VICISSITUDES OF TIMES

Time is pervasive, invisible, indescribable, and incomprehensible to a being who is a very participant in the structure of this phenomenal world. That put a limitation on his intellectuality, as that is involved in the structure of the externality of his being. To understand at a miniscule level, one needs to transcend from particularity to universality by expanding his consciousness to the level of universal. It can be initiated by contemplation from outward to inward based on meditation or yoga. Time, according to Ramana Maharshi, is only an idea. There is only the Reality Whatever you think it is, it looks like that. If you call it time, it is time. If you call it existence, it is existence, and so on. After calling it time, you divide it into days and nights, months, years, hours, minutes, etc. Time is immaterial for the Path of Knowledge (Talks With Ramana Maharshi: On Realising Abiding Peace and Happiness, Ramana Maharshi, Munagala Venkataramiah).

Sage philosopher Swami Krishnananda says time is a thought process depending upon certain happenings in the planetary system and that it would not be there if this system were not operating. Perhaps that is true. Time does not exist, yet it binds us, determines us, makes us feel old, and will kill us one day. He goes on to say that it is a perceptional error between the observer and the observed, or the subject and the object that is infecting everybody who sees it. It is a common error that is injected into every person, everyone, even an insect that sees the world outside. This is called Samsāra (birth and death), total entanglement, and one cannot know that there is entanglement because the person is already inside it.

.1. Outline

Time pervades all things, the subtler of the subtlest and the greater of the greatest. It acts on the triple parts of creation, destruction, and action and fate. That way it acts in the creation, preservation, destruction, and remembrance of all. The vicissitudes of times declare Yoga-Vasistha (Verse 1.23.5-6) as master of all; spare not even the greatest of us for a moment. It swallows the universe within itself, whence it is known as the universal soul.

However, it has no distinguishing feature other than that it is recognised imperfectly by the titles of years, ages, and kalpas, or millennias (Yoga-Vasistha, Verse 1.23.7). Hundreds of great kalpa ages (of the creation and dissolution of the world) may pass away, yet there is nothing that can move eternity, or Cosmic Self, to pity or concern, or stop or expedite his course. It neither sets nor rises as time (Yoga-Vasistha, 1.23.32). Time after sporting for a Kalpa  period in the act of killing and crushing all living beings, it comes to lose its own existence and becomes extinct in the eternity of the Spirit of Spirits. (Yoga-Vasistha, Verse 1.23.43).

 After a Kalpa period of annihilation and  crushing all living beings, time loses its own existence and becomes extinct in the eternity of the Spirit of Spirits. After a brief reprieve, time reappears as the creator, preserver, destroyer, and remembrancer of all things. He reveals the shapes of all things, good and bad, while keeping his own essence hidden from all. Thus, it expands, preserves, and eventually dissolves all things through sports (Yoga-Vasistha, Verse 1.23.44). It is the subtlest of all things. It is divided though indivisible; it is consumed though incombustible; it is perceived though imperceptible in its nature. (Yoga-Vasistha, Verse 1.23.16)

Time is the supreme ruler of all, and it is equally awful to everything. It is always prepared to consume all visible beings. Time, the master of all, spares not even the greatest among us for a minute. It swallows the universe inside itself and is thus known as the universal soul. (Yoga-Vasistha, Verse 1.23.5–6) There is nothing in this world that time will not devour. He devours everything, just as the subterranean fire eats the overflowing water. (Yoga-Vasistha, Verse 1.23.4). Men of little comprehension are found to make significant blunders in this pit of the earth due to their idle conversation, ever-doubting cynicism, and religious schisms. (Yoga-Vasistha, Verse 1.23.1).

All that was fair and good and as vast as the mountain of Meru has perished in the womb of eternity as the snakes are devoured by the insatiable Garuda (divine king of birds). There has never been somebody who was so unpleasant, hardhearted, cruel, harsh, or miserly that time did not devour. Time is always ravenous, even though it should consume the mountains. This gluttonous is not satisfied with feeding on everything in the world (Yoga-Vasistha, Verse 1.23.8–10). Time like an actor plays many parts on the stage of the world. It abstracts and kills, produces and devours, and at last destroys everything (Yoga-Vasistha, Verse 1.23.11). Time is like a gigantic fig tree, studded with all the planets' fruits and resonant with the noise of living beings, like gnats hissing about them. Time, accompanied by Action as his mate, regales itself in the world's garden, blossoming with the Divine Spirit's moonlight. Time, like the massive rock that sustains its bulk on the earth's foundation, rests in unending and interminable eternity. Time assumes diverse shades of black, white, and red at night, day, and midday to act as his vestures. As the earth is the huge support of the hills that rest on it, so is time the support of all the myriad weighty worlds that comprise the cosmos. (Yoga-Vasistha, 1.23.27-1.23.31). Time is never proud to consider that it is it that, with no sense of suffering or labour, brings this universe into play and causes it to exist. Time is like a reservoir, with nights as muck, days as lotuses, and clouds as bees. As a covetous man sweeps over a mountain with worn-out broom sticks in hand to gather the bits of gold strewn around, so does time sweep through the days and nights, collecting all living beings in the world in one mass of the dead. As a miserly man trims and lights a lamp with his own fingers to gaze into his stores in every corner of the room, so does time light the sun and moon lamps to look into the living beings in every nook and cranny of the globe (Yoga-Vasistha, 1.23.27-1.23.36). As raw fruits ripen in the sun and fire before being devoured, so does time ripen humanity via their worship of the sun and fire, eventually putting them under its fangs. The world is a rotting cottage, and men of parts are its valuable pearls. Time preserves them in his belly casket, just as a miser keeps his money in a coffer. Good men are like a chaplet of gems that time gently places on his head, just to remove it and trample it under his feet. Day, night, and star strings, like white and black lotus beads and bangles, are ceaselessly spinning around the arm of time. Time as a vulture sees the globe as a ram's carcass, with its mountains, seas, sky, and earth as its four horns and the stars as the drops of blood it drinks on a daily basis. Time destroys youth as the moon closes the lotus petals. It destroys life in the same manner that a lion kills an elephant: there is nothing, no matter how tiny, that time cannot take away (Yoga Vasistha Verses 1.23.28- 1.23.42).

 2. Scriptures

Time and space are relativistic to Absolute Existence, or Cosmic Self. The Srimad Bhagavad Gita (11.32) says time is a manifestation of the Supreme Self as mighty Time, the destroyer of the world. Time manifests His omnipotent destructive power and is the invincible potency of Supreme Self. He Himself is mighty Time, the source of destruction that comes forth to annihilate the worlds. His will can't be checked, so the flow of time with its attendant destruction can't be averted.

The Yoga-Vasistha, based on discourses between Sage Vasistha and Sri Rama (the main character of Valmiki Ramayana), has several chapters (23, 24 and 25) on mighty Time  and its pervasive and omnipotent power. It acts on the triple parts of creation, destruction, and action and fate. That way it acts in the creation, preservation, destruction, and remembrance of all. It describes the vicissitudeness of time, ravages of time, and sports of death of time. It mentions that Time appears as the creator, preserver, destroyer, and remembrancer of all. It shows the shapes of all things, whether good or bad, keeping his own nature beyond the knowledge of all. Thus doth time expand and preserve and finally dissolve all things by way of sport (Yoga-Vasistha, Verse 1.23.44).

It depicts the ravages of time as a self-willed athlete that is immune to harm since its powers are limitless (Yoga-Vasistha, verse 1.24.1). This world is like a jungle, where sorrows roam as playful monkeys, and time, like a sportive prince in this forest, roves, walks, plays, and kills his game. (Yoga-Vasistha, verse 1.24.10) The ocean of global deluge is a pleasure pond of time, and the underwater fires bursting therein like lotus flowers serve to brighten the bleak sight. (Yoga-Vasistha, verse 1.24.3). The lion, with his massive body and stunning mane, his loud screaming, and terrible groaning, appears like an imprisoned bird of fun in the hand of time (Yoga-Vasistha, Verse 1.24.3-1.24.7).

Mighty Time is described by Yoga-Vasistha as Sports of death. It states that Time repeatedly produces the worlds and their woodlands, with various abodes and locations abounding with inhabitants. It creates mobile and immovable entities, develops customs, and then dissolves them, much like boys create clay toys only to shatter them soon after. According to Yoga-Vasistha (Verses 1.25.30-1.2), after the end of the world, Time ceases to dance and recreates all things, from the lowest animal to the highest Brahma and Lord Siva, through the processes of creation, generation, destruction, and dissolution (Yoga-Vasistha, Verse 1.25.30-1.25.32).

3. Remarks

Time as part of the projection of the Cosmic Self is all-encompassing. It spares none and engulfs everything. According to Swami Sivananda, Time is the soul of the universe. Time is life. It is the rat that cuts off the thread of life in this universe. There is nothing in the world that the all-devouring time will spare. It pervades and controls all things.

-Asutosh Satpathy 

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