The person who asked this question apparently watched a video in which a well-known spiritual Guru made a claim that he has ways to stop time!
The context was a discussion between a reputed astrophysicist and this spiritual Guru. The astrophysicist kept wondering about various theories about time and how conclusions arrived at by these theories are beyond comprehension.
But our spiritual Guru, who is also a highly qualified medical man, was mischievously suggesting that stopping the time is possible. And that he has techniques to do that! Obviously, he was talking about meditation techniques that make one experience stoppage of time.
But this spiritual man in his usual eagerness to generalize things, forgets the difference between perception of stoppage of time and the actual stoppage of time. They are not same.
People who have practiced meditation for prolonged time, experience a state where they feel that the time has stopped. They don’t experience the flow of time. I have discussed some such experiences in one of my books namely “Mysterious experiences – a peek beyond the confines of the Mind”.
But perception of time and elapse of time are not one and the same. Theoretical physicists talk about time as a fourth dimension of existence. They even talk of a ‘time’ when there was no time at all! They wriggle around to explain the meaning of ‘no time’ as well as possibility of ‘time travel’ suggested by the view that time is only a fourth dimension and not linearly ordered.
Interestingly, even the ancient Upanishads do talk about a ‘time’ when there was no time at all. Long back, I wrote an article to explain this notion of ‘no time’ mentioned by the Upanishads.
Supposing you can take snap shots of the universe every time there is any change in the universe and number these snapshots sequentially, I argued that these numbers actually indicate the flow of time. The flow does not talk about how fast or how slow the universe changes, but just indicates a change. The interesting consequence is that if there is no change in the universe, the time stops!
The Upanishads talk about a ‘time’ when there was absolutely no change. In a highly poetic way, one of the Upanishads says that at that ‘time’, ‘there was nothing that blinked its eyes’! Naturally, at that time there was no time! Time starts only when there is change.
At an observer level, we perceive passage of time by observing changes around us. If we don’t perceive any change, we feel that the time has stopped. If we are anticipating any specific change, then we get bored since the time is not passing through, since there is no change! On the contrary, if we are not expecting anything to happen, no matter how long we sit in the same place looking at a completely stagnant surrounding, we don’t get bored even when we perceive no elapse of time. Such a state is possible especially if you are an adept meditator.
Even when someone is in deep states of meditation, when the mental activities almost stop, there is no perception of time since there is nothing that changes in the mental world. The time just stops! For time to elapse, things should change, thoughts should keep getting produced.
The other way is also true. Sometimes you sit for meditation but cannot calm your mind. You keep looking at your watch every now and then since you perceive time but your watch betrays you 😉. The intense agitation in your mind makes you feel that you have been meditating for too long.
So, that is the fine difference between passage of time and perception of passage of time. Both are driven by ‘change’. In one case actual change and in another, perceived change.
Apparently, this obvious difference is not so obvious to some of our modern-day Gurus. I have heard Gurus who say that the moment they close their eyes, the world just disappears. They even try to generalize it by saying that existence of the world is a consequence of an observer. No observer, no world! That is a long leap from spirituality to quantum physics!
A series discussing questions and answers on Yoga/Philosophy. © Dr. King, Swami Satyapriya 2020-21
Time- a very complex dimension to understand. But just realized that we get bored (time does not pass)because there is no change!
ReplyDelete