Words From The Master: 01 Jan 2008

When Time stands still

Hindu mythology of creation talks about how the Universe is created each time the Creator Brahma blinks!

Sages of ancient India measured time through the concept of kshana. Kshana is not chronological time. It was not measured as the amplitude of a pendulum or the frequency of an electronic chip. Kshana was not generic time, but individual time. Kshana is the time between two thoughts. My kshana and your kshana are different.

In the case of the average person, in whom the mind is constantly active, desires and thoughts pour out without a stop, the time between two thoughts is very small, very very small. In the case of an enlightened being, who is a no mind state, in whom there are no thoughts, kshana is infinite.

Kshana is the time between two thoughts. It is the space between two thoughts. This is the time and space that Buddha referred to as sunya, and that which Sankara referred to as purna. It is the no mind zone, the mindful zone, in which you touch base with yourself.

Kshana is that present moment in which you come face to face with the divinity within yourself, recognize the cosmic energy that you are part of.

When you are in that kshana, you are truly aware; you are energized and refreshed. Meditation takes you into that awareness.

When you are in front of an enlightened Master who is in a no mind state without thoughts your own thought level comes down, and kshana becomes longer. Without even trying you become calmer, more peaceful, and more aware.

The same experience occurs when you are in the energy field of an enlightened master who is no longer in body, as in a Jiva Samadhi, where the master’s body has been buried. Many of our great temples such as Tirupati, Tiruvannamalai, Mantralaya and Palani are built around the burial spots of enlightened masters and that is the reason why we feel the sanctity and peace giving properties of these locations.

Contrary to what Western philosophers say the idle mind, if it is silent, is not the devil’s workshop. It is God’s workshop! It is the busy mind that is truly the devil’s workshop.

Descartes said, ‘I think, therefore I am’. That is a mere fact; an irrelevant one. Vedanta says, ‘When you stop thinking, you are.’ This is truth; the cosmic truth.

Be still and you will be God.

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This article was earlier published in the Economic Times, an Indian newspaper.