Yoga Sutra 44 Time Disappears

Now the sutras.

PERFORMING SAMYAMA ON THE PRESENT MOMENT, THE MOMENT GONE, AND THE MOMENT TO COME BRINGS KNOWLEDGE BORN OF THE AWARENESS OF THE ULTIMATE REALITY.

If you bring your samadhi consciousness to the process of time – to the moment which is, to the moment that is gone, to the moment that is to come – if you bring your samadhi, suddenly, the knowledge of ultimate reality, because the moment you look with samadhi the distinction between present, future, and past disappears. They dissolve. The distinction is false. Suddenly you become aware of eternity. Then time is a simultaneity.

Nothing is passing, nothing is coming in; everything is, simply is.

This isness is known as God; this isness is the idea of God.

“Performing samyama on the present moment, the moment gone, and the moment to come brings knowledge born of the awareness of the ultimate reality.” If you can see time through the eyes of satori, samadhi, time disappears.

But this is the last miracle; after it there is only kaivalya, liberation. When time disappears, everything disappears because the whole world of desire, ambition, motivation is there because of the wrong conception of time. Time is created; time as a process – past, present, future – is created by desiring. This is one of the greatest insights of the Eastern sages: that time, the process, is really a projection of desire. Because you desire something, you create a future. And because you cling, you create the past. Because you cannot leave that which is no longer before you, and you want to cling to it, you create memory. And because that which has not come yet, you expect it in your own way, you create a future. Future and past are mental states, not part of time. Time is eternal. It is not divided. It is one, whole.

“KSHANA-TAT-KRAMAYOH SAMYAMAD VIVEKAJAM GYANAM.” One who has come to know what the moment and the process of time is becomes aware of the ultimate; becoming aware of time, one becomes aware of the ultimate. Why? Because the ultimate exists, as real time.

You live in the chronological; then you live in the newspaper world. Then you live in the world of politicians, mad, ambitious people. Or if you live in the psychological time, you live in the world of the mad, the insane, or the world of fantasy, dream, poetry.

A new doctor was looking around the asylum. He came across one inmate and said to him, “Who are you?”

The man drew himself up to his full height and said, “I, sir, am Napoleon.”

The doctor said, “Really? Who told you that?”

The patient said, “God told me, who else?”

A little man Lying in the next bed looked up and said, “I didn’t.”

Go to the madhouses; it is worth visiting. Just see people. They are living in a fantasy world. They have completely moved out of the collective world and they have not entered the universal world. They are hanging in between; they are in limbo.

The psychiatrist was surprised to see his young woman patient standing outside his office looking very perplexed. It was not half an hour since he had been treating her. He said, “What is the matter?”

She said, “Oh, dear, I don”t know whether I am coming or going.”

The doctor said, “Exactly, that is why you have come to see me.”

“Oh,” she said, “who are you then?”

“I am your lousy psychiatrist.”

A world of limbo arises. If you lose contact with the chronological world and you don’t become connected with the world of the universal, the ultimate, suddenly you don’t know whether you are coming in or going out. Everything becomes doubtful, everything becomes suspicious. You cannot trust yourself, you cannot trust your eyes, you cannot trust anybody. You are closed in, caved in. You become a windowless being, a monad.

This is what hell is. You cannot move out of yourself; you are crippled. Remember, a meditator passes consciously through the world of the madman – consciously. And it is good to pass consciously because if you don’t pass consciously there is every possibility you will become an unconscious victim of it. It is better to go through it alert, aware, rather than being forced into it. If life forces you into it, then you will not be able to come out of it. It will be very, very difficult.

And the psychoanalyst can only help to bring you back to the chronological world. That’s the difference between a Master and a psychoanalyst. The psychoanalyst brings the man who has got lost in the psychological state back to the chronological – through shock treatment, electric shock, insulin shock – because if you are shocked very much, suddenly your dream is broken. You become a little alert; you move back to the chronological world.

The Master, if you are lost in the psychological, takes you further back in, takes you to the universal. You will never become part of the chronological world, but you will become part of the universal time.

FROM THIS COMES THE ABILITY TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN SIMILAR OBJECTS WHICH CANNOT BE IDENTIFIED BY CLASS, CHARACTER, OR PLACE.

Once you know the ultimate, a totally different kind of knowing arises in you. Right now you know things only from the outside. Somebody comes, you look at the clothes, and you think, “Yes, she is a woman,” or “a mall.” You look at the tree and you recognize it – “It is a pine tree” – because you know the description. You see a mall and you know that he is a doctor because of his stethoscope. But these are outer indications of things. He may not be a doctor; he may be just a pretender. And the pine tree may not be a pine tree; it may just look like a pine tree. And the woman may not be a woman; she may be just acting. She may be a man; she may be a he. You cannot be absolutely certain about it, because you know only from the outside.

When time disappears and eternity surrounds you, when time is no longer a process but a pool of energy, eternal now, then you become capable of entering into things and of knowing without any definitions from the outside.

That’s what happens between a Master and a disciple. He need not ask you, really. He can see from your very being. He can stand in you – not only in your shoes but in your being.

He can fit exactly in your innermost vacuum. He can be you, and look from there.