I perceive time as a fire line in a brush fire. What lies behind is burned brush — the past. What lies ahead is not yet burned — the future. Time is a single line of fire that exists only in the moment; it exists only in the ephemeral moment to moment. In that sense time is indeed an illusion. There is no “past,” there is no “future,” there is only the moment — and the moment is gone the moment it is perceived. Time is but a dividing line between what has just happened and what has not yet happened. We only live in that moment, if we “live” at all.

Consider eternity. To Spinoza, god and nature are one, infinite and eternal. To such a god what would the “present” mean considering the whole of eternity? Surly, to this god, time would be wholly irrelevant. Meaningless.