Time does not exist!
Question:
As you said, we will be born again and again until we attain moksha from the cycle of birth and death. How to understand the paradigm of time here i.e. after this life, can I be born back in time? Does time exist really? If no, then there is no past, present or future. Then what is “now”?
Answer:
No, You cannot be born back in time because time does not exist. There is really no past, present and future.
It is similar to traveling by an airplane. When you look down you see only as far as your eyes can go. Suppose you are looking down on a vast ocean. That according to you is present. But it does not mean that the landscape of snow-capped mountains doesn’t exist beyond the ocean. It might come into the purview of your vision later but that does not mean it does not exist right now. It does! Everything IS! Past, present and future, all of it, just IS! There is really no division!
Another aspect is that time and space are part of one continuum and is addressed by physicists as space-time. When we say ‘now’, it can be understood as “right here, right now.” For example, say if you move away from an object in space, distance as well as time relative to that object increases. The only way that is brought in the purview of ‘now’ is to expand the consciousness to include that object. Similarly when consciousness is expanded infinitely you bring within yourself, not just the entire existence in terms of distance, but also the entirety of past, present and future.
When we say, “Live in the now’, it means that be in 100% awareness. When you become totally aware, you realize that there is no past, no future, every moment is just ‘NOW’. “NOW’ has got nothing to do with time really. It is the closest to saying ‘Just BE!’ Be established in the center. Not toppling over to raagas or dveshas, not toppling over towards likes or dislikes, not toppling over towards want and not want, not toppling to should and shouldn’t be! Just BE! Just be with all that is!
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Is it possible for a normal human being to expand the consciousness to include all that is? “Just being” or meditation does help me to be calm but will it be possible to experience that expanded consciousness ever?
Yes Mridu. All great sages of yesteryears were all very normal human beings dear. That’s why the Buddha said ‘in this very lifetime one must strive to recognize the highest truth’…… in this very lifetime 😊
Thanks for the reply Ekta Ji! I think the way I take it is, strive for it and let it go. Like the devotee that Gurudev talks about in AG who is happy when he is told by Narada that he will get enlightened in as many life times as in the leaves in the tree. I don’t know which leaf I am on in this life time, but I will strive for it and let Him take care of when I should get that experience 😊 Thanks for writing the blog!
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Since the last predominant thought shapes your next lifetime…. the feeling/thought of happiness, satisfaction, bliss, thoroughly soaked in spiritual experience and knowledge throughout the life -if this is the state while dying, what kind of lifetime would the person have next? Thanks.
Gahanaa karmano gati – Unfathomable are the ways of karma because it is not linear, it is spherical 😊
Infinity when viewed by the prism of the mind is space amd eternity when viewed from the prism of the mind is time. It’s the mind that creates the illusion of time amd space. When there is no mind There is no time space. Like in deep sleep and a deep meditative state.
My source of light is the Sun. Living on this planet my sense organs and the mind experience daylight, night, yesterday, today and tomorrow etc. due to the experienced cyclical and repetitive phenomenon. So I invent time to transact with the people and things around me. The different time senses to me are very natural. If I were living in the Sun, I will see no changes in brilliance, no shadows, no darkness etc. There will be just one experience. Just ‘this moment only”at any time.
The Sun can be likened to the Consciousness; eternally self luminous and changeless. When I have attained to IT, the experience of time vanishes.
Ektaji, this is how I have rationalized this. I cant say I am living in the Now. Every now and then I can muse about who I really am and revel in the moment. Please help how I may go further. Thank you so much!