The human mind wreaks time. We think in terms of time. We think that time is not passing or time is passing fast. The sense of time that is ahead of us and the sense of time that we passed lend us an artificial cognition and we perceive this artificiality as the truth of life. Therefore we say that time is all-powerful and time is the truth.
Krishna in Gita has said that I am the time to denote that the time which is human comprehension which has penetrated deep into our cognition is within Him. That which is time exists in the mind. In existence, that which is time exists like existence. Things are changing around you. Seasons birth new seasons. Seeds birth trees and trees birth flowers and seeds. Everything is changing around you. Water is gushing down fast in rivers to birth into the sea. Water is gushing fast because it wants to birth into a vapour that will birth icebergs. The human body is changing every moment. Old cells birth new cells in the colony of 90 trillion cells. Days birth nights and nights birth days. Everything is changing around you.
The predicament of mankind is that man wants to know ‘how much’ time-change. This sense of measuring ‘how much’ time is practically useful to be more organised so you make good use of it. But it is not necessary for your existence. You simply exist and the sense of measurement of time is not necessary for living your life. You exist in existence because existence exists in you. Existence is the truth in which you exist. Measurement of time that how much do we exist has gripped us.
We think about how much life we have. How much life is left? All this is interpretation in terms of time. This type of interpretation breeds death in us. Our mind is nothing but an interpretation of time. This body anyway is going to birth a new body. Like one lived 70 years that is only a measurement of time by human comprehension.
In fact, we live in infinity and eternity. Our sense of measurement of time lends us an understanding of ‘that much’ time we lived. We ruin our eternal life. We ruin our life that exists like existence and that is in our hands to live right now. Instead of living an eternal life that is in our hands right now we constantly live in the darkness of time. This mathematics of time is simply a mathematical artificiality. We comprehended time we invented time and we have mired ourselves in manipulability of time. Time is a piece of information. Life is not a piece of information. Life is being here and now in the being-ness of your being. Life is not a scale of time.
The scale of time has lent humans the dimension of science and mathematics has lent us comprehend the world better. We cognise the world in a certain way. Animals don’t cognise the world in that way. The ones who evolved a better sense of listening cognise it differently whereas those who evolved a better sense of seeing cognise the world differently. When our eyes see an object, say a rectangular object, our ability to cognise that object as rectangular depends on the light thrown on that object. When we see that object, that rectangular object projects an elliptical shape on the retina in the egg-shaped eyes. How does an elliptical shape project on the retina make us assume or decipher that the object is rectangular?
Science thinks in terms of time. Science cannot explain how does vision that according to science leads us to an assumption of the object, our mind assumes it to be rectangular. Science cannot explain how does vision that is a projection of an image on the retina leads to instant understanding. This is the biggest riddle that AI scientists face. But when one sees an object say a flower one instantly becomes one with the flower. He can dive into that flower-ness of being. No time is needed. Time is needed to calculate.
We live timelessly and we are timeless. Our minds caused time. Mind is time. Time is mind. Mind is confronted with psychological a disease that is time. The common problem of time is anxiety. Anomalous perception of time that has deep entered into our mind has lent us the situation of neurosis.
When you are alone, you feel more anxious. You need somebody immediately. A sense of time is necessary to organise things and activities around you. That daily you work out for an hour or you picked up a particular work for four hours. So to organise that won’t keep doing it for more, time may be utilised.
In reality, that sense of time that is utilitarian is biologically present in your mind already. When you ask yourself that you have to do particular work for an hour, the biological clock in your pineal gland makes you stop exactly after an hour. We have invented chronological time for our utility. We have made Sundays, that is holiday and Saturdays weekend when youngsters party. We have made a day at the end of the year to say goodbye to the year and to welcome the New Year.
In fact that we call the moment that is where the illusion begins. We generally say, ‘live in the moment’. We live in the moment. Then we say we live next moment also. That fabricates chronological time. But that we call ‘now’ is the now-ness. We live in now-ness. In Hindi the word ‘Now’ is a boat and in English ‘Now’ is also a boat that takes us beyond. We have to live in now. And keep living in now. In that now nothing comes next. Anything that comes next is psychological and the mind.
You may keep sitting for hours, days turn nights. You may keep on sitting. But we have organised our bodies as such that it sleeps in the night. It is spontaneous. The next day we wake up and go to the office. It keeps happening. This continuity has an infinite continuum. The world is ephemeral but that which is infinitely eternal is what we are.
Time is nothing but a sense of time that is bred in us as the mind. Time is psychological. It is not anything that happens in eternity. You happen in eternity and unhappen in eternity. You are eternal and you exist in eternity. And you keep existing in eternity. And you keep living in that eternity. Your life is eternal. All else is mathematics. You are not your mathematical comprehension. You don’t exist because of your comprehension. You comprehend mathematically because of that being that infinite eternal and timeless. Time is not the truth but that which is the truth is timeless. Nanak has said Satnam — thy name is the truth that is Akal which means timeless.
The author is a spiritual teacher. He can be contacted at arunavlokitta@gmail.com
