An alternative view is that the logos is the source of the sense and concept of time. Because it is responsible for change and movement it is responsible for the passage of time. Its flow is actually what is happening that accounts for change and movement. We may experience this flow directly, and then we can recognize it as the flow of real time. This is not clock time; it is the time that actually changes and moves everything. And because it flows, we can get a vague intimation of such flow in ordinary experience, which then we believe is the feeling of the passage of time. In reality, time does not pass; rather it is the logos that flows. Continuity of time is a vague intimation of continuously new creation.

The third insight contained in our definition of Holy Work is that the continuity of Being, the succession of moments of existence, the flow of the now, is experienced as the unfoldment of presence, which is the unfoldment of the cosmos. Unfoldment, then, is a way of experiencing Being in flow, in change. It is not something static; there is always Being, but it is a flow. The whole universe is like a fountain, always unfolding, always pouring out in different forms—but always remaining water, that is, remaining Being or presence. This is the understanding of unfoldment as the unfoldment of Being. This unfoldment of Being, this flow of presence, is sometimes called “real time,” as opposed to linear or clock time.

In other words, real time is the life of the soul, the unfoldment of the soul. Each period of it is a period of growth and development, not just a temporal space in which events take place. In fact, it is possible to see in this experience that a person’s true maturity, the real measure of the soul’s actualization of her potential, depends on the length of the period this person lives the unfolding flow of the soul. This is because this life is a life of steady unfoldment, a ceaseless manifestation of potential. Real time does not necessarily feel like expanded time, or slow time, or anything like that. The flow can be slow or fast, but it’s more like full time, rich time. We are really living, and not a second is wasted, but is completely and fully metabolized. Every minute is fulfilled, so time is completely there; all time is there in the experience of the soul. The flow of the presence of consciousness itself feels like time. The sensation of a rate of flow changes, in the sense that experience is going faster or slower. But the flow is always happening, and it does not really make sense to give it velocity. It is more like fullness of time, intensity of time.

This continuity of presence is the unfoldment of the soul. Since it is a succession of moments of presence in the present, this unfoldment can only be experienced and understood in the present by being present in the now. This is the “real time” of the individual, the real life. All other time, when one is not present, is a waste in terms of life, for there is no presence in it. Wasted time occurs when there is no unfoldment, when you are fixated and stuck, existing in linear time; basically you are just walking in place, getting nowhere in terms of development of the soul. How much one has been in real time indicates one’s true age, since it determines the development and maturity of the soul. Most people have spent a year or two in their entire lives being truly present, so that is how old they really are from the perspective of the soul.