Time is the substance I am made of.
Time is a river which sweeps me along but I am the river;
it is a tiger which destroys me but I am the tiger;
it is a fire which consumes me but I am the fire.
~ Jorge Luis Borges
I love this quote because it offers an unconventional perspective on Time.
Time, like the oxygen we breathe, pervades every aspect of our lives.
Go ahead and just google TIME, and you’ll be met with hundreds of practical articles on how to manage, reclaim, and maximize it. There is no shortage of left-brain solutions for how to manipulate time in your favor to live a more efficient life. I get it, but it’s a little boring.
From a non-dual (Tantric) yoga perspective, Time is not some external force that abides by a code of ethics. Time is not something that happens TO us. It IS us!
In the Absolute realm time doesn’t exist; there is no here/there nor now/later.
But in the Relative realm (on this planet), it exists. And how! We’ve even created a Gregorian calendar and atomic clocks to track and capture it!
The sanskrit term for Time is Kāla.
In any manifestation process, as transcendent Energy steps down and becomes Matter in this relative world, Kāla-Time is born as part of that process. Kāla limits or veils our sense of eternal awareness by creating sequential awareness (a.k.a. Linear Time).
The great paradox of Time is that it can feel like friend or foe.
When tragedy strikes, time waits for no one. Bills must be paid, and earthly responsibilities need tending to. Time marches forward relentlessly. Oh, how I wish I could push a cosmic pause button when the going gets tough.
On the flip side, Time is that benevolent healer that softens pain, both physical and emotional. Time is on your side.
Actually I’d like to make a correction because we can push a pause button: Meditation/Yoga Nidra.
As we close our eyes, relax, and surrender, we journey backwards from the material to the transcendent. Our sense of Kāla collapses — we break the time barrier, and we rest back as the vast, spacious, timeless beings that we are.
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