The perceptions of time change so much even though we believe that ‘time’ is fixed. For the greatest measurement of time seems to be our life spans. And ageing. We even call what happens to our bodies as we age the ‘ravages of time’ as if time was this train that chugs along at it’s unchangeable pace, and everything seems to revolve around that pace. And yet we keep trying to slow down that train, hoping that we will age slower. In fact by living healthier (or trying to !). And often because we savour the situations we are in and never want them go away. And often blame time for those anticipations and situations for going away. So time at best is a perception that is based on the situation we percieve we are in, or how healthy we feel. Time sits so heavily when we are depresesed for example, we say. So why do we give time an ‘actuality’ like a precise ticking clock that reminds us of it’s tick tock every second. Imbibe upon time a ‘a law pf physics’ that is completely unchangeable, but every moment are perceiving time completely differently depending upon the current state of our minds.
Did you say to anyone that you will love them forever ? My guess is that if you really felt it, and if your being was engulfed into that one statement – then you really did sense the the word we call eternity. I have loved you through eternity and will love you eternally. Suddenly all perception of time for that moment has disappeared. The clock does not tick any more. In the holding of that one hand, in the harmonizing of the two breaths, eternity has been sensed.
So where are we at those moments ? ……
As a child on holiday with my family in the Himalayan mountains, a one month’s vacation break was a lifetime for me. But now seem to have lost the ability to lose myself timelessly in play – one month is just one month – a measurement of time available to me. Why do we value ourselves in the context of the ticking clock ? Is it social imperative ? Have we been taught to do that ? Or is it instinctive. People who live less rushed lives find a whole eternity in watching a sunset. What led us to this situation ?
And if time is about perception, which time is true ? The clicking clock or what I call – emotional time. How many of us keep falling into emotional time and then feel guilty and remind ourselves about the ticking clock. I know the argument will be – but what about ageing ?
Lets look at ageing from the law of physics. Einstein famously said that the greater your velocity the slower time goes. But which time ? If you were sitting in a space ship that travelled close to the velocity of light, you would probably age only imperceptibly. But from which context ? From who’s context ? You would still be living in your emotional time. If you took a clock, the clock would move exactly at the same speed as your percived linear time in the space ship. You would still look at that extra grey strand in your hair and say to yourself ‘ oh my God ! time is really catching up !” – even though, according to Einstein, to the people that you left behind on earth, you would practically be eternal.
Incidentally, I have always wondered what would happen (theoretically, even) if we could make a connection between the people left on earth and you in a space ship travelling close to the velocity of light – my guess is that any message from earth to you would be garbled undecipherable jumble of noise. Because the dots and the dashes would be too bunched together for you to be able to perceive. So nothing changed in terms of time did it ? Imagine that we became almost immortal – imagine that we lived 1000 years – we wold look at our diaries and say ‘Oh my God ! I have so much to do this month – 3 lunch appointments ! I wuld write a blog every 10 years and consider that too much. Everything is contextualized in relationship to how we perceive time.
So, then Mr Einstien, is there a possibility of a universe that exists within ours, or near us, that has such velocity that it feels static and almost eternal ? Ah that word again – eternal ! I love you eternally – how do I get into that sense of eternity then ?
So we have such different perceptions of time – both from a scientific point of view and also from an emotional/perception point of view. Why do we do ourselves such a disfavour by contextualizing it (and therefore ourselves) by a ticking clock ?
And what happens if the person in the spaceship – who according to Mr Einstein refuses to grow older from OUR time perspective – but perceives himself in exactly the same ‘time bind’ as we do – what happens if he crosses the velocity of light ? Does time stop ? is that the realization of Eternity ? Will that person suddenly explode into consciousness ? what does ‘no time’ mean from a physics point of view ? All theories break at that point – for then there was no begining and no end. The Big Bang is still happening. Has happened and will happen – depending upon which point of view you are looking at it.
The point then is – if time is just perception, then do we need to travel at the speed of light to break out of our linear perceptions ? for at the end of Mr Einstein’s theories there is incredible stillness. And if there is – does that stillness not exist at the same time as linear time ?
Is the experience of this stillness what Buddha called Shunyata ? A mmoment beyond the mind”s addiction to linearity of time ? is this falling in love so deeply and compassionately without a need for possession, that all perception of time falls away ? Is this meditation, and finally :
Is this the experience God ?
And if it is, and time truly is a perception and not just a definitive linear reality – then we are both dead and alive at the same time – we live both in eternity and in trapped by linear time at the same moment in time. Depends upon our perception. Thats why, just be in love. Not in love in some acquisitive way, but so deeply in love that you break through all structures and strictures,
and learn to live in emotional time,
shekhar
Dear Shekhar,
Seems like you are having a great ride with your philosophical thoughts. Here is, what I thought About “SHUNAYA” ……”Shunyata” is when you look into camera to check the frame out….”Shunayata” is when you hug your daughter..”Shunayata” is when you were thinking and writing this blog….In brief God is always there and arround us. And most of the time we dont even see & feel him.
At the end you are right everything is about perception.
Regards!
Sanjay
Four bodies – physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual – enslave us to the four types of tickling clocks. These act like bodies within the bodies and clocks within the clocks. Eventually we outgrow all of them (it is our evolutionary goal to be achieved may be in many lifetimes). Then while they – both bodies and clocks – are still there we are not in touch with (or entangled with) them in the same way you were not in touch with the measurement of time of one month which seemed to you to be lifetime. Your lifetime seems to you to be eternity.
Progressing through
I sense therefore I am
I feel there I am
I think therefore I am
I emphathise therefore I am
you eventually reach a stage of
I am therefore I am.
hi shekhar !
as we are humans, our time does start ticking the moment we enter this world. yet, our perception of it depends on our frame of mind as well……..if you panic, then there really is’nt enough time! if you have faith then ‘the time is just right’ 🙂 ……
at the end of the day we ARE ALL on limited time, so, if you are able to , inspite of being a human, break through all structures and strictures and remain in emotional love without desire of acquisition of even a reciprocal love from the other then you better be sure…….coz if there is a chance of a tremendous yearning errupting within you at a later stage where you realise you were human after all……..then it maybe too late !
my perception of shunyata is in the moments of pure consciousness……..for a runner it could be the moment where his rythm takes over his movement…..sheer bliss ! for a film director… where you got your perfect shot all at once……where everything fell in place suddenly. for a nature lover…….that moment at dusk where the sky just burst into a million hues of pink and majenta at twilight ( the beauty of the indian summer sky )……..basically a wider perspective to the term ‘ orgasm ‘… as also, perhaps, the final moments of a person’s life, where he/she sees the ‘white light’ and experiences eternal peace……… moments before departure from this world ?
Oh god! What a beautiful blog this is!
Well, “Time” is man mad(e) is it not? Just like “God”. I call it mad(e) because some people who were “practically wise” when civilization was just coming of age, thought about “Time”. A wonderful “measurement tool” for coming generations even to an extent – to measure age! but this is important to know where we stand, where we are and where we would want to reach. Ahhhggh….the discipline factor! The material world…
And then generations come…since ages…we are trapped in man mad(e) time, one cannot escape it. But when I look back, feel about the greatest thinkers, philosphers, scientests, oritinal masters and people – cut above the rest…the more I think about their works, I strongly feel that they actually lost essence of time and got so immersed in their inner quest, their persuit, their hunger, their zest, zeal, their enthusiasm… that they became zen masters in their own being. Such was their fine tuning into their own being…such ‘timelessness’
Time is for external persuits…the resultant factor! Now…for an ‘inside out’ being, I do not think time is important at all. Now even if we take lovers, where is time? they are so much in tune with feelings, imaginations of future that they forget the present time. Such a grasping moment sans time. Hence ‘Timelessness’ is the key, irrespective if people are aware or not aware is another thing. Every Individual will get those glimpses…how one can withhold is another thing really!
Is this God? I think even “God” is man made! How can anyone explain what is god? Even a mere mortal…A human being – is dynamic…keeps changing…and how can a man explain God? Since in this planet some things cannot be explained, we have given words like “God”. The problem is people percieve god as human like.
Every person will have his or her own perception of time…some lucky few will live with questions of their quest on this planet…and they start on their quest…
Amen!
hey shekhar……..if the 1 month vacation is just that…….a month, then, what about the spirit of fun born during that month which energised you for an extended period beyond that month……maybe made your boring subject’s classes more bearable once you got back to school……? were those days not a spill over of that 1 month ? does not the spirit rule eventually ?
similarly……when a departed loved one has assisted your growth in personality where you have become a person loved or respected ……. does the spirit ( beyond the body )not get the credit for it ? what can be a greater tribute to eternal love than for you to reflect that love in your persona and being……. ( applies to all love………parental, sibling, mate…….)?
love truly is eternal is’nt it?
Dear Shekhar,
Thanks a lot for sharing your views on time in detail in the above passage. I definitely feel that when I am in India the time moves calmly and in the US we are definitely far more hurried and it definitely impacts the way we look at things. When life moves calmly we definitely enjoy more and can truly lose ourselves like you did on the vacation as a child and now 1 month is indeed one month. I think the main reason is that now we plan inside of time and then you were living outside of time, atleast in terms of planning the things to do, so you enjoyed a lot. I think to some extent mind-control and often solitude can give you that feeling – the possibility to transcend time and be one with the universe, whether you be alone in the fog and mist of the mountains or next to the big waves of an ocean, nature always invites us to be one with it. That is a great way to find bliss, and that definitely requires some effort on our part to focus our thoughts on the oneness of the universe and lose ourselves without distraction.
I hope you are having a wonderful weekend (just one weekend in eternity, but what exactly is a “weekend”).
Best Regards,
Himanshu
A beautiful article.
Regards.
hi uncle Harb,
good to see U tickling here:) this is prabhjit….Dhamija – the way U know me! where is jimmy nowdays…lost track…whats his number/e-mail id now?? lot of water has flown down the ganges since i met him last;
drop the words and get to the essence = 0
how??
do you think these chains of ifs and buts are gonna take you or anyone anywhere??
????
why is that you know and still not there??
anyone out here??
shekhar……..love is always eternal……never acquisitive ( that is ambition )……
yet, all forms of love are eternal according to me…….whether human ( the taj came from there ! ),or spiritual ( temples, churches, gurudwaras, mosques are proof of that ).
love is a blessing of God…….to be revered if you have it……..and to be given, not held back. there is so little of it going around thanks to the torture inflicted by ego………!
if you have found it….then you have certainly found GOD…….never negotiate with it, or slot it …….it came to you boundless and free……………allow it to breathe….allow it to be……..
Argh! failed in physics Shekhar…
bahut maar parti thi….itne kaan kheechta tha teacher ki the fear of having ur ears pulled from the skull cud not make me concentrate on this subject….
ThOOoo ye mere bheje mein na javeh hai sahab!!!
Wo shuniyata mein hum ..hum nahi raheh…woh wo nahi raheh….fir na jaane kaise kho gaye…aankh khuli tho mehsus hua…ek pal waha theh aur ab kaha hai?
Chopra sahab ko maldives mein mili thi..Kanifinholu mein….never read any of his books had only heard of him…did read half a book of his somewhere….
He was sitting silently in a corner…his face ..his expression …something one will never find in any of his books…mene mehsus kiya tha uss pal ko…kuch baatein ki thi unhone…laga….uhu bahut kuch laga…germany mein rehte theh thub wo shayad kuch yaad nahi…
God sahab ko kabhi dekha nahi….
par jo sakoon dil ko shuniyata de jaati hai…uss pal ko agar naam hi dena hai tho wo hai ‘Jeevan’
Kitne jee rahe hai…ye soch mein par jaathi hu…
Hugsss Smileee
#8
Hello Dhamija! Am pleasantly surprised to see you here. Jimmy is there where ‘he’ always have been, though his body is at Patiala. Rejoined the service there. Better you see him in person there and get his numbers.
Never mind how much water has flown down the Gangas since you last met him. Given shekhar’s thread above, we may be better keeping in mind that “the more it flows the more it remains the same lol.”
Hope everybody is well at home.
Harb
We can experience some timelessness in meditation. Something to look forward to everyday!
When velocity increases, so does mass doesn’t it? A human with infinite mass seem to be impossible physically but can be a spiritual reality. Only it cannot be taught in schools because it cannot be proved and probably only known to the experiencer. Very interesting how physics is there but not quite.
hi shekhar,
just watched you on director’s cut. you seem soooooo introverted, but the chatty side to you came as a pleasant surprise !
Dear Shekhar:
Even though the right side of our brain allows us to expand our existential thought processes beyond the linearity of logical thinking it is more often than not the left side that tortures us with cerebrations to explain what even Albert Einstein could not deduce in a straight line progression to its final infinitesimal consequence. Now, this does not mean that he was the highest authority to answer the eternal question whether or not time is only a concept, a tool to help us compartmentalize the human experience or rather a dimension that vastly transcends human comprehension. However, he had interesting thoughts that allow us a glimpse behind this facade of a humble servant of scientific searching, thoughts some of which reveal that his concept of time must have been at odds with the commonly accepted concept of time you are questioning in your blog. He clearly hinted at that when he said “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.” And yet he knew that the complexity of time had eluded even his grasp when he admitted “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” Even though all his life was dedicated to scientific thinking in his inner core he knew that “the process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.”
It is interesting that even a man of such humongous intellectual capacity bemoaned the interference of the left side of the brain with the right side by exclaiming “the only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.” But he must have given the right side of his brain ample opportunity to reach beyond logic and that which can be explained when he stated that “there are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle,” and “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Last but not least he realized that “the pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.”
How much he wanted to resolve the secrets of the universe is evident in his uttering “I want to know God’s thoughts; the rest are details.”
Shekhar, maybe the love you are talking about is the one that refers to the creator of this magnificent infinity within which we humans are privileged to exist as a form of energy that will now and evermore endure.
Regards.
Horst
Interesting…
Eternity…did you feel it in that one moment while meditating?…did you feel it while sitting by the shore holding that one person’s hand? I did..
and then the next moment came…the feel of eternity vanished…but that did not mean that it wasn’t experienced…and with the memory so vivid it overshadows other moments…I believe in moments..the power of every moment is tremendous..call it time, love, eternity, physical time or emotional time..its only in my mind and can never be explained. Its only mine to compare, waste, utilize, realize..its only mine..as it is yours and everyones else’s.
Shekhar, I read your blogs with a lot of interest. You seem to be earnestly looking for the Truth, but my experience is that Truth is so pure that it cannot be delineated from its purity AT ALL by expressions of thought, space, time, or words. Any delineation from its purity in any form or expression (even a thought) creates a duality that is OF the Truth but not the Truth itself, so it is an experience that can neither be felt or be expressed and yet it is the only True experience there is.
When we know Truth in its purity, there is no knowledge, no thought, space, time, or words. This sounds like death and unending silence but that is only because our mind is living in a realm of conditionings that obscure the immense, awesome deathless beauty of the Truth. And the conditioning are our form, ideas, and words. These are all limiting and until we realize that, we cannot become the boundless Truth.
hello shekhar sahb, ek gaana ayaad aa gaya aapke is time vs eternal love ko parh karr:
waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam
hum rahe ne hum, tum rahe na tum…..
one of mr einstein’s best quotes was: when you put your hand in an oven one second seems like an hour and when you sit in a lovely lady’s lap one hour seems like a minute…that is relativity.
you have both questioned and described the perception of time very eloquently, but as you say yourself these are logical questions of the intellect which can’t be answered, just experienced as for example in the embrace of a lover or in the realms of meditation.
i came back from india today and the evening was such a drag, then i came here and time has kinda picked up……its all an illusion. love shivani.
time travel is the most controversial theory of Einstein. I think it gained popularity only bcos it was Einsteins’. Time travel is not possible without the theory of parallel universes. whether we travel at the speed of light or surpass the speed, time will not change. we can slowdown the pace of time by meditation.That is, if we have a cool mind we feel the time is passing slowly or that we are in no hurry. I think that is wat even u r saying.
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