārahum)” (36:12).
Time, as we experience it, is not neutral. It is a reflection of our actions, a measure of the traces we leave behind. Humanity is trapped in a loop — a cycle that began with the descent of Nabi Ādam (as). Before that moment, human existence was aligned with the eternal; after it, we entered a world of cycles, repetition, and limitations. The veil of our perception thickened, and time became linear in appearance.
The recent movie Interstellar illustrates this beautifully. In the tesseract scene, Cooper moves across time because of love — intention in action — accessing a higher dimension. Similarly, in the Islamic framework, the 313 companions of the Imam are described as “bending time” through perfect alignment of will, action, and Divine remembrance. Time, when fully understood, is not something that happens to us; it is the manifestation of our deeds and intentions.
This is why deeds are the axis of reality. Every choice, every word, every act shapes not only our destiny but the very rhythm of time around us. Ordinary humans move within the loop of habitual patterns. Those who refine intention, align action with ethics, and synchronize thought and heart begin to experience time differently — they step beyond the habitual cycles into a realm where perception and reality expand.
Understanding this is the first step. If time itself is created by deeds, then by consciously cultivating intention, ethics, and action, we can begin to break the loop, move with clarity, and prepare for the awakening promised with the appearance of the Imam (ʿatfs).
Comments
Post a Comment