Dear Gramps,
Do you believe in the “higher-self” principle in this context: Since there is no “Time” in heaven, meaning that the past, present and future are all happening at the same time, could I then assume that I exist in the future right now as an exalted (or non exalted) being and as such could try to influence my life’s choices here on earth? Can your higher self influence you? Is there a correlation between the Holy Ghost and the Higher Self? Why does this hurt my brain to think about??????
Shannon, from: Boise, Idaho
Dear Shannon,
There is very much that we don’t know about questions like these. All we can really do is to make come conjectures and wait until the next life to find out if they are true or not. One thing we don’t know is what non-time is like. When Adam was expelled from the Garden of Eden, time as we know it did not yet exist.
But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the time that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Now I, Abraham, saw that it was after the Lord’s time, which was after the time of Kolob; for as yet the Gods had not appointed unto Adam his reckoning (Abr 5:13).
Then we know that the earth will exist in time for only 7000 years.
Q. What are we to understand by the book which John saw, which was sealed on the back with seven seals? A. We are to understand that it contains the revealed will, mysteries, and the works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this earth during the seven thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence (D&C 77:6).
Outside of this temporary restriction we understand that—
The angels do not reside on a planet like this earth; But they reside in the presence of God, on a globe like a sea of glass and fire, where all things for their glory are manifest, past, present, and future, and are continually before the Lord (D&C 130:6-7).
Since what we call the future is continually before the Lord and apparently also the angels, we also must be there. So our beings could have what we might call an extended duration. Such a concept raises all sorts of unanswerable questions. Do the things that we do now affect what we are in what we call the future–or the past? This may be why it is so difficult to change our characters–i.e. to truly repent of undesirable actions, words and thoughts.
We are indeed eternal beings, and living for a period with the restriction of time only causes us to be unconscious of who we really are, and gives some deep significance to the concept and process of repentance.
Gramps
