The Power of Time

kaniths
As Syamala has pointed out in her FB to this thread, I deliberately leave my thread incomplete to stimulate discussion. That's the reason I call it 'Rambling'. In rambling, there are no rules to play by. You just talk and talk and talk until the last listener either falls asleep or leaves the place! As bonus, I get some priceless FBs which add a lot of sheen to the discussion. But I am raking my brain about when I moved you around for being irrelevant. After all the beauty of rambling is its irrelevance!
Sri

 

kaniths
K of D has won hands down! I mean K from D. Where is the doubt?
I remember GN Balasubramanian acting as Dushyanth asking MS acting as Sakunthala to sit down saying 'Okkachukko'!
Sri

 

Dear Jayasala
Sorry for this belated response! I can easily offer the excuse of a few clustered wedding invitations, Varalakshmi Vratham etc for this delay but that will not be the truth. I took some time to digest your wonderful treatise on the subject of time and the intellectual pressure of it virtually left me paralysed. Thank you Jayasala for your thought provoking response and it is no wonder that you are being looked upon as the 'person to go to' when serious esoteric subjects such as Time are discussed.

Coming to your meeting of your old pals of the Bank, you have remarked that 'Time has passed'. The other day there was an interesting discussion about Time (where else, in my Club only of course!). A friend asked all of a sudden who was it that first talked of Time as something mobile. According to him, Time was just a straight line, or a path, of infinite length. All the beings move along it from birth to death. When we talk of Time moving, it is like asking 'where does this road go?'. The road goes nowhere and only we move on to reach where we ought to. We all listened to him bewildered. We thought he must be joking but he looked very serious and earnest about his belief.

This is what makes Time the greatest of all mysteries. You believe what you want about it and nobody can question you about it. Take this friend of mine for instance. How can anyone prove that Time is not stationary but moving? I am no Stephen Hawking to explain to him the phenomenon of Time rationally and scientifically.

Hindus revere it as an aspect of Lord Siva and Adi Sankara has sung the beautiful Kalabharavashtakam. There is an exquisite idol of Kalabhairava in the temple of Arunachala. Interestingly Kala is depicted as a moving phenomenon. In the book of Emily Hudson, Subhadra, wife of Arjuna, says 'Alas! the human condition is transitory, as unstable as bubbles in water... without doubt, the course of Time is very difficult to understand, even for the wise!'

That Time is a complex phenomenon has been the central theme of many a mythological story. It continues to be so to this day. It is in this context that I find your words 'Better let us have our own simple concept of 'time', to do everything in time, give timely help, seek/give timely advice and take timely action.' a sound and mature advice. Having said that, I must also point out that Time is the best catalyst to drive our minds on the Spiritual Path.
Sri

 

Dear Sun
Thank you for your kind words. You seem to think of us as some kind of super beings with our minds leagues ahead of yours. Our 'vast knowledge' is just our ability to browse for the right kind of information from the net with the most appropriate search words. Without Google, I'll be the dumbest man on earth!
Sri

 

Dear jskls
I was intrigued by your statement that time may heal the wounds but can never take care of the scars. I googled for Scar treatments and found 1800000 sites produced for my perusal in 0.46 seconds! It may take a few months to go through all of them!
After the detailed interactions here, it now looks as though Time either moves at uniform speed or never moves at all. But our own experience with Time, it seems to be of variable speed! I like to think of Time as one with a variable speed. It makes Time appear very romantic!
Sri

 

Dear Akanksha
Power of penance is one thing but the even more significant aspect of this story must not elude us. After all the intense animosity and brutal bloodshed of the Kurukshetra war, one would expect permanent bitterness between Gandhari and Dhritharashtra on one side and the Pandavas on the other. But what do we see just a year after the battle? A lot of love and bonding! And when the slain princes are revived for a brief period, there is absolutely no trace of bitterness. Thus Krishna conveys that all the bitterness, animosity and utter hatred can at best be life-long. Duryodhana and his clan nursed hatred of the extreme kind for a whole life for the Pandavas. Death opens a new chapter of love in their relationship. Death thus makes the whole episode of bitter fighting meaningless because nothing lasts beyond the point of death.

When people kill each other for no reason, it becomes imperative to spread the message of love among all, to convince them that they are one race, one sect, one universe! This is what is implied in this part of Mahabharatha. Coming to the terrible curse of Gandhari, Krishna lets himself be the victim without taking any effort to overcome it by trying to save his clan. When in the terrible fighting that takes place among the Yadava princes, Krishna witnesses everyone being slain except his brother Balarama and charioteer Daruka. Krishna is unmoved, unperturbed.

When his own end occurs under the aswatha tree where the hunter Jara pierces the sole of Krishna mistaking it for a deer, Krishna assures the horrified Dharuka and Jara that it is his own cosmic ordering of things. He closes his eyes, goes into a trance and ascends to heaven. If Krishna viewed the destruction of his entire clan dispassionately, so did he view his own end. In fact Krishna teaches a lot more important things in his final moments than through his Gita to Arjuna.
Sri