Seek and ye shall find….

It all began when I was introduced to Sanskrit more than three decades ago. My Sanskrit text consigned my very solid world to the realm of the illusory (Maya). I could not understand or appreciate why anyone would categorize this world that I can touch, feel, see and hear as insubstantial. It seemed very solid to me. I protested very loudly and vociferously and got sent out of class for misbehavior.

The long and short of it is that, my teacher failed to explain to me the concept of Maya or illusion that is the core of Hindu belief. He either had no clue about the meaning or thought I was not ready for the meanings encapsulated in the words. Decades later, here I am still grappling with the concepts referenced in my Sanskrit classes and still struggling to make some sense of them for myself.

Over the years I discovered that there are many more terms that are never clearly and unambiguously explained to the Hindu as part of his religious upbringing. Why is that?

Hinduism is not really a religion in the sense that Christianity or Islam is. It is a democratic, fluid set up that looks upon the atheist, the agnostic and the believer with unfazed indifference. Belief is a very personal thing and no one has the right to dictate the terms of belief. Those who seek will find the meanings and the path. So, the seekers have learnt the meanings and travelled the path to realization. Non-seekers have heard the echoes and have remained forever uncaring or enthusiastically unbelieving.

Is it a good or bad thing? Ask a “Hindu” and you will get the reply— “There is nothing good or bad. It is their Karma. They will seek if they are destined to”.

Karma and free will

If that is so, what is Karma? Karma is the universal law of cause and effect. What you sow, you will reap. Interestingly, the belief is that, the effect of the action in one lifetime may be spread over multiple lifetimes. If you were a strong non-believer in one lifetime, you may continue to carry that trait with you over multiple lifetimes. Stories of Hiranyakashipu and Hiranyakasha; Kansa and Sisupala are put forth as examples of people who carried the same trait of enmity to God over multiple lifetimes. They had to live and die with that trait till they learnt to overcome it and merge with the divine.

Hmm...I can hear you asking me…Did they finally merge with the divine? Their merger with the divine was either…not an interesting story or they were probably born as one of the saints we hear so much about!

Citing examples from our own life, Karma is defined as the result of our own actions. If, for instance, you intentionally deprived someone of their eyesight in some lifetime, you may have to spend one or more lifetimes as a blind person. You need to realize that blindness is a painful state and no one should be subject to that experience. Your suffering should make you learn the lesson—intentionally blinding someone is not good karma... It may make you passionate about researching on or curing blindness---and that may be your ticket out of this specific karmic vortex!

But, how do you know the blindness in the current lifetime is the result of your action in some past life time? The reality is, you cannot know unless you are a trikaladarshi (a person who knows the past, present and future). If you are not, you must have enough faith to accept it and try to learn your lesson. Once you have learnt your lesson, the cycle will be broken and the effect will fade into insignificance. You may enjoy other lifetimes sans the crippling blindness.

You may ask: “Hmm…while there is a positivity to the concept, there is very little stress on agency (free will)?”

“Free will” is paramount in the concept of Karma. You can change your fate by deliberately and efficiently setting out to negate the effects of Karma. Your suffering and the cause of it are visible realities in your life. As a first step, you have to accept the “effect” of past karma as a reality in your life. Next you must find ways and means of negating the impact of that Karma in this lifetime or in future lifetimes. Your “free will” can determine how you live out this life and what you will be born with in the next lifetime.

Here again, Hinduism is not prescriptive. You can reduce physical suffering and earn brownie points in the karmic cycle by using your body for the service of others (paropakarartham idam shareeram—my body is for the service of others). Alternately, you can erase the cycle of Karma itself, by realizing that this world is an illusion and you are that Brahman—the creator who has become the created.

The Creator and the Created

Anything that is created exists in dualism. This is because, the process of creation itself creates a duality. “That which is not” (Sathya –true reality)—the unmanifest reality-- becomes “that which is” visible to the senses (Mithya-Maya—illusion)—the manifest form and therefore by contrast can be juxtaposed; compared. Since “that which is not” exists alongside or rather pervades “that which is”, it is possible to tear the veil of the manifested illusion using a number of tools discussed in the Upanishads and merge in the true reality.

But how?

Upanishadic texts and the Bhagavad Gita inform us that we need to understand that the body is an object in this duality. It is not our real self. The real self is Brahman--a witness to the antics of the body, untouched by causes or effects; unchanged by time; immutable. To distinguish between the real and unreal; the true and untrue; the uncreated and created, you need to first understand the nature of the body and the self.

How can we experience the body as an object of duality and distinguish it from the real self?

The body is a creation. It is created by past Karma. (for those who are tempted to ask—what is the karma that created the first body—I would point out that it is clearly stated in the spiritual

literature of the world—the will of God. Subsequent bodies were created by the karma (actions) of the individual manifestation).

My understanding is that; Karma or action creates a vortex of directional energy. Multiple karmic vortexes (Sanchita Karma or collected Karma) may be generated sequentially (note—I do not say simultaneously here because simultaneous generation of lifetimes or multiverses is a little too much for me to grasp at the moment) to create a lifetime. One or more of these vortexes (prarabda karma) may powerfully shape and place a body in an appropriate environment. The body so created will carry with it the dominant impulses or vasanas that initiated the karmic vortex. The purpose of that karmic body is to understand the specific vasana and reduce; erase its power. Those who succeed will be able to erase/ reduce/ negate that specific karmic energy. Those who fail will add energy to the karmic vortex (agami karma) and will have to repeat the lesson. All Karmic vortexes can be negated over multiple lifetimes and the cycle of birth and death can be broken.

However, this is a hard and long path, but not the only one. You have the choice to break ALL Karmic vortexes in this lifetime itself. Texts like Aparokshanubhuti, Vivekachudamani, Panchadasi and so on tell you how you can distinguish between the body and the self. These texts gently lead you from a definition of the characteristics of the gross body to delineations of the subtle body, and repeat themselves seemingly, endlessly till you can truly grasp their meaning and work towards making the distinctions. Once this distinction is made, the body and the world will be seen to be the illusion (Maya) it is stated to be.

Conclusion

The journey from hearing to understanding has been long and hard. I can still see the path stretching interminably before me, fading into the grey distance into a pinpoint. The echoes continue to harass. But, now I know the answers exist and I have to seek to find them…I have become a seeker!

Musings about time

Those who desperately want to believe in the possibility of time travel would like to describe time as a set of slices arranged in a linear order from left to right or in vertical order from bottom to top and that it is possible to physically visit any slice of time in the past or the future.  They aver that it is possible to use technology to skip from one slice to another in random order and change the sequence of events for positive/ negative outcomes.  A number of time travel movies have explored the potential impact of such visitations on the past or the future.

While this, makes for a collection of very interesting tales, it must be remembered that our concept of time travel stems from our experience of the flow of time. Physical experience of time indicates that time is a linear flow.  Time flows from past to the present and into the future in an unending stream.  The past can never be physically revisited and the future cannot be physically experienced in the present.  The past can be remembered and the future planned for. The present alone can be lived in.

Adopting a more scientific approach, it must be appreciated that time is an artificial construct. Humans have defined time on the basis of the rotation and revolution of our planet.  Since the planet takes approximately 365 days to go around the sun, we have called it a year. As the planet takes 24 hours to rotate on its axis, we have defined the day.  The seconds, hours, minutes, months and seasons are all sub-divisions created from the position of the sun or the moon in relation to the earth in the cycle of rotation or revolution. So we can safely say that we have created time on the basis of our experiential understanding of the way light and heat from the sun reaches us at various points in the rotation and revolution of the planet. The ticking of the clock reminds us of the diurnal and annual movement of our planet. It follows that if were to define time on Mars, the duration of the day or month or year will be completely different.

The Travelling Twin Experiment

An oft discussed experiment in this context is the hypothetical experiment of the travelling twins.  One twin stays on earth and the other goes into space in an ultra-fast rocket that travels at the speed of light. The travelling twin travels for two years as per the ticking clock and calendar on board the rocket. When the traveling twin returns to earth he is two years older than he was when he left the earth. However, the 2-year travel time in the ultrafast (faster than light travelling) rocket equaled 30 years of time on earth. So the twin who remained on earth is 30 years older than the day when he was separated from his traveling twin!

Our Space-time worldview

Unfortunately, we have come to regard time and space as the frame of our existence.  We forget that time-space are artificial man-made constructs and illusions generated artificially. We allow the diurnal motion and annual motion of the earth to convince us that life is nothing but a large clock ticking relentlessly from our birth to our death. 

But let us take a step back and look how concepts of time evolved in the West and the East.  

Western Perspectives on Space-time

Western Philosophy and Science were based on observation of the external world.  What can be observed; recorded and replicated is true.  Subjective experience cannot to be considered proof enough as it cannot be replicated.  Consequently, there was no model for the study of the subjective experience of space or time in Western thought. In fact, there was no discussion about the interaction of space and time in Western Philosophy or Science till the theory of relativity was mooted by Einstein.  Till then, it was accepted that time and space are fundamental dimensions of the Universe but they are to be measured independent of each other using distinct methodologies.  The hourglass and then the clock was used to measure the passage of time and rulers, gauge blocks were used for studying length and breadth of space.  Therefore, when Einstein claimed that space and time were inseparable, the western world was shocked.  The theory seemed to challenge common sense and demand deeper study. Later, as they probed the concept, they came up with new understandings. Cognitive sciences and neurosciences have, since, revealed that:

·         We use shared neurological mechanisms to make psychological judgements about time and space.

·         Space and time are regarded as interchangeable in our minds.  This is demonstrated in verbal expressions “Moving forward”; “Lagging behind”; “thinking ahead” and so on or we say “My daughter lives 2 days’ journey to the west” (space/distance perceived as time).

·         And so on…

Modern day physicists delving into the mysteries of the quantum world, are eager to explore the frontiers of space-time continuum in multiple ways. They are frantically discussing multiple dimensions, multi-verses, teleportation and time travel as hypotheses that may one day be proven realities.

Eastern perspectives on Space-time

Contrary to the West, Eastern philosophers have always demonstrated a tendency to accept subjective experience as real.  Time and space are not considered different dimensions.  They are considered two faces of the same coin. They are properties of the external world of experience. They agree with their Western counterparts that:

·         Matter occupies space for a given period of time.

·         Matter has a beginning and an end in time.

·         Matter occupying space is subject to the ravages of space and time (Kalachakra).

·        Mind perceives the world in terms of space and time using the five senses; the mind and the intellect (Maya).

However, they repeatedly assert that, time and space apply only to matter and have no impact on consciousness, which is all there is.  So time and space must be accepted and discarded.  Vedic literature informs us that Kala (time) chakra (Wheel) is only for the body located in a bounded space-time. Kalachakra has a finite beginning and an end.  Karma, again, is space-time concept. The soul binds itself to a body and time, with the explicit purpose of working out its Karma. Therefore, Space-time is born when the body is born.  Therefore, Man would be better occupied in finding ways and means of transcending the “space-time” conundrum and ascending to the state of Nirvana, mukti, Moksha (freedom from space-time).  The state of Samadhi is the state of time-less-ness and space-less-ness. It has no beginning or end.  Matter—does not matter. 

As a consequence, Eastern Philosophy is focused on overpowering the formidable grip of sensory perception and the believable illusions of a wayward mind in order to destroy the bondage of space-time!  

Has anyone conquered space and time?

Time as we know it, is a physical construct; a measure (defining the rotation and revolution of the earth), applicable to the physical body in a predefined space (earth).  Note that there are two variables and a constant in this construct—the physical body(constant), time (variable 1) and space (variable 2). The travelling twin experiment proved time can be stretched (or varied) if space occupied by the body is varied.  But, time cannot be slowed, stopped or changed in any manner so long as the body remains on earth.

Eastern philosophers, on the other hand, believe that time and space can be varied if the constant (body) is taken out of the equation.  It is the physical body that keeps time and space anchored.  Thousands of subjective experiments conducted by eastern scientists called Siddhas are provide recorded evidence of their ability to control time and space by taking the physical body out of the equation. These Siddhas have the recorded ability to divest them of their physical body instantly and re-manifest another body for themselves thousands of miles distant from their original location (space)(see Paul Brunton’s “A Search for Secret India”). Yet others, are able to manifest multiple physical bodies in parallel space-time continuums to complete the tasks they have undertaken (see: Paramahamsa Yogananda’s “Authobiography of a Yogi”). Unfortunately, all these stories are dismissed as old wives’ tales and even the Siddhas who have manifested this ability are shy of talking of it as they regard it as a mere side-effect of their main practice!

In the context of this discussion we may conclude, that time is an illusion we have created to give ourselves a frame of reference for our life on earth. We must all agree that, while the time-space construct is valid, it is not real beyond the time-space we physically occupy.  If, like the west, we are content with objective proof of the illusion of time and want to do nothing about it—that is ok.  But, if you want to truly understand the nature of the illusion, walk with the thousands of eastern masters who have gained mastery and control over time and space by taking the physical body out of the equation (by overpowering the formidable grip of sensory perception and the believable illusions of a wayward mind) and seeing time and space for what it is—Maya (illusion)