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Eternity. It’s a big word. People throw it around a lot, usually by questioning where you’ll spend it.

Here’s the thing: you’re in it. You can’t enter eternity. Think about it: eternity is all time. All of it, no exceptions. Just as infinity is all space—you know, the space-time continuum and all that—it turns out that space and time are pretty heavily connected. Which kind of makes sense, when you ask yourself where everything is in relation to eternity. That’s right: nothing can exist outside of it; just as nothing can exist outside of infinity.

So here we are in eternity. But there’s something wrong with this picture. Eternity has some pretty definitive properties, particularly that it has no beginning and no end. It just is. Look around you; what do you see that possesses that particular property? Nothing, right?

So we’re in eternity, but we’re not of it. Which, considering eternity is all time (and therefore space), appears to be impossible.

So what’s going on, exactly? Well, it’s interesting. What does actually exist around you? The past is over; that doesn’t exist. The future hasn’t happened yet; that doesn’t exist either. Which only leaves this. But what is this? Whatever it is you’re perceiving right now has been received by your brain, which is processing information about stuff that’s already happened—sure, it was milliseconds ago, but it’s already happened. And what’s already happened is in the past, which is over, and therefore doesn’t exist.

In this body, with this brain, we can never actually be here, now (space and time again). We each have a very special time machine that makes the impossible possible: nothing looks like eternity, but nothing else can exist. Time appears linear here, yet eternity is all time—all of it—no beginning, no end; just one endless clump of it spreading out through infinity.

The question then, is how do we experience eternity? It must be possible, surely. Well, we could start by emulating its properties. What would eternity be like? With no sense of linearity, all time must be very still. Start there. Be still. Not just physically; still everything you can. Be in peace. That moment when you’re so still that there is only this; that may just be a good approximation of the eternal.