Time, Space and Causation

A guest post by Swami Sivananda

The mind is so constituted that it cannot think of anything except in terms of time and space. There is always the then and the now. There is always the here and the there. The mind always thinks in terms of duality. In the mind, one thing is always related to another. "This" is always something which is not "that". Similarly, "here" is something which is not "there", "then" is something which is not "now". In our daily experience we see that these are all meaningless terms. Here becomes there; now becomes then.

Similarly with regard to cause-and-effect. The mind is unable to think except in terms of cause-and-effect. But we have always seen that the cause was the effect of some other cause, and the effect now becomes the cause of some other effect to come.

Therefore, time, space and causation are merely the mind's convenient aids to thought. When thinking stops, time, space and causation vanish into the great ignorance from which they, along with thought itself, sprang up. This Avidya (primordial ignorance) is the fountain from which the spring of mental modifications—-thoughts-—has started flowing, and these flow along the channel of time, space and causation.

Time, space and causation, are therefore modes of thought. It is common experience that the inner feeling of time and space is something entirely different from what it is or might be. Someone immersed in enjoyment finds time fleeting. Yet for one who is undergoing intense suffering, an hour seems to be a millennium. The period of deep sleep, when man enjoys unalloyed happiness (though he is not positively aware of it), always seems to be no-time. Time is, therefore, a mode of thought. The Yogi sitting immersed in Samadhi, in the Bliss of Brahman the Infinite, does not know the passing of time; he lives in the Eternal Now and Here, absorbed in the causeless cause.

That which is changing and which is contradicted by your experience in another state is unreal. That which is unchanging alone is Real. Therefore, Eternity (not a period of time), or Infinity (not space) alone is Real. Here and there, now and then, all are false, meaningless terms. Where One (Brahman) alone exists, without a second, what can be the cause of what? Therefore, realise the Causeless Cause, Brahman the Absolute, and be free. Tat Twam Asi, That thou art.