THE ETERNAL NOW
Major A.W. Chadwick (Sadhu Arunachala)
IN MANY OFFICES one finds the encouraging notice,'Do it Now!' Although this is undoubtedly good advice, it is
hardly to my present point, as I contend that we can never do
it any "when" else. It always is NOW and the sooner we realize
this the quicker will problems and worries disappear. Sri
Bhagavan has the following verse on the subject of time in his
Forty Verses (verse XV)
The future and the past are only seen
With reference to the present. They in turn
Are present too. The present's only true.
As well to search for future and for past
Outside the eternal present of the Self,
As think to count without unit One,
Which sums up the subject succinctly.
few years ago I saw Anand Coomaraswamy's book Time and
Eternity, but unfortunately neglected to take notes of the many
apposite quotations contained therein on the subject. The few
that do follow I have noted myself, at various times in my
varied reading.
St. Augustine, that pillar of Christianity, was himself much
puzzled by this question and prayed to God for enlightenment.
In his book `Confessions' , he has the following: `Neither the
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past nor the future, but only the present really is; the present is
only a moment and time can only be measured while it is passing.
Nevertheless, there really is time past and future'. We seem here
to be led into contradictions. The only way we can avoid this is
to say that the past and future can only be thought of as present.
Past must be identified with memory, and future with
expectation, memory and expectation both being present fact.
This, after all, is much the same as Bhagavan's verse
although St. Augustine is not quite certain of himself and hesitates
to speak outright.
One of the last of the great western philosophers, Kant,
found in time, one of the basic premises of his whole philosophy.
He declared that "time is not an empirical concept derived from
any experience"..... "only on the presupposition of time can
we represent to ourselves a number of things as existing at one
and the same time or at different times" . . . ...
"Time is a necessary representation that underlies all
intuition. We cannot in respect of appearances in general remove
time itself, though we can quite well think time as devoid of
appearances. Time is therefore given a priority". In other words
we cannot think outside time. Time is one of the modes of our
minds as thinking machines. Bhagavan also asks in Forty Verses
(verse XVI): "Do time and space exist apart from us?" Implying
thereby, the contrary.
In our objectification of the world, we create it in terms
of time and space, thus only can we see it apart from ourselves.
In the `eternal now' it ceases entirely to exist. We find it hard to
realize this as our minds are restless machines and refuse to give
up activities which necessitate time for their functioning. We
are always trying to become something else, other than what
we are, or rather think we are at the moment - happy and
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virtuous, failing to see that all becoming must change, so that
this happiness gained will change back into its opposite
eventually, that is into unhappiness. It is only in `being' or the
`now' that we can ever find rest. Plato also says that time and
creation come into existence together, in fact all appearance is
only in time. And Schopenhauer opines that matter is actual,
(using actual in its original meaning), that is only in its
functioning, which is in time, so does it exist at all?
My reading of the Hindu Scriptures is defective, though
undoubtedly, they must say exactly the same repeatedly. I find I
am unable to quote from them as I should to substantiate my
thesis, but I know one quotation from the Vishnu Purana, which
finds its place here. Parasuram says, "Time is only a form of
Vishnu, for change is only possible for things which are imagined
with reference to a substratum."
But the whole picture, all our waking experiences, is only
one moment in eternity. We see only a part and through
continuing time, a strip. It all depends on the angle from which
we look at it, as to what we see. If we look repeatedly from the
same angle we see the same isolated picture or strip. The picture
never changes, it is only our point of view. The prophet is able
to see a larger expanse of the picture than the layman. To merge
entirely in the picture is to know eternity and from that view
point there is no picture as we know it, and no time.
Boethus, the old Roman statesman awaiting his death in
prison also said, "Eternity is the simultaneous and complete
possession of Infinite Life." It would be hard to find it summed
up better than this. For eternity is the `now', it does not flow in
time, there is no before or after in it, no birth and no death.
Heraclitus, the Greek famous for the aphorism:
"Everything flows," said that fire was the cause of all. By this
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he did not mean the physical fire, but rather the energy of the
modern scientists, though an energy that was not just material
but rather spiritual. For him this central fire is eternal and
never dies, "the world was, is ever, and ever shall be, an
ever-living fire." Although fire itself is everlastingly changing,
this change would, like phenomena, seem to be apparent, but
essentially fire remains the same fire. Change in appearance is
its nature, as 1:9 Mandukyopanishad has it: `Others think that
manifestation is for the purpose of God's fulfilment. While
still others attribute it to mere diversion. But it is the very
nature of the effulgent being, for what desire is possible for
him whose desire is always fulfilled?'
Substitute fire for effulgent being, which is after all a
legitimate substitution, for what is fire but effulgent? And do
not both of these essentially agree?
In Bergson I find the following sentence: "Pure duration
is the form which our conscious states assume when our ego lets
itself live, when it refrains from separating its present state from
its former states." This apparently goes beyond the tenets of
Advaita, as he seems to be referring to the reincarnating ego in
his reference to former states, nevertheless it is pregnant with
meaning, for we are undoubtedly conscious when we rest in
the now, although we do not individualise. Surely it is only
then that we do really live!
For many of the philosophers, time was a problem, with
the exception of those who considered it to be something real,
although we are little interested at the moment in their
conclusions as we are trying to picture the verity of the `eternal
now', in contrast to the unreality of time, which slips through
our fingers like a running stream when the hand is plunged
into the water to stay its course.
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Leaving the realms of metaphysics let us glance at the
hypotheses of some of the scientists. They have certainly been
intrigued by the problem and well understood that it was not
to be ignored. Especially since Einstein sprang on the world his
theory of relativity. He himself says in one place that distance is
between events and not things, which takes a matter-of-fact
measurements out of the realm of every day life, where we
thought they were safely enthroned and could be relied upon,
into the province of time itself, where we had never thought
that time had any reason to interfere.
It reminds us of Schopenhauer's `matter is actual', though
one doubts if he ever really intended to imply quite as much as
this. He does say, "All being in time is also non-being, for time is
only that by means of which opposite determinations, can belong
to the same thing. Therefore every phenomenon, which is in time
again is not. For what separates its beginning from its end is only
time, which is essentially a flitting, inconstant and relative thing."
In astronomy time takes on its most intriguing aspect.
We think that when we look through our telescopes into the
measureless distances of the sky, we are looking at something
present now. Most of what we see has either moved millions of
miles away from where it appears to be or has even ceased to
exist altogether. We are, in fact, looking at all sorts of things
which are not there at all. And if this cannot be called maya [?]
then the term has no meaning. One of the furthest nhebulae
our present telescopes can reach is 150 million light years away,
an unimaginable mathematical figure. What actually does this
mean? It means that the astronomer now is looking at a 150
million year past event, which is happening for him in the
present. At best he is only looking at a cosmic memory. The
picture does not actually exist at all.
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The whole pattern of the heavens, the position of the stars
is an hallucination; they have one and all moved away from the
positions in which we see them now, but not proportionately,
so that the actual pattern is much the same. But some have
shifted vast distances and others but little in comparison. We
may photograph it, plot it on our tracing board, all to no
purpose. It is all a myth. Our sight and even our machines are
grossly deceived as we can never know what the picture really
is. Even the apparent stationary position of the stars is deceptive.
They are one and all rushing about at incredible speeds. Time is
playing a game with us.
Eddington pointed out that if the Universe is spherical
whatever direction we may look, provided there is no
obstruction, we would be able to see the back of our own heads.
Well not exactly! Because time has taken over 6,000 million
years to go round and our heads were not there then, we ought
to be able to see what stood in that particular place then. Now
let us suppose there are no obstructions and we do see some
object which existed in that spot 6,000 million years ago, what
actually does it signify? We see and yet we don't see. We really
see an object that is not there at all. Our head is turned by such
riddles and with the poet Omar Khayam, who was himself a
great astronomer, we may truly say,
"Another and another cup to drown
The memory of this Impertinence."
can hardly be surprised.
So it would seem as if science were gradually being forced
to recognize that reality can alone be found in the `eternal now',
and that time deceives us every step we take. Each of us makes
his own individual picture in terms of time and space, which
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spring up together with the uprising ego and with it, sinks back
again. As Bhagavan says:
"The ego rising all else will arise.
On it subsiding, all will disappear."
(Forty Verses on Reality, verse 26)
"And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and the earth
lifted up his hand to heaven and swore by him that liveth for
ever and ever . . . . that there should be time no longer."
irrespective of time is interesting and seems to me a productive
sadhana [?]. When all is at rest and the flow of outward events is
allowed to go on itsway unheeded, or taken up together into
the whole, a peace passing all understanding rests on one and
one draws very near to a full realization of the Reality. I am not
speaking here of nirvikalpa samadhi [?] when all outward
cognizance has disappeared, but rather of a preliminary
condition. As for the ultimate state it matters little whether we
call it the Self, Eternal Now, or pure Being. These are all names
only given in objective consciousness. In pure introspection
they are found to be one and the same.
For the advatin who sees and knows the One alone,
such discussion may seem unproductive and for some not
even interesting, But for those who are not so established,
there still remain doubts and especially on the question of
mortality. They fear death. They look on it as extinction.
And the dogmas and creeds of various faith give them no
more than encouraging words, not assurance, but in the
certainty of the Eternal Now, all such doubts should be
dispelled. Here, there can be no fear of death, for how can
we ever escape from the present that is now. It eternally is.
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And it is summed up by, I AM. Not I was or I may be at
some future date, but eternally I AM.
Schopenhauer endorses this, "any form of life or reality is
really only the present, neither the future nor the past. These are
only in the conception . . . . No man has ever lived in the past,
and none will ever live in the future. The present alone is the
form of all life, and is its sure possession which can never be
taken from it. The present always exists."
But I begin to overstep the space allowed me. So I will
end with one last quotation from Plato:
"Now all these portions of time, and was and shall be, are
forms of time which have come to be, although we wrongly
ascribe them to the eternal essence. For we say that it was and is
and shall be, but in reality is alone belongs to it."