To one who outmeasures space, outlasts time

It gets more mystifying when you think of the smallest unit of time. Called Planck’s time (about 10-44 second), it’s the time taken to cover the smallest unit of distance (Planck’s length, about 10-34 m) at the fastest speed (light’s, about 3×108 m/sec). Time shorter than this makes no sense since, thereafter, uncertainties of quantum physics replace physics. It’s almost like time coming to a standstill. If this peek into the divided units of a second resembles metaphysics, contemplate a little on the multiple units of a millennium. Here man’s lifespan of 100 years looks like a mere nanosecond in Cosmic Time. In the Hindu tradition, with its cyclical movement of the Kali Yug, Dwapar Yug, Treta Yug and Satya Yug, a day in the life of Brahma, the creator of the universe, lasts 4,300,000,000 years. And Brahma lives for 311,040,000,000,000 human years, before a new Brahma begins a new cycle of time. But isn’t it mythology? Surely. But it does show that in no age has man abandoned his quest to understand Time and the Ultimate Reality. Huston Smith, a former MIT professor vividly describes the Hindu time-scale in his best-selling book Religions of Man: ‘‘The Himalayas, it is said, are made of solid granite. Once every thousand years a bird flies over them with a silk scarf in its beak, brushing their peaks with its scarf. When by this process the Himalayas have been worn away, one day of the cosmic cycle will have elapsed.’’

All of us, in our thoughtful moments, have wondered how tiny we are in this universe that stretches to infinity and how short-lived we are in a timeline that stretches to eternity. It’s so humbling a thought as to make some minds conclude that life is without any meaning and without any purpose. But the same thought can produce a cathartic spiritual experience revealing to us that we are, after all, not dispensable in the architecture of the universe, nor irrelevant to its little-known but undeniable design. Could it be that a part of us does not really die after our death? And aren’t we linked to an unbroken chain of life before our birth? To think so is to affirm that, for man, life is not merely a continuum but also evolutionary with a purpose. And history is the rocess through which mankind, if awakened, can realise that Great Purpose.

All religions have tried to create this awakening of the divine in man. They urge us to develop a worshipful attitude towards the Timeless (Akaal), which regulates all life in Time (Kaal). It is only our ignorance and arrogance that make us behave as if there is no tomorrow, as if there is no Higher Power surveying what we think and what we do in our transient physical existence. Of all kinds of arrogance, the one fed by political power creates the highest intoxication and produces the greatest harm. World history is full of tales of power-drunk kings, badshahs and fuhrers who thought that their empires would never crumble and that Time would never make their takhts bite dust. I am often mesmerised by the concept of ‘‘Akaal Takht’’ in Amritsar’s Golden Temple. It refers to the takht or the royal throne that is everlasting. Now, whose power and padshahi is everlasting in this universe? Of God alone.

In his poem ‘‘Who’’, Maharshi Aurobindo describes the Timeless One:

In the sweep of the worlds, in the surge of the ages, Ineffable, mighty, majestic and pure, Beyond the last pinnacle reached by the thinker He is throned in His seats that forever endure.

New Year’s Day is hence a time for bringing the lost sense of awe back into our humdrum lives; for letting our imagination wander from micro to mega reaches of space and time and realise our connectedness to both; and for offering a grateful prayer, in Aurobindo’s words, to ‘‘the One, who outmeasures Space and outlasts Time’’.

Wish you a happy and thoughtful 2006.

Write to sudheenkulkarni@expressindia.com