Somewhere between the first breath and the last, there is now. Not memories, just NOW. 

Isn’t that where life has always been waiting? 

This article is not about time as measured by clocks. It is about the deeper time, that doesn’t only age the body, but awakens the whole being within it. 

We will explore the illusion of time, the revelation of age and presence, the secrets of infinity and eternity, and the soft collapse of all yesterdays. 

Not to escape the human experience but to fully enter it.  

To face the shadow, see clearly and remember. 

One day, time will forget us too 

 As a doorway to be entered, let us pause, contemplate and reflect on these beautiful Quran’ic verses that hold the entire mystery of our origin:  

In the second verse from Sūrat al-Insān Allah says: We created the human from a drop of mixed semen, to test them, and We made them hearing and seeing. 

God created humans and gave them Perception (the veil and the filter) to test them. Hearing and seeing are the tools via the mind. 

So we perceive Eternity as Time, and Infinity as Space and form. Our test is to see through the veil until being able to see the omnipresence of God “wherever we turn.” Time will no more exist, only the unfiltered NOW. 

In the 22nd Verse from Sūrat Qaf Allah Says: You were certainly heedless of this, but now We have removed your veil, so today your vision is sharp and clear. 

Between these two verses lies the entire human experience. We begin in veiled perception, gifted with sight and hearing that both connect and limit us. We grow, we age, we experience, and we chase meaning through time. We are tested by our own senses for they filter the infinite and seduce us with form. Yet at the end — death — when the veil is lifted, we see. Not with our earthly eyes, but with sharp vision forged in the soul and not in the retina. 

Time is not what we think. It is not merely a measure of life, decay or achievement. It is the arena of forgetting and the invitation to remember eternity.  

If life is to be a school, Time would be the classroom, Perception the lessons, and Infinity the destination. 

 Time o’clock: the noise between seconds 

 From our first breath the clock began its ticking, not just the biological one, but the cultural one: 

Crawl, walk, speak, obey… 

School, grades, degrees, career, milestones, deadlines, marriage, promotions, retirement …         A racetrack, with medals awaiting at each checkpoint! 

Each phase comes with its own set of expectations, unspoken rules, and an invisible stopwatch. 

We are asked to move forward and never pause. We chase validation, status, and productivity. Even when we are exhausted, we don’t stop, we run even when no one is watching and when we are out of breath. Rest becomes guilt and stillness feels like failure. 

In most cultures and societies we are taught to perform, to adapt, to compete, and seduce. We are not taught to turn inward. Only results are rewarded, not self-understanding. 

As a result, many people go through decades of life with a carefully managed and maintained exterior, while their inner world remains completely unexplored and unexamined. They grow older, they repeat patterns, they accumulate responsibilities without necessarily becoming wiser, freer or with more insight.  

Why? Because self-awareness asks uncomfortable destabilizing questions: Why am I doing this job? Do I actually want this relationship? Who am I when no one needs me, praises me, or fears me? What do I believe, outside what I’ve inherited? It’s inconvenient and it disrupts the narrative.  

So we often avoid these questions until we can’t.. 

And enter the crisis… 

Crisis is a rupture. It interrupts the script: a  divorce, a burnout, a death, a diagnosis, the loss of a role, identity, or illusion. Suddenly, the scaffolding of life collapses. What held us together no longer works. In crisis, we are forced to confront our raw selves, who we really are when illusions, distractions, and comforts are stripped away. In that confrontation, self-awareness begins as a necessity and survival mechanism and not as a choice or personal development goal. It comes because there is no other way forward!  

Some people, when faced with this rupture, begin to see clearly. Patterns come into view: repeated dynamics in relationships, compulsive behaviors, emotional triggers that no longer make sense on the surface. Beneath those patterns, buried wounds start to rise, unhealed experiences, unmet needs, inner parts we have long ignored or denied… 

At this point the divine test  begins: The veil through which we’ve been perceiving ourselves, others, and the world, starts to thin! 

This is the entry point into what Carl Jung called shadow work: the inner process of turning toward the parts of ourselves we’ve rejected, denied, or disowned: shame, anger, fear, grief, suppressed power, desire, and aspects of our identity we learned, were unacceptable in early life or in certain environments. 

In psychological terms, the “shadow” includes everything we’ve exiled from our conscious identity. Engaging with it requires honesty, discomfort, and a willingness to pause instead of escape. It is also one of the most transformative processes we can undertake. It allows us to take back our projections, to stop blaming others for what we haven’t faced in ourselves, and to reclaim parts of our being that were waiting to be acknowledged. Crisis, however painful, can be the crack through which this deeper work begins, and it isn’t about fixing ourselves to become perfect, it’s about becoming whole. 

 But not everyone enters this process. It is not automatic and not guaranteed. 

For some, a crisis leads not to an awakening but to a collapse. Depression, dissociation, denial, and numbness take over. The pain becomes too much when people don’t have the internal or external support to face what’s rising. This doesn’t mean failure, it means that survival takes priority. Transformation is a possibility that requires readiness, safety, and often guidance. Without those, a crisis can deepen trauma rather than heal it. 

But why wait for the crisis?  

This is the real question. 

If crisis forces us into self-awareness and shadow work, could we choose it sooner before life breaks us open? The truth is, most of us wait because the discomfort of truth feels greater than the discomfort of habit. We normalize and get used to the subtle suffering of disconnection, distraction, and emotional suppression.  

But what if we didn’t wait for rupture to begin the repair? 

Choosing self-awareness before a crisis is an act of maturity, courage, and radical responsibility. It means being willing to pause, reflect, and ask the questions we usually avoid. 

It means turning toward discomfort not because we have to, but because we know that growth is found there. It means examining the shadow without needing disaster to drag it into the light. This path is not easy. In fact, it may be harder without the pressure of a crisis to force the confrontation. But it’s also more empowered, more intentional, and it creates a resilience that doesn’t rely on breakdowns to bring breakthroughs. 

When we choose self-awareness before we’re pushed into it, we become active participants in our own transformation. Not to wait for life to break us open, and to begin living with our eyes open, is the greatest act of self-respect! 

Through the veil of age…

We say: time passes. 

But time doesn’t pass! We pass. 

Time isn’t a river carrying us forward. It’s a mirror, revealing who we are as we look into it. Aging doesn’t have to mean becoming someone who just survives better, but becoming someone who sees better! And self-awareness isn’t the result of crisis but the practice that allows us to transform it! 

Time is NOT a line, it’s a garden. And progress is not a ladder, but a spiral.  

To unlearn the race is to remember the body, the breath, the silence between tasks. It is to reclaim time not as a resource to be spent but as a space to be lived. 

 Let the sky kiss your eyes 

 In the sacred space the sky kisses your soul.  

The intricacy and the beauty of mystery is breathing into you..  

Grasp the subtlety of your being and move. 

Move from no existence to existence …  

From darkness to light …  

From emptiness to sacred intimacy …  

From false beliefs to deep understanding …  

From tension and worries to freedom and elation. 

For a moment … 

Leave your mother and father. 

Leave your sister and brother. 

Leave your wife, your man, and your children. 

Leave everyone and everything and come with me …  

Where humility is your way … where nothing becomes everything.  

You will never be at the mercy of your things and your people.  

Attachments are your prison, your unhappiness, your anxiety and your fears.  

You believe you can’t live without them, you are afraid to lose them and you can’t be happy after reaching them. 

Leave your desires and come with me …  

Let the sky kiss your eyes.  

Be aware of the greatness of light and let go of the blindness of your illusions. 

Come with me … where you, I, and them, no longer exist. 

Where souls meet before time and after the earth will vanish and offer itself to be inhaled in one smell by the universe …  

Where souls cross ages like birds cross horizons … 

Telling stories about life before life and after life. 

Where souls leave each other to be free, 

To think without fear …

To be a sunset or a music, 

To scent the fragrance of pure inebriation, 

To reach the ultimate expression of truth …

To be love and spread love.