The nature of material time
Because of time, everything that is material has a beginning and also an end, just as the universe itself. Everything spiritual, however, passes through no transformations and thus has no beginning.
« Making Sense of the Vedic Universe, a Higher-Dimensional Reality
The nature of material time
In the Third Canto, Vidura asks Maitreya about the workings of material time:
“Vidura inquired from Maitreya: O my lord, O greatly learned sage, kindly describe eternal time, which is another form of the Supreme Lord, the wonderful actor. What are the symptoms of that eternal time? Please describe them to us in detail.” (SB 3.10.10)
That’s an essential factor in the Vedic universe. Time is the energy that puts the whole material manifestation in motion. The influence of time leads to the transformations that both create and destroy all living beings and material objects. Due to the influence of time, everything is created at a certain point due to certain transformations. This includes planets, material objects, people, demigods, and so on. These transformations then continue until their death or destruction. Because of time, everything that is material has a beginning and also an end, just as the universe itself. Everything spiritual, however, passes through no transformations and thus has no beginning and no end.
Kṛṣṇa explains this point in the Bhagavad-gītā (2.16) with the words nāsato vidyate bhāvo nābhāvo vidyate sataḥ. “Those who are seers of the truth have concluded that of the non-existent there is no endurance and of the eternal, there is no change.”
By non-existent (asat), Kṛṣṇa refers to everything that is material, and by eternal (sat), Kṛṣṇa refers to everything spiritual. Śrila Prabhupāda explains that “non-existent” or “asat” in this context doesn’t mean “false,” but temporary or illusory.
Although the universe exists for a limited amount of time, which we can calculate (311.04 trillion years), the cycles of creation and destruction of the material universes go on following the breath of Mahā-Viṣnu. Time is thus eternal in the sense that these cycles of creation and destruction have been going on since time immemorial, and it is not possible to trace when it all began. Time is also eternal as an energy, being one of the divine spiritual potencies of the Lord. That’s why material time is also called “eternal time”. However, although time is eternal as an energy, its effect on matter, generating the material universes, has a beginning.
In his purport to SB 3.10.11, Prabhupāda explains that time, as an energy, is impersonal, although it also has a personification, just like all other energies of the Lord have their predominating deities. Time thus has both aspects simultaneously.
Apart from the material time, or eternal time, there is the absolute time of the spiritual planets. This absolute time is continuous, without past and future. Everything spiritual simply exists, without a beginning or an end, without past and future. There is time in the spiritual world in the sense that the inhabitants live one day after another, but there is no time in the sense of an oppressive force that makes everything change and eventually be destroyed. Time as past, present, and future is something that exists only in the material world. In the spiritual world, there is just an eternal present.
As Prabhupāda explains later in the same purport, “Metaphysically, time is distinguished as absolute and real. Absolute time is continuous and is unaffected by the speed or slowness of material things. Time is astronomically and mathematically calculated in relation to the speed, change and life of a particular object. Factually, however, time has nothing to do with the relativities of things; rather, everything is shaped and calculated in terms of the facility offered by time. Time is the basic measurement of the activity of our senses, by which we calculate past, present and future, but in factual calculation, time has no beginning and no end.”
Apart from being characterized by past, present, and future, material time is also cyclical. The material creation goes through cycles of creation and destruction, and in each cycle, the same basic historical sequence repeats. This happens on each cycle of four eras (Satya, Treta, Dvāpara, and Kali-yugas), in a day of Brahmā, and in each complete cycle of creation. This is confirmed in SB 3.10.13: “This cosmic manifestation is as it is now, it was the same in the past, and it will continue in the same way in the future.”
The perception of time is also relative, being different in different regions of the cosmos. Demigods perceive time differently from us, accepting as a lifetime what are millions or even billions of years for us. If somehow a human being gains access to these higher realms (as some great kṣatriya kings in the past), by the time he returns, many ages will have passed. This brings the possibility of traveling to the future by visiting a higher planet, where time is perceived as going faster than here.
One example of this, narrated in the Mahābhārata, is the story of King Kakudmī, who once went to Brahmāloka with his daughter Revatī to ask Lord Brahmā about a suitable husband for her. After spending just what seemed to be a few minutes in Brahmāloka, Brahmā explained to him that millions of years had passed on earth and all the suitors he was considering were already dead. The story has a happy ending, however, because Balarāma was on the planet at the time, and Brahmā told the king to give Revatī in marriage to Him.
Many books and movies speculate about the possibility of traveling to the past, but the Vedas explain that this is impossible. Time is the divine energy of the Lord, and no one can challenge it. It’s possible, however, to travel to the “past” by going to the future to a point where the events of the past repeat. One can go from Treta-yuga to Satya-yuga by going to Brahmāloka and waiting for 26 seconds there until the next Satya-yuga starts.
As Prabhupāda explains in SB 3.10.13, “There is a systematic schedule for the perpetual manifestation, maintenance and annihilation of the material world, as stated in Bhagavad-gītā (9.8): bhūta-grāmam imaṁ kṛtsnam avaśaṁ prakṛter vaśāt. As it is created now and as it will be destroyed later on, so also it existed in the past and again will be created, maintained and destroyed in due course of time.”
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« Making Sense of the Vedic Universe, a Higher-Dimensional Reality
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