The Bhagavad Gita’s Approach to Time Management

Consideration To Act

Recollected from your own life incidence whenever we have any consideration to act we will try to ask very convincing and intellectual questions. If you can recollect incidence then it will be very easy for you to understand that how Arjuna wants to run away to take any action and want to throw the responsibility on Krishna by getting the approval that yes if you will run away from the war you will be called wise person who is engaged in devotional service.

We are also in the same bus as Arjuna is. We don’t want to do anything which requires our own intelligence and wisdom. If we act through our intelligence and wisdom then  the whole responsibility is our own. This is the reason why we are always seeking approval from others. Don’t seek approval if you really want to know the potentiality of human beings. I simply say that if you question yourself instead of others, what potentiality I have, as a human being. You will simply turn towards yourself. You will find peace within you.

Arjuna is not peaceful at this moment because he is asking the question and nothing is wrong in that but after asking he is not turning towards himself what Krishna is guiding him. Arjuna is seeking approval by which he can run away from the battlefield, he is not ready to know himself.

To know ourselves – The Sufis have a very beautiful saying. They say, “God is not found by seeking, and never found by those who don’t seek.”

Beyond Time

The unreal will always be in the realm of time – because that which was not yesterday, is today, and will not be tomorrow is divided into three chronological parts: past, present and future. But that which was yesterday, is today, and will also be tomorrow cannot be divided into three parts. What past, present or future can be there in this context? It simply is. That is why there is no sense of time with the real, no concept of time. The real transcends time, is beyond time. And the unreal is within time.

If you are standing on a riverbank and your reflection appears in the river. You may be standing out of the river but your reflection can only appear in the river. The water is needed as a medium. Any medium that can function as a mirror, any medium that can reflect, is essential. But in order for you to exist, no reflecting medium is needed. And yes, for an image of you to be formed, a reflecting medium will be needed.

Time is this medium of reflection. The real stands on its banks and the unreal is reflected in this stream of time. The reflection that appears on the mirror of time, the stream of time, is unreal.

And nothing can ever remain steady in time, just as nothing can remain steady in water – because water, by its very nature, is unsteady. Hence no matter how steady the reflection may look, it will always waver. Water, by its very nature, is wavering.

All these wavering reflections formed on the mirror of time were not there yesterday, are here today and will no longer be here tomorrow. Even to say “yesterday” is too long a time. They were not there a moment ago and will be gone the next moment. So that which is changing moment to moment in this way, which is momentary, is unreal. That which is beyond the moment, that which always is, that alone is real.