Time-The Eternity Beyond Mortals

TIME !!!

Time... The only measure thats eternal and yet indispensable.
Time... one of the seven fundamental physical quantities mentioned in the International System of Units.
Time... Concept yet to be established. Is it a sensation? an experience?
Time... science? feeling? measure? thought? reason?

From the Ancient times, time( ...see! you have to bear this word TIME as it appears in different context in our day to day usage!) had been a base for everything lifestyle and individual performance to predictions and forewarnings about the future of civilizations and even the universe.

Abhijjna's first post is on the concept of time as i found time to be the only concept that has been featured, revered, feared as well as exalted by every civilization as well as every aspect of life modern and ancient. Irrespective of the religion race nation or even time every mention of time is made in a way that reflects how naturally it comes to man to use this aspect to denote anything and everything.

The motion of the sun, the phases of the moon, the length of the shadows, the batting of an eyelid, one heart beat, the impact of a waterdrop.... i can go on and still time as a concept very widely talked about is still an enigma.

Time as i understand....

As i understand (when i say that as  a common man not a scientist nor a historian or a philosopher), time is a measure of existence. Measure of how long a person,thing, situation, phenomenon or occurrence or even a trend or a pattern lasts. For centuries man has been trying to overcome the forces of nature through his unique ability to adapt and survive over various scenarios and i strongly believe the first step in this regard is his getting sensitized to the one measure of existence which he called "TIME'.

Time may have been on the agenda ever since man set foot on the planet and noted the existence of fellow beings and nature.Here however i differ from the historians and others who have been opining that man developed the concept of time from natural phenomenon like floods as they usually site the example of Egypt and the flooding Nile. What i found in many such blogs and websites from the western world( with dew respect to them) is that they forget the simple fact called sun and the moon and the phenomenon of day and night which might have made man calculate how long the light lasts... Moreover there is entirely another angle to it which is ignored by the western world. Our own inner being! I was opened to this when i sat in a class of Astrology in one of the reputed universities where a famous professor started his session with the concept of DIk, Disha and Kaala. Which simply means Dimension Direction and Time. The vedic wisdom clearly implied that the human biological clock( again Time) you see!)that is attuned to the outer world and the cycles of nature is itself the source of all measures.It conveyed that man from the beginning had a keen sense of time and dimension as well as direction which made him different and more powerful than any other living form on the planet so much so that he even empowered to threaten nature. The example that was given was simple and the one that i remember till date. The professor asked us how many of us can relate to time as in... you know... predict what time it is at a given moment without referring to our wrist watches or a clock. Few of us were bang on and the rest more or less close. This assuming we check time and can relate in the modern context. Then he mentioned the scenario of sunrise and sunset and asked us how many of us wake up before sunrise or after sunset?How many of us spend quiter moments and what was our lifestyle... I got the point then. Majority of us have drifted from the inner clock that was set by the life forces themselves. As we move away from nature and inner self so we depend more on outside aid. Early man depended on his own inner self and that guided him and the keen sense that we see in some people which is called ESP is nothing but what the entire population could have had by now had it been preserved and not tampered with through external interference. He then asked us how many of us get up before the alarm goes on to check if its on.... Bowled again! 90 % of the class raised their hands and... then oversleep after the alarm goes? 99% this time. Well if u get up on your own before the alarm goes who got you awake before the aforesaid time? 

The lecture opened my eyes to the concept that the vedic culture had been propounding. Every thing originates from within.Even time. It did not start one day. It is there. omnipresent and eternal. The reference to time by man from ancient times denotes how much in awe man was about it from the beginning as he attributed it the highest place known to him. Next only to god. Infact god has been himself defined as the force above and beyond time. One who is eternity- The force that defies time!!!! and indestructable.Kalaatheetaaya  kalaroopaaya kaala kaalaaya! The one who is beyond and above time. So infact in a way, time is used as a measure of the Supreme Force itself.

If you look at what the thesists around the world say about god, 

In the eminence of thy ever-present eternity, thou precedest all times past, and extendest beyond all future times, for they are still to come — and when they have come, they will be past. 

But "Thou art always the Selfsame and thy years shall have no end."

Thy years neither go nor come; but ours both go and come in order that all separate moments may come to pass. 

All thy years stand together as one, since they are abiding. Nor do thy years past exclude the years to come because thy years do not pass away.

All these years of ours shall be with thee, when all of them shall have ceased to be. Thy years are but a day, and thy day is not recurrent, but always today. 

Thy "today" yields not to tomorrow and does not follow yesterday. Thy "today" is eternity.

—St. Augustine, Confessions, Book XI, Chapter XIII

Augustine of Hippo time is beyond us while god is beyond time. In short time has been used to define the Almighty...The power!...That which is not bound by time is The Eternal Supreme Force that defies all reason.

The ancient world personified time and closely related it to inevitability and fate. The Greeks personified time into the static aspect of Chronus and the dynamic aspect of Kairos  ( Something like iddan vs zeman concepts of the Hebrew Bible)through which they also portrayed not only inevitability of man to succumb to the powerful time but also the key to seize the opportunity to use it wisely if not defy the same.
The European folklore refers to father time while the Zohrastrians about Zurvan... the fascination of man is unending as far as time is concerned.

....to be continued.