When not How

There is a scene in Dark, the excellent supernatural time loop Netflix series, where a young boy shows his father a magic trick. At the end of the trick, the father exclaims “How did you do that”?

The boy replies:

It is not a question of “how” but “when”.

The word “when” is significant in our lives. We can trace the direction of our lives, backwards or forwards, to ‘when’ an event influenced our lives.

“When” relates to “time”, which is a critical feature of our life at this level of existence. We think of “time” as linear, stretching out to infinity. But does it really stretch out? Time only moves forwards doesn’t it?

But perhaps it is circular, cyclical, recurring: events happening again and again in a similar way. Do we in fact go backwards and forwards in time across generations, and do the same things again and again?

In the series Dark, the narrator states:

Everything repeats itself, again and again for all eternity

Because none of us are prepared to let go of the past.

The Beginning is the End

And the End is the Beginning.

Podcasters talk endlessly about “how” we exit this world, but perhaps the more appropriate question is “when”.

Before discussing the ‘how’ or ‘when’, is time actually cyclical? There are many sources that indicate that time is indeed cyclical.

Or at least it is until we reach a point where it isn’t anymore.

For instance, the key Buddhist philosophy suggests we recycle constantly until we don’t need to anymore, “when” an event occurs which stops the recycling.

Further, the reports produced by the Newton Institute’s regressive life-between-life hypnosis sessions suggest that our souls return for multiple visits to the Earth realm for learning, soul development, observation and other specific reasons.

“When” do these visits end?

The answer is: When we have reached a point when we don’t need to go back.

Or as Kafka said:

From a certain point onward, there is no turning back; that is the point that must be reached.

Or as was said in the post-apocalyptic series Station Eleven:

There is no before

Only what is to come.

And then there is everyone’s favourite cyclical example, the Yugas, which tell us that time is cyclical, the time-cycle we are in now being the kali-yuga, a time of darkness, criminal leaders, hypocrisy, and the rule of technology.

But then there is something else.

The rishis knew we could stop both linear and cyclical time once we had reached a certain point of enlightenment.

The Hindu rishis, the enlightened ones as recorded in the Upanishads, who wrote Vedic hymns and poems, saw time and nature as cyclical because they understood there to be an immovable centre around which it was possible to observe all things coming and going.

That centre is ourselves, the atman.

But the observation, the going around and around, ended when we learnt to turn inwards, properly centred, rather than rotating endlessly, samsara-style.

And that isn’t a circle anymore, it is a straight line to the centre – the Self.

And that leads us back to that modern question of whether we live in an artificial world in which some consider our souls to be trapped.

Whether trapped or not, it is not how we will extract ourselves, but when.

And that is when we have reached a frequency level when we have removed our Self from the coffin of mind programming and attachments which we have allowed ourselves to be buried under in this life.

By reaching that frequency level, we can go wherever we desire, especially back to ourselves, source, or out into higher spiritual worlds beyond the containment zone, where we can continue our soul development into even higher levels of consciousness.

This unhindered exit is “when” we have become aware, unencumbered and pure, and have learnt to become good souls. Then those mind barriers disappear.

12 December 2025