The invention of time
“The present is not of time.”
{The Impossible Question: Chapter 4, Fragmentation, 23rd July 1970, page 46)
The very essence of the talks is all about time...
It is clear what is meant by the above statement. The past, modified by the present, becomes the future, and all this is entirely based on memories stored in the brain. This past always impinges on and distorts the present and is always projecting through hope into the future. Yet, life can, and must, be lived only in the present (the now, the moment, the actuality) and this present is not of psychological time. This may be difficult to understand, yet it must be comprehended for the talks to be clear.
~~~
The title “The Ending of Time”, in the extended discussions with David Bohm (Wikipedia article), in 1980, is about the ending of psychological time, not about ending chronological time, which of course is impossible. Which means we need to understand the complete nature and workings of psychological time.
Obviously there is such a thing as chronological time. There is yesterday, today, and there will be tomorrow. The talks do not concern themselves with this obvious fact of existence. As with everything else, the issue entirely is with the psychological realm of man, and on the subject of time this is something entirely different from clock time.
The very declaration in 1929: “Truth is a pathless land”, is about time. A path implies a time period to travel on it, which is obviously chronological but is also psychological. That is, a path implies a psychological progression, a gradual and incremental approach (psychological evolution), which happens over both clock and mental time.A path also implies a destination which can be arrived at. Yet truth is nothing to be gained and has no goal or arrival point.
~~~
There is a fundamental statement here, that underlies all the talks and writings, concerning the very nature of what is called the present. The present has no beginning and no ending; it has no cause and effect. The present is timeless, and - this is the crucial point - has no relationship whatsoever to the past. There is also no future in the psychological present. You can see with your thought process that there is always the idea of endless postponement and procrastination: “I’ll do it tomorrow". Tomorrow comes and it is postponed yet again: "the conditions aren’t right", "I'm not ready", and so on.
Thought thus never comes into actual contact with the present; it is entirely based on the past and always planning and anticipating the future. Thought is a movement in time, in continuity:
“To every challenge there must obviously be a new response because today the problem is entirely different from what it was yesterday.
Any problem is always new; it is undergoing transformation all the time.
Each challenge demands a new response, and there can be no new response if the mind is not free. …”
{JKTI: Any problem is always new, Collected Works: Vol. IX}
The problem is always new - one wonders whether this is really understood? Do we not in fact consider that the very opposite is
true: that the problem is in fact old, is the same as it was yesterday, and will be the same tomorrow? Is this because the past has such a relentless grip on the mind, so that we are unable to see the problem anew?
The challenge of life is always immediate, always in the present. When the response to that challenge involves time the response is inadequate. The response to life’s challenge must be completely in the now, be instant and be complete. All man’s mental problems occur because of the time interval introduced by thought. This time does not exist, it is a complete illusion created by the brain:
“Thought is time”
{The Core of the Teaching, 1980}
“We have a very convenient, luxurious theory that there is time to progress, to arrive,
to achieve, to come near truth; that is a fallacious idea, it is an illusion completely - time is an illusion in that sense.”
{Book of Life Daily Meditations, A mind without anchorage or haven, October 19 2007}
Psychological thought, the self, can only exist in time...
Here it is in a nutshell, the ultimate core of the talks. Psychological thought (the self, the I, the me) can only exist in the past and from this to a projected future, it is a continuum. When thought is entirely in the present then it is only practical, logical thought, entirely essential for living, and this thought has not identified itself with a centre,which is the self. This self-identification is the past modified by present circumstances; if one ends the past one ends the identification with the self and thus one ends the future:
“If it is one’s whole outlook that, psychologically, there is no time at all, then is there a me who is violent?
The me is put together through time. The me as violence, is time.
But if there is no time at all as me, then there is nothing, there is no violence.”
{The Transformation of Man, pp. 194-5}
"The mind can understand the present only if it does not compare, judge;
the desire to alter or condemn the present without understanding it gives continuance to the past."
{Book of Lfe Daily Meditations, Live the four seasons in a day, November 2 2007}
The entire structure of the mind is involved with becoming, with desire (thus the deep inner craving for money, for fame, for power, for success). There is “what is”, which is the fact of the present, and there is what should be, or what may be, thus ambition, the drive to succeed, progress. This movement to what should be brings in time (thus there is duality). You can see this if you observe the process of your mind; it is always either reflecting on the past or working on plans for the future. It is never just entirely in the now, without any movement. Psychological time, therefore, is a product of the movement of thought; time is an invention of the brain.
Fear is time
“Fear is the movement of thought - thought as measure. Fear is time. Thought is the response of memory, knowledge, experience; it is limited,;
it is a movement in time. If there is no time there is no fear. I am living now but I am afraid I might die - I might in the future. There is a time interval produced by thought. But if there is no time interval at all, there is no fear. So, in the same way: is the root of sorrow time? - time being the movement of thought. ...”
{The Transformation of Man, page 187}
You can see this issue of time very clearly if your life is under immediate threat. At the instant of extreme physical danger you act (or not act, as the case may be). This action or non-action is not from thought, there is simply no time to think. It is the response of an intrinsic intelligence of the organism which exists for the body's protection, for its own survival. There is the rush of adrenalin, the normal physiological response (so-called "flight or fight"), but at that instant of immediate danger there is no fear and there is no time. It is only when thought comes in later, after the fact, that fear comes in.
All psychological knowledge is time
“Understanding myself is not a matter of time; I can understand myself at this very moment.”
{The First and Last Freedom, Chapter 1}
“Truth or understanding comes in a flash, and that flash has no continuity; it is not within the field of time.”
{Book of Life Daily Meditations, Truth comes in a flash, October 6 2007}
Knowledge is not the answer to life’s problems, even, as it turns out, technological problems (though that is a separate discussion). If it were then humanity would have solved all its problems long go, for it has accumulated a vast body of knowledge over time. Knowledge is also limited, as is science itself; one cannot have complete knowledge of anything in the present. It is clear that psychological knowledge is the burden of the past, preventing the problem, which is always new, from being seen anew.
Acquired knowledge is a different thing altogether. Technologically, it is essential for everyday living. An example is driving a car, which only has to be learned once. You don’t need to relearn it every time you get behind a wheel. This is essential stored practical knowledge, as in learning a language - implicit knowledge that doesn't require thought to operate.
Acquired knowledge also applies in the psychological realm. Once you have ‘seen’ something, whatever it is, such as the division of thought into the me and the not-me, then you don’t have to relearn it. You don’t have to re-think it later on, it becomes implicit. This knowledge is automatically there in the present but because it has been learnt it is not of the thought process and so doesn’t intrude on the understanding of the present.
Perception is now or never (there is, of course, no never). This is the whole point of awareness, it is not accumulated knowledge as thought.
“The perception of the truth of anything is immediate - not in time. Can the mind break through instantly, on the very questioning?
Can the mind see the barrier of the word, understand the significance of the word in a flash and be in that state when the mind
is no longer caught in time? You must have experienced this; only it is a very rare thing for most of us. ...”
{Book of Life Daily Meditations, Perception of truth is immediate, May 20th , 2007}
~~~
The self is desire, and desire is time and thus continuity
“So what is important is not desire, but the fact that we give it continuity.”
(On God, page 135)
“Continuity is decay, and there is life only in death.
There is renewal only with the cessation of the center; then rebirth is not continuity;
then death is as life, a renewal from moment to moment. This renewal is creation.”
{Commentaries on Living: Series I, Chapter 38, 'Continuity'}
This is the essence of the issue of time. Continuity is the carryover of something from the past to the present, and then from the present to the future, thus a permanent identification is established. Identification is the self; continuity is the self. If there were no continuity then you would wake up in the morning with a fresh mind, not burdened by all the past memories that make up the centre, the self image with all its desires. Then you would face life actually as it is, from moment to moment - and the talks are saying that life then would be something altogether different, not imaginable by the mind.
~~~~~~
The talks are truly vast, their scope and subtlety are all-encompassing. They cover the entire gamut of the depths and cunning of the psyche and the human condition and all the problems of mankind. The essential theme that runs through them from the very beginning is the key issue of time. And this whole issue of time has to be understood for the talks to be intellectually comprehensible.
Everything man needs to live properly is in the present. The past is not required and has no relevance to one’s actions in the present. This is the crucial point; but there are many who struggle with the statement that the past is not needed in order to live. The central problem here is that all our conditioning says otherwise; our actions are based entirely on past experience which we think is essential to live properly. We say we cannot live without time, without the knowledge of the past and the expectation of a psychological tomorrow. It is the ending of this psychological tomorrow where the great difficulty lies. Most of us can banish past remembrances, to one degree or another. But to live without any hope at all, to live without any future, is another thing again.
There is simply no question about it. You will not fully understand the talks until you first understand this whole issue of time.
~~~~~!~~~~~
Significant quotation:
“What is true can only be found from moment to moment, it is not a continuity, but the mind which wants to discover it, being itself the product of time, can only function in the field of time; therefore it is incapable of finding what is true.
To know the mind, the mind must know itself, for there is no "I" apart from the mind. There are no qualities separate from the mind, just as the qualities of the diamond are not separate from the diamond itself. To understand the mind you cannot interpret it according to somebody else's idea, but you must observe how your own total mind works. When you know the whole process of it - how it reasons, its desires, motives, ambitions, pursuits, its envy, greed and fear, then the mind can go beyond itself, and when it does there is the discovery of something totally new.
That quality of newness gives an extraordinary passion, a tremendous enthusiasm which brings about a deep inward revolution: and it is this inward revolution which alone can transform the world, not any political or economic system.”
{Book of Life Daily Meditations, Inward Revolution, September 26th, 2007}
“The present is not of time.”
{The Impossible Question: Chapter 4, Fragmentation, 23rd July 1970, page 46)
The very essence of the talks is all about time...
It is clear what is meant by the above statement. The past, modified by the present, becomes the future, and all this is entirely based on memories stored in the brain. This past always impinges on and distorts the present and is always projecting through hope into the future. Yet, life can, and must, be lived only in the present (the now, the moment, the actuality) and this present is not of psychological time. This may be difficult to understand, yet it must be comprehended for the talks to be clear.
~~~
The title “The Ending of Time”, in the extended discussions with David Bohm (Wikipedia article), in 1980, is about the ending of psychological time, not about ending chronological time, which of course is impossible. Which means we need to understand the complete nature and workings of psychological time.
Obviously there is such a thing as chronological time. There is yesterday, today, and there will be tomorrow. The talks do not concern themselves with this obvious fact of existence. As with everything else, the issue entirely is with the psychological realm of man, and on the subject of time this is something entirely different from clock time.
The very declaration in 1929: “Truth is a pathless land”, is about time. A path implies a time period to travel on it, which is obviously chronological but is also psychological. That is, a path implies a psychological progression, a gradual and incremental approach (psychological evolution), which happens over both clock and mental time.A path also implies a destination which can be arrived at. Yet truth is nothing to be gained and has no goal or arrival point.
~~~
There is a fundamental statement here, that underlies all the talks and writings, concerning the very nature of what is called the present. The present has no beginning and no ending; it has no cause and effect. The present is timeless, and - this is the crucial point - has no relationship whatsoever to the past. There is also no future in the psychological present. You can see with your thought process that there is always the idea of endless postponement and procrastination: “I’ll do it tomorrow". Tomorrow comes and it is postponed yet again: "the conditions aren’t right", "I'm not ready", and so on.
Thought thus never comes into actual contact with the present; it is entirely based on the past and always planning and anticipating the future. Thought is a movement in time, in continuity:
“To every challenge there must obviously be a new response because today the problem is entirely different from what it was yesterday.
Any problem is always new; it is undergoing transformation all the time.
Each challenge demands a new response, and there can be no new response if the mind is not free. …”
{JKTI: Any problem is always new, Collected Works: Vol. IX}
The problem is always new - one wonders whether this is really understood? Do we not in fact consider that the very opposite is
true: that the problem is in fact old, is the same as it was yesterday, and will be the same tomorrow? Is this because the past has such a relentless grip on the mind, so that we are unable to see the problem anew?
The challenge of life is always immediate, always in the present. When the response to that challenge involves time the response is inadequate. The response to life’s challenge must be completely in the now, be instant and be complete. All man’s mental problems occur because of the time interval introduced by thought. This time does not exist, it is a complete illusion created by the brain:
“Thought is time”
{The Core of the Teaching, 1980}
“We have a very convenient, luxurious theory that there is time to progress, to arrive,
to achieve, to come near truth; that is a fallacious idea, it is an illusion completely - time is an illusion in that sense.”
{Book of Life Daily Meditations, A mind without anchorage or haven, October 19 2007}
Psychological thought, the self, can only exist in time...
Here it is in a nutshell, the ultimate core of the talks. Psychological thought (the self, the I, the me) can only exist in the past and from this to a projected future, it is a continuum. When thought is entirely in the present then it is only practical, logical thought, entirely essential for living, and this thought has not identified itself with a centre,which is the self. This self-identification is the past modified by present circumstances; if one ends the past one ends the identification with the self and thus one ends the future:
“If it is one’s whole outlook that, psychologically, there is no time at all, then is there a me who is violent?
The me is put together through time. The me as violence, is time.
But if there is no time at all as me, then there is nothing, there is no violence.”
{The Transformation of Man, pp. 194-5}
"The mind can understand the present only if it does not compare, judge;
the desire to alter or condemn the present without understanding it gives continuance to the past."
{Book of Lfe Daily Meditations, Live the four seasons in a day, November 2 2007}
The entire structure of the mind is involved with becoming, with desire (thus the deep inner craving for money, for fame, for power, for success). There is “what is”, which is the fact of the present, and there is what should be, or what may be, thus ambition, the drive to succeed, progress. This movement to what should be brings in time (thus there is duality). You can see this if you observe the process of your mind; it is always either reflecting on the past or working on plans for the future. It is never just entirely in the now, without any movement. Psychological time, therefore, is a product of the movement of thought; time is an invention of the brain.
Fear is time
“Fear is the movement of thought - thought as measure. Fear is time. Thought is the response of memory, knowledge, experience; it is limited,;
it is a movement in time. If there is no time there is no fear. I am living now but I am afraid I might die - I might in the future. There is a time interval produced by thought. But if there is no time interval at all, there is no fear. So, in the same way: is the root of sorrow time? - time being the movement of thought. ...”
{The Transformation of Man, page 187}
You can see this issue of time very clearly if your life is under immediate threat. At the instant of extreme physical danger you act (or not act, as the case may be). This action or non-action is not from thought, there is simply no time to think. It is the response of an intrinsic intelligence of the organism which exists for the body's protection, for its own survival. There is the rush of adrenalin, the normal physiological response (so-called "flight or fight"), but at that instant of immediate danger there is no fear and there is no time. It is only when thought comes in later, after the fact, that fear comes in.
All psychological knowledge is time
“Understanding myself is not a matter of time; I can understand myself at this very moment.”
{The First and Last Freedom, Chapter 1}
“Truth or understanding comes in a flash, and that flash has no continuity; it is not within the field of time.”
{Book of Life Daily Meditations, Truth comes in a flash, October 6 2007}
Knowledge is not the answer to life’s problems, even, as it turns out, technological problems (though that is a separate discussion). If it were then humanity would have solved all its problems long go, for it has accumulated a vast body of knowledge over time. Knowledge is also limited, as is science itself; one cannot have complete knowledge of anything in the present. It is clear that psychological knowledge is the burden of the past, preventing the problem, which is always new, from being seen anew.
Acquired knowledge is a different thing altogether. Technologically, it is essential for everyday living. An example is driving a car, which only has to be learned once. You don’t need to relearn it every time you get behind a wheel. This is essential stored practical knowledge, as in learning a language - implicit knowledge that doesn't require thought to operate.
Acquired knowledge also applies in the psychological realm. Once you have ‘seen’ something, whatever it is, such as the division of thought into the me and the not-me, then you don’t have to relearn it. You don’t have to re-think it later on, it becomes implicit. This knowledge is automatically there in the present but because it has been learnt it is not of the thought process and so doesn’t intrude on the understanding of the present.
Perception is now or never (there is, of course, no never). This is the whole point of awareness, it is not accumulated knowledge as thought.
“The perception of the truth of anything is immediate - not in time. Can the mind break through instantly, on the very questioning?
Can the mind see the barrier of the word, understand the significance of the word in a flash and be in that state when the mind
is no longer caught in time? You must have experienced this; only it is a very rare thing for most of us. ...”
{Book of Life Daily Meditations, Perception of truth is immediate, May 20th , 2007}
~~~
The self is desire, and desire is time and thus continuity
“So what is important is not desire, but the fact that we give it continuity.”
(On God, page 135)
“Continuity is decay, and there is life only in death.
There is renewal only with the cessation of the center; then rebirth is not continuity;
then death is as life, a renewal from moment to moment. This renewal is creation.”
{Commentaries on Living: Series I, Chapter 38, 'Continuity'}
This is the essence of the issue of time. Continuity is the carryover of something from the past to the present, and then from the present to the future, thus a permanent identification is established. Identification is the self; continuity is the self. If there were no continuity then you would wake up in the morning with a fresh mind, not burdened by all the past memories that make up the centre, the self image with all its desires. Then you would face life actually as it is, from moment to moment - and the talks are saying that life then would be something altogether different, not imaginable by the mind.
~~~~~~
The talks are truly vast, their scope and subtlety are all-encompassing. They cover the entire gamut of the depths and cunning of the psyche and the human condition and all the problems of mankind. The essential theme that runs through them from the very beginning is the key issue of time. And this whole issue of time has to be understood for the talks to be intellectually comprehensible.
Everything man needs to live properly is in the present. The past is not required and has no relevance to one’s actions in the present. This is the crucial point; but there are many who struggle with the statement that the past is not needed in order to live. The central problem here is that all our conditioning says otherwise; our actions are based entirely on past experience which we think is essential to live properly. We say we cannot live without time, without the knowledge of the past and the expectation of a psychological tomorrow. It is the ending of this psychological tomorrow where the great difficulty lies. Most of us can banish past remembrances, to one degree or another. But to live without any hope at all, to live without any future, is another thing again.
There is simply no question about it. You will not fully understand the talks until you first understand this whole issue of time.
~~~~~!~~~~~
Significant quotation:
“What is true can only be found from moment to moment, it is not a continuity, but the mind which wants to discover it, being itself the product of time, can only function in the field of time; therefore it is incapable of finding what is true.
To know the mind, the mind must know itself, for there is no "I" apart from the mind. There are no qualities separate from the mind, just as the qualities of the diamond are not separate from the diamond itself. To understand the mind you cannot interpret it according to somebody else's idea, but you must observe how your own total mind works. When you know the whole process of it - how it reasons, its desires, motives, ambitions, pursuits, its envy, greed and fear, then the mind can go beyond itself, and when it does there is the discovery of something totally new.
That quality of newness gives an extraordinary passion, a tremendous enthusiasm which brings about a deep inward revolution: and it is this inward revolution which alone can transform the world, not any political or economic system.”
{Book of Life Daily Meditations, Inward Revolution, September 26th, 2007}
(Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons, taken by Fir0002;under "GNU Free Documentation License"}
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{Page last updated on April 27, 2008}
“Therefore one has to find out whether there is an end to thought, an end to time,
not philosophize over it and discuss it, but find out.”
{Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Bulletin 42, 1982}
not philosophize over it and discuss it, but find out.”
{Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Bulletin 42, 1982}
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Copyright © 2007, beyondthemindsite. All Rights Reserved.
This site went online on November 22, 2007. It is undergoing continual development.
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“The mind can only be silent when it has understood the process of time and that requires watchfulness, does it not?”
{Book of Life Daily Meditations, The active still mind, October 11 2007}
{Book of Life Daily Meditations, The active still mind, October 11 2007}