Page 169 - Matter: The Other Name for Illusion

in Paradise are on their thrones engaged in mutual conversation; the dwellers
in Hell are being consigned to the flames suffering in great sorrow for which
there is no remedy or recourse.
God sees and hears all these things, in this moment, with a far greater
clarity than we can imagine. God can hear sounds at frequencies that we

cannot hear and He can see things that we cannot see. All the events and
sounds that we can perceive and not perceive are all present in the sight of God
and experienced at every moment in all their vividness. None of these things
is ever lost but continue in God's memory with all their details.
This is also true of all the events in your life. For example, the foundation
of the house left to you by your grandfather is at this moment being
constructed. Your father is now being born in this house. The moment you first

started to talk is happening now. You are now eating the meal you will
"actually" eat ten years from now.
The reality that all these examples present us with is this: no moment, no
event or no existing thing has ever, or will ever cease to exist. As a film we are
watching on television is recorded on a film strip and composed of several
frames, and as our not seeing some of the frames does not mean that they do
not exist, so it is with what we call "the past" and "the future".
It is very important to understand one point correctly: none of these
images is like a memory or a dream. All of them are vivid as if you were

experiencing them at this moment. Everything is vitally alive. Because God
does not give us these perceptions, we see them as past. And God can show us
these images whenever He wants to; by giving us the perceptions proper to
these events, He can make us experience the events.
From these examples it can be seen that for God, past and future are both
the same. For this reason, nothing is hidden from God, as is pointed out in this
verse;

(Luqman told his son): "My son, even if something weighs as little as a
mustard-seed and is inside a rock or anywhere else in the heavens or
earth, God will bring it out. God is All-Pervading, All-Aware." (Surah
Luqman: 16)

Eternity Is Hidden in God's Memory 167