What do you understand about time?
Are you the owner of your time?
Having time means the time is your own. You should be the owner of your time, otherwise your thoughts, something else or someone else will own your time. Here is the secret: if you know how to own your own time, you will not be trying to own others’ time. You will not be bullying around or bossing around people. The whole world is nothing but a huge fight to own more and more people’s time. Whether it is the field of politics, art, science, or even the field of religion, it is nothing but owning people’s time. In any other field, the more you own people’s time, you are considered a big guy. According to Paramahamsa Nithyananda, a living incarnation (fondly known as Swamiji), he once said that the desire to own more time is the subtle reason even for giving birth to kids, bringing them up as they want, and fulfilling in their life whatever they want to have in their life.
The paradox is in spirituality, if you own your own time, you are a big guy. Why is that so?
The first thing you need to understand is time is just matter. Just like an object, you can own time. Only when you understand this fundamental truth, will you have respect for yourself, and you understand that you can own time. As long as you think of time as something mysterious, not understandable, uncatchable, indescribable, you will think time is too big. Time is simple matter, something you can own it. This is because as consciousness, you are beyond time and space.
The second thing you need to do is decide to hate everything which tries to own your time. Anything which tries to own your time, hate it. Do not allow things or people to suck you away from your own time.
Swamiji revealed that there are 3 types of time: –
- Chronological Time – Time based on the watch, clock etc. The sun, moon, planetary movements, internationally accepted calendar, the monitoring of day to day happenings, AD and BC, ordinary human uses. The truth is clocks are not run by time; they are run by springs and electricity. It is clocks which are running the time. Catch the truth. Time is not running the clock. Liberation from the time is the ultimate and greatest liberation. You will be peaceful and silent.
- Psychological Time – This refers to how your mind feels time. Just like outside you have a needle ticking for every second. This ticking decides the movement of the other two needles of the clock. If the second needle clicks 60 times, the minute needle moves by one. If that moves 60 times, the hour needle moves. The Psychological Time is independent of the Chronological time. It relates to your mind. This mental setup of constant ‘what next?’ click ‘what next?’ It is the restlessness of ‘what next?’ that makes you age internally. If you are able to rest without moving the second needle of your Psychological clock, the ageing stops. If you understand this, you can be relieved of hundreds of problems and pains.
- Cosmic Time – This refers to time of the Universe, there is no past, present and future as we are told by society. It is a huge canvas, you are just seeing from one end. All three exist at a time. What you see is the present, what you have seen is the past and what you get to see is the future.
Future is nothing but the restlessness sometimes called as excitement, sometimes as exciting, sometimes as insecurity, sometimes as expectation etc. It is called by various names because you attribute all the gunas (quality of attribute) to Rajas, excitement, curiosity, insecurity etc, when you attribute all these emotions to time, it is called as future. Past or future exists based on your quality or restlessness or dumbness, inertness (tamas). Based on the quality of your attribute, you live in the past or future. If you are in restful awareness, you live in the present.
Time, in all 3 dimensions, if it’s understood, your life will be extraordinary. If you don’t understand Psychological time, you can get caught in Chronological Time and suffer with it. If you can understand Psychological Time, it can lead you to experience the Cosmic Time – Eternal, where the Past, Present and Future exist eternally, simultaneously. The truth is there is no time. Even when you are not enlightened, you are not bound by any of the 3 times. Just sit with this great truth. You are beyond time; no time binds you.
Here is a very powerful technique to own your time given by Swamiji. You have to practise this technique sincerely for 21 days. First, begin by making your daily routine very stable using a timetable for yourself. For example, decide that at 5 a.m., you will be doing yoga, at 7:30 a.m. you will start puja, at 9:00 a.m. you start work. Esentially you will plan your day precisely by making a clear timetable from morning until night and decide that you will not change your routine for any reason. Tell your mind that you will be comfortable and happy doing whatever has been scheduled for that time. That’s all; you will own time. It is a very powerful process of owning your time. Try it and discover owning your time is a big step into living a spiritual life. Namaste! 😀