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SECRETS OF THE HEART

The Concept of Forever
And the Infinite Cycle of Eternity

The information you need to decide for yourself
In order to define the concept of soulmates, we must first understand the concepts that support the idea. Let’s explore the concepts of infinity and eternal world.

The concepts of fate and destiny and the concepts of eternity and infinity are all intertwined in meaning but have distinct connotations. Fate and destiny relate (differently) to a predetermined state in the future and that future may or may not be held eternally or infinitely. This list explores these concepts as well as the circumstances that play into their defining characteristics.
ETERNITY is defined as the quality or state of being eternal, of endless duration, and time without beginning or end. It is a seemingly endless or immeasurable, infinite, time that never ends (the quality, condition or fact of being eternal). Eternity derives from the Middle English eternyte meaning “existence without end,” which is borrowed from the Old French eternité and the Latin aeternitās meaning “eternal.”

Philosophy looks at analysis of the concept from across cultures and history. Most constructs have the conception of time as the endless cycle of eternal recurrence. It is from this repetition that people seek to escape: the last thing hoped for is the deliverance from the temporal to the timeless realm of spirit. This would mean death.

Science debates whether an absolute concept of eternity has real application for the fundamental laws of physics such as the arrow of time in entropy.

Classical philosophy defines eternity as what exists outside time such as supernatural beings or forces. The question of the eternity of the world was a concern for both ancient philosophers and the medieval theologians and philosophers of the 13th century. The question was whether the world has a beginning in time, or whether it has existed from eternity.

Aristotle argued matter must be eternal.These views conflicted with the view of the Catholic Church that the world had a beginning in time. Aristotle also argued that the cosmos has no beginning. In Aristotle's metaphysics, eternity is the unmoved mover (God) and the gradient of total synergy (produces motion by being loved). Boethius, a Roman philosopher, defined eternity as "simultaneously full and perfect possession of interminable life". Thomas Hobbes and others in the Age of Enlightenment drew upon the classical distinction to support the metaphysical theories like "eternity is a permanent now".

  • The Chinese believe that the universe is in an eternal state of flux, either of oscillation or of cyclic movement in a closed circuit.
  • Indian philosophy emphasizes the belief in kalpas, or great cycles of four phases, through which successive worlds appear, flourish, disintegrate, and die.
  • Buddhist meditative theory of mindfulness puts emphasis on right now. The past is gone and the future is undefined therefore eternity is irrelevant when all that matters is the present moment.

Greek spirituality seems to be pervaded throughout by a deep melancholy about the transitory state of life and the emptiness of all things given over to birth and death. They seek refuge in some form of artistic perpetuation of youth, beauty, and perfection, the identification with the immortal gods, and the perpetuation of the mind that dissolves the temporal into the eternal and ensures the survival of the soul that is becoming, by nature, immortal. Immortality is the indefinite continuation of the mental, spiritual, or physical existence of humans.

Eternity as infinite duration is a key concept in many religions. God or gods are said to endure eternally.
In religious discussions about eternity, the concept of eternity generally stands for the relationship to time that God has. Theists agree that God is eternal; the task is to formulate and assess conceptions of what this eternality might amount to. Broadly speaking, there have been two rival views of what God’s eternality consists in. The first is that God is timeless (divine timelessness); the opposing thought is God is in time (divine temporality). The term “everlasting” (or “sempiternal”) on the other hand, is mostly associated with the temporal (non sacred distinction of time) view. On the temporal view, God is in time and thus exists at every time; there is no time at which God doesn’t exist.

SYMBOLISM

Eternity is often symbolized by the ouroboros or uroboros which is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. Originating in ancient Egyptian iconography, the ouroboros comes from Greek magical tradition and was adopted as a symbol in Gnosticism and Hermeticism and most notably in alchemy. The ouroboros is often interpreted as a symbol for eternal cyclic renewal or a cycle of life, death, and rebirth. The skin-sloughing process of snakes symbolizes the transmigration of souls, the snake biting its own tail is a fertility symbol. The tail of the snake is a phallic symbol, the mouth is a yonic or womb-like symbol. The term derives from Ancient Greek οὐροβόρος which is oura meaning “tail” and boros 'meaning “eating.”

​VOCABULARY FOR ETERNITY

​CONTINUAL often implies a close prolonged succession or recurrence. Continuing indefinitely in time without interruption. Recurring in steady usually rapid succession.

CONTINUOUS usually implies an uninterrupted flow or spatial extension.

CONSTANT implies uniform or persistent occurrence or recurrence. lived in constant pain

​ENDURING is lasting.

ETERNAL - having an infinite duration. Characterized by abiding fellowship with God. Continued without intermission. Valid or existing at all times. Timeless.
​
EVERLASTING is lasting or enduring through all time. Continuing for a long time or indefinitely. Sometimes tediously persistent or wearing indefinitely.

IMMORTAL is exempt from death or from oblivion. Able or tending to divide indefinitely.

INCESSANT implies ceaseless or uninterrupted activity.

PERPETUAL suggests unfailing repetition or lasting duration. Continuing forever. Everlasting.

PERENNIAL implies enduring existence often through constant renewal.

​TEMPORAL is relating to time as opposed to eternity or relating to earthly life. The grammatical tense or a distinction of time. Time as distinguished from space. The sequence of time or to a particular time.

​TIMELESS not restricted to a particular time or date. Having no beginning or end. Not affected by time.
Infinity is often used by people to reference soulmates and the “forever” poets like to wax poetic about. We see the phrase “to infinity and beyond” to reference their love. And people use the infinity symbol (denoted by the lemniscate or a figure-eight ∞-shaped curves) to pledge their love. But do we know what infinity really is? It’s not a poem it’s math. It’s pi, for instance, a number that is ad infinitum - it goes on and on. Astronomers talk about the infinity of the universe, and religions describe God as infinity. Hollywood millionaires buy infinity pools to trick the eye and look like it doesn't have an edge so the water goes on forever.

Eternity is religious. Forever is poetic. Infinity is math.

INFINITY represents a mathematical concept that is boundless or endless or else something that is larger than any real or natural number.

​For our purposes in this section on time, infinity is defined as time without end. It is the alpha and the omega or the first and last. Time is the continuum of experience in which events pass from the future through the present to the past. Infinity is;
  • the quality or state of being infinite.
  • an indefinitely great amount or number.
  • the assumed limit of a sequence, series, etc., that increases without bound.
  • infinite space, time, or quantity
  • boundless or immeasurable extension or duration
  • ​the limit of the value of a function or variable when it tends to become numerically larger than any preassigned finite number
  • a part of a geometric magnitude that lies beyond any part whose distance from a given reference position is finite do parallel lines ever meet if they extend to infinity
  • distance so great that the rays of light from a point source at that distance may be regarded as parallel
  • an open cosmological question about the universe

SYMBOLISM


​The concept of infinity is symbolized by a LEMNISCATE or a the figure eight. In algebraic geometry, a lemniscate is any of several figure-eight or ∞-shaped curves. The word comes from the Latin "lēmniscātus" meaning "decorated with ribbons", from the Greek λημνίσκος meaning "ribbons", or which alternatively may refer to the wool from which the ribbons were made.

​ORIGIN OF CONCEPT
The earliest recorded idea of infinity may be that of Anaximander (c. 610 – c. 546 BC) a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. He used the word APEIRON which means "unbounded" or “indefinite", which perhaps can be translated as "infinite". Aristotle (350 BC) distinguished potential infinity from actual infinity, which he regarded as impossible due to the various paradoxes it seemed to produce. The first published proposal that the universe is infinite came from Thomas Digges in 1576. Eight years later, in 1584, the Italian philosopher and astronomer. Giordano Bruno proposed an unbounded universe in this quote: “Innumerable suns exist; innumerable earths revolve around these suns in a manner similar to the way the seven planets revolve around our sun..”

​Cosmologists have long sought to discover whether infinity exists in our physical universe:
  • Are there an infinite number of stars?
  • Does the universe have infinite volume?
  • Does space "go on forever"?

​The question of being infinite is logically separate from the question of having boundaries.
  • ​The two-dimensional surface of the Earth is finite, yet has no edge.
  • By traveling in a straight line with respect to the Earth's curvature one will eventually return to the exact spot one started from.
  • The universe, at least in principle, might have a similar topology. Therefore one might eventually return to one's starting point after travelling in a straight line through the universe for long enough.

Because we cannot observe space beyond the edge of the observable universe, it is unknown whether the size of the universe in its totality is finite or infinite.

​VOCABULARY OF INFINITY
​
ABSOLUTE - something that is conceived or that exists independently and not in relation to other things; something that does not depend on anything else and is beyond human control; something that is not relative

AD INFINITUM - again and again in the same way; forever. Latin, literally ‘to infinity’. As a loan phrase in English, it sometimes means to infinity, but it’s usually used as an adverb meaning endlessly or without limit. Alternative forms: in īnfīnītō, in īnfīnītum.

ALEPH - sequence of numbers used to represent the cardinality of infinite sets that can be well-ordered.

ASYMPTOTE - a straight line that is the limiting value of a curve; can be considered as tangent at infinity

​BOUNDLESS - unlimited extent of time, space, or quantity
​
INCALCULABLE- not able to be computed or enumerated. Too much to be measured

​INFINITUDE - the quality of being infinite; without bound or limit
​
UBIQUITY - the property of being limitless, infiniteness, boundlessness
​
​WHEEL OF TIME - The Wheel of time or wheel of history (also known as Kalachakra) is a concept found in several religious traditions and philosophies, notably religions of Indian origin such as Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism, which regard time as cyclical and consisting of repeating ages. The philosopher and emperor Marcus Aurelius saw time as extending forwards to infinity and backwards to infinity, while admitting the possibility (without arguing the case) that "the administration of the universe is organized into a succession of finite periods". Within Jainism, time is thought to be a wheel which rotates for infinity without a beginning. This wheel of time holds twelve spokes that each symbolize a different phase in the universe's cosmological history.
NEXT:
​Spinning the Hands of Fate in a Destiny of Love
Exploring the concepts of Fate and Destiny
THE STORY OF SOULMATES
Seeking the Truth to the Story of Soulmates
A Fleeting Moment in the Construct of Time
Forever in an Infinite Cycle of Eternity
Spinning the Hands of Fate in a Destiny of Love
The Ties That Bind Two Souls
​A Cosmic Roadmap for the Gods at the Wheel
An Answer to the Story of Soulmates

​BONUS:
REFERENCE GUIDE TO THE MYTHOLOGY USED IN THIS FEATURE
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