Is time real?

Originally Posted by mary isaak

Hi everyone,
I heard that time is a mind concept and that it does not really exist.

The people that say time isn't real experience time the same way as everyone else, their backsides still hurt when they've been sitting babbling on about there being no time. Tine becomes a little more elastic in our experience of it - time flies when you're having fun and all that but it's still linear. Frankly I've never understood the wisdom in such statements because really, it's pretentiousness as an ideology.

I've asked how Past Lives and karma works in the context of there being no time, and I'm still waiting for an answer. I think sometimes people need to get real.

In science all of time is happening all of the time, and all of time affects all of time all of the time. If that makes your head hurt, imagine how actually experiencing that would feel. Maybe there are reasons we perceive time the way we do - good, 'solid' Spiritual reasons.

Originally Posted by Greenslade

I've asked how Past Lives and karma works in the context of there being no time, and I'm still waiting for an answer. I think sometimes people need to get real.

Hi Greenslade.

To know the answer for, how Past time and Karma works, then One has to be enlightened and not to get to accept as everyone does.

Without enlightenment, one cannot get the knowledge of their own previous lifes and Karma and how those all works.

Have you known about Shirdi Sai? and many Sages? - Before their enlightenment, they too was just searching of what my previous life and how all works, and also the "Lila" story in Yoga Vasishta. But to know this, one has to be enlightened, of being free of all Ignorance, of totally detached of all things. Even in that story, Lila asked this question of "How all this works?", and Goddess Sarasvathi said, "then you have to be enlightened - detached of the body,everything (i.e. Samadhi)" and only then you can see (not just words to hear). Yes, one has to be enlightened, but not to go again to the prison of "accepting" or 'to get real".'

For Samadhi, one has to go through - Sravana,Manana,Nidhidhyasana - and then samadhi. We are just in the stage of Manana/Vicharana of what all the words we heard (shravana) from 'enlightened beings'/'Upanishads/etc.. And after Manana, one has to totally surrender to one manthra like "Tat tvam asi" or any one manthra, and not wander again as Manana, but surrender/concentrate on that, merge with it (like Dhyana in 7th stage), and only then Samadhi. Only after Samadhi, one can know all this works.

Originally Posted by Mahesh72

Hi Greenslade.
To know the answer for, how Past time and Karma works, then One has to be enlightened and not to get to accept as everyone does.

Hi Mahesh

Frankly I can't be bothered with karma discussions in this forum because after a while they just don't make sense, and really it comes down to reward/punishment mentality.

I used karma as an example in the context of time not being real, because if there is no time then karma and Past Lives are nonsensical discussions. If there is no time there is no previous Life, is there? Karma is based on cause and effect with an ethical component thrown in for good measure, if that's the case then there is time. My point is that often one grand talking point often contradicts another, and few people talk of them in a dichotomy.

Originally Posted by Greenslade

Hi Mahesh
Karma is based on cause and effect with an ethical component thrown in for good measure, if that's the case then there is time.

Yes. You are right, Greenslade.

If we can really see that "It's useless to discuss about 'cause and effect', 'Karma', 'previous lives'", as there is no time, then it's fine.

But do we really see "there is no time", or accept it and move on as some other person said, without totally seeing what are all the tricks - the concept of 'time' plays and negate the play? The time, in the story of Lila, plays the trick of - once the brahmin had seen a king, he desired to become a king. Then after his death, he became a king and the queen is Lila, but the brahmin is dead just before 5 years or something, but here he had gone through a whole life and is dead now - about 40years or something. Likewise, there are many stories, which in itself is insensible, how can someone present in that place die, and in this place is at 30 years old, but the time between that and this is just 2 or 3 years?

Originally Posted by Mahesh72

But do we really see "there is no time", or accept it and move on as some other person said, without totally seeing what are all the tricks - the concept of 'time' plays and negate the play?

Spiritual development happens across time, Awakening is not a single event and whatever we're feeling at the time "This too shall pass." So if we negate time what are we really doing? If a part of you knows you're growing old and looks at your childhood with affection, yet another part of you wants to negate time and the wisdom it brings?

I remember a post in a thread about time many years ago, where the person who posted presented a very Spiritual argument that there was no time. Then they ended the argument by saying they had to go because she had things to do and they were looking forwards to Christmas.

Originally Posted by Mahesh72

The time, in the story of Lila, plays the trick of - once the brahmin had seen a king, he desired to become a king.

In the Bible God took six days to create the heavens and the earth, yet 13-something billions years and here we are today and it's still changing and forming. Isn't evolution amazing? Time as given in many religious texts isn't always literal, sometimes it's metaphor that can lead us to a better understanding than the literal can. Often the numbers can be meant as esoteric knowledge or a numerology that only the chosen few can decipher.

Originally Posted by Greenslade

In the Bible God took six days to create the heavens and the earth, yet 13-something billions years and here we are today and it's still changing and forming. Isn't evolution amazing?

Yes. It's amazing.

But, we caught in it's amazement too and don't try to find "why it is amazement?" and couldn't negate it, to live free in our daily life - Isn't it?

Sir, I was so deeply inquiring of "how all this time works, and how something came from nothing and how every thing happens - which is quite amazing." I didn't inquired the method/process - but how can it happen which is unimaginable by thoughts. And everything comes under a single 'answer' sir - that is...... If you are okay to hear that, I will share you. If not, It's fine.

[MikeS80]

Originally Posted by mary isaak

I heard that time is a mind concept and that it does not really exist.
This idea is hard to understand for me, because I experience events as happening one after the other. Maybe the order is different for different people, it is relative but still exist.

On one hand time is real, You, I and nobody else will not be here, if time was not real. Time on earth is just the humans on earth observing and measuring the earth and other planets rotating around the sun. On the other hand there is the internal ever present moment/Now that is in relation to the memory of time/the past and future. Memories of the past seems like the contents of the memories are happening in the present moment/now, but they happened in the past. Memories are recordings of the present moment for one to access later in the future.

The observing and measuring of time is not the issue when it comes to spirituality, as spiritual an "non-spiritual" growth, evolution, progress etc requires time. A farmer growing crops require time. The issue is the recordings of the present moment to use later in the future becomes a habit of living in the past and thinking of the future, instead of living in the present moment. When a person is living in the past or thinking about the future he/she is not living in the present moment. Most of the recording of the present moment for one to use later as memory, has to do with the judging, comparing, evaluating and etc of what one did like or did not like at the present moment, and leads one to think/fantasize about or escape to the future.

All of the above are yet another reason why the abstract concept of the world/life/physical existence is nothing but a dream/illusion/unreal does not work, and that is because this abstract concept judges, compares, evaluates and etc that the present moment/perfect and harmonious physical universe is a dream/illusion/unreal. The real/true purpose and intent of the concept is to negate one's memories of the past, when one uses the concept to know that the past memories he/she has or had are a dream/illusions/unreal.

Recording the present moment to use later is not the issue per se, the issue is recording a bunch of garbage in the present moment to use later, When you record a bunch of garbage in the present moment to use later, The same garbage will come out (later) in the present moment/now.

[eputkonen]

Originally Posted by ayar415

What is it like when the mind is silent and cognition stops?

When the mind is silent, there is no mental chatter. No labeling, critiquing, judging, comparing, or other compulsive or conceptual thinking.

There is just the feeling/experiencing of the moment...without comment in thought.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by eputkonen

When the mind is silent, there is no mental chatter;
no labeling, critiquing, judging, comparing, or other compulsive or conceptual thinking.
There is just the feeling/experiencing of the moment...without comment in thought.

Excellent answer!
Worthy, as if from a famous sage. (Tho, I corrected some sentence structure, don't hate me!)

Originally Posted by eputkonen

When the mind is silent, there is no mental chatter. No labeling, critiquing, judging, comparing, or other compulsive or conceptual thinking.

There is just the feeling/experiencing of the moment...without comment in thought.

Hi.

If the Mind is silent, then why it has to feel sir? What to feel? The differentiation between the person who feel, and the object which felt? If the mind is silent, then mind sleeps. It cannot experience if it is silent. Only the mind watches the world sir. And if it is silent - then everything goes off, like the destruction of universe. One cannot roam in this world with a silent mind. Roaming itself has a target and the target is set by the mind, and the mind which is silent - cannot set the target and run towards it. Like a waveless pond - the mind is silent doesn't feel anything. If it feels, then there is waves - and it is not silent yet.