This present moment is beyond time. One can live in this no-time, no-space paradigm while fully breathing the present in its totality, writes Pratiksha Apurv. Published in Speaking Tree on November 17, 2018.
What is a true life moment? And what is the real moment of our lives? To answer these two questions we might need to travel back in time and pick a few threads of our past that we fondly call nostalgia – a bunch of memories wrapped up as happy moments. Even if there are some happy moments in our present, as a habit we tend to chew on the past, or go on hoping for something beautiful to happen in the future. We hardly give a second glance to the present moment which is in our hands. We either live in the past or in the future. If we can only let go of our past and future, the present moment with its immense beauty would appear to us as eternity. This moment – this present moment – is beyond time. One can live continuously for months together in this no-time, no-space paradigm, while fully breathing the present in its totality and in deep meditation.
Beyond Time, Acrylic and Oil on Canvas, 54×54″, 2018
In almost all the religious scriptures, the sages talk about a moment when the ‘I’ disappears and time dissolves into nothingness. Even if it is for a brief period, the experience of our past, future and time vanishes altogether, taking us into an immense blissful state of egolessness and timelessness. Then there is for the first time a glimpse of our own soul – the glimpse of God. In the Bhagwad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna: Mayi sarvaani karmaani sannyasyaadhyaatmachetassa, niraasheer nirmamobhoot vaayudhyasvavigatajvaraha – ‘Hey Arjuna, surrender to me completely all your activities without any thought, with consciousness and without any desire for gain, free from I-my-ness and fight without grief.’
Krishna’s message is clear. Thought, in other words, is what creates the sense of time, the sense of attachment and the whole sense of matrix or maya in us.
Osho says if you do not think, there won’t be any concept of time. That is why in meditation one is in a state of timelessness. That is why in love you are in timelessness. Love is not thinking, it is cessation of thought. When you are with your beloved, you are not thinking about love, you are not thinking about the beloved. A moment of love is a timeless moment. Jesus Christ has said of enlightenment, there shall be time no longer. In the experience of enlightenment, there is no time at all. It is beyond time. There is no past, no future, there is only the present. These two are the most important elements of religious experience – egolessness and timelessness.
Then there is also the pertinent aspect of how to reach there? What is the medium? It is possible through meditation. We must remember that meditation can take us deeper into our mind, and once we penetrate the first layer and go a little deeper, that is the state of no-mind. We can also call it a journey from mind to no-mind. Our scriptures have described the first layer, which is superficial, as mind but the inner core is of no-mind. And that is precisely the reason why we call the superficial layer ego and the inner core egolessness.
Just witness this phenomenon of our mind while sitting silently. The moment one starts witnessing it, there will be a deluge of thoughts and all kinds of memories, but slowly as one penetrates a little deeper, soon the silent spaces will arrive. It would take some time, but one can experience that the innermost core of our being is coming closer. That innermost core of our being is timelessness, where time and space don’t exist.
Shvetasvatara Upanishad describes this phenomenon thus: Te dhyanyoganugata apashyan, devatmshakti swagunenirgudham, yakarnani nikhilani tani, kalatmyuktanyadhitishtyek – ‘Through meditation one can realise that being which exists as the self-luminous power within. That being is the source of everything and triggers all the causes like intellect and emotions. It begins with time but ends with the individual soul.’
Osho says: “When you come to a point where you can’t see any time and you can’t see any space, you have arrived but this arrival is arriving back to your own nature and not arriving to something new. You have arrived to that which was already given and has been always yours.”
This is truly a state of no-time, and I have shown this state of timelessness through my painting titled ‘Beyond Time’. It depicts the present moment in a deep meditative state, a state of utter silence, where one is beyond time, beyond mind and beyond space, thereby having a glimpse of eternity. And, suddenly, all of existence becomes available.
Quote by Osho from
Take it Easy, Vol 1, Ch 5
More articles by or about Pratiksha on Osho News
Comments are closed.