Conceptions of time in science, Christianity and Bhagavatam

Hare Krishna Today morning we are discussing about the divisions of time as described in the Srimad Bhagavatam So I will take this class in three parts. First I will compare the conceptions of time the concept of time as it is understood in science as it is understood in the Abrahamic religions and as it is understood in the Vedic traditions and within the Vedic traditions also there are different conceptions of time and I will focus specifically on the Bhagavatam's conception of time and how that conception of time relates with our practise of life, of living in the material world and our practise of bhakti in the material world So first let's begin with the comparison of the conceptions of time in the scientific tradition science also had its own tradition at least it extended over the last 500 years and within that the conceptions of time have evolved if we look at if we look at the world whether in India or in the west 500 or 700 years ago time was not understood the way we understand it because most of the time people did not have clocks so ours is not just a clock centred civilisation it is a clock driven civilisation we are always struggling to stay in touch with time I have to read this, do this, do that so now of course people were aware of time but their awareness of time came primarily from looking at the sky so how high or how low the sun is in the sky or if it was night how are the constellations positioned by which by this primarily by looking at the sky people understood time so implicit in this is the understanding that time, so when you want to look at the time you look at the sky, you look up so time it was understood as something higher than us which we need to look up to know and which controls us to some extent so even in the past when there were most of the time sand glasses where the sand goes down from one side of the glass to another many computers have also the weight icons like that where the idea is as the sand goes down time is measured in that way so any specific devices for measuring time were very few so time in that sense was measured largely in terms of the phases of the day not in terms of minutes and seconds so as a clock became more and more central to people's lives so the conception of time became more in terms of minutes and seconds and now if you look at the scientific world view Prabhupada said that science, Prabhupada in the 14th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita used scientists as one example of people in the mode of goodness scientists, philosophers and poets, they are thinking about ultimate questions they may think about it in different ways philosophers think about the nature of reality science thinks about the mechanisms of reality and poets and artists think about artistic depictions of reality or representations of reality so either way they are thinking about deeper things so in that sense science itself can be or it is in its essence a satsang activity. Euclid is a famous mathematician in the Greek tradition and he especially pioneered Euclidean geometry.

So when he was teaching geometry, one student came to him and the student said that what will I gain? What is the practical gain by learning geometry? So Euclid called one of his servants and he said give him some coins unless he gets some coins he thinks there is no point in learning anything. He can't understand the joy of learning for learning's sake. So at that time Euclid, Socrates, they were all in a Greek tradition.

So Socrates defined knowledge as virtue since knowledge is that which brings about virtue in people and we see this is very similar to Bhagavad Gita's conception of knowledge as something which is quantified or specified, not quantified, specified in terms of the development of virtues. In 13.8 to 12, when Krishna said He says use 20 qualities. Now as the scientific age progressed the conception of knowledge changed from that which is used to develop virtue to that which is used to acquire control.

So Francis Bacon famously defined as knowledge is power. Now we may also use it sometimes to say that spiritual knowledge is power. But the way Francis Bacon used it was in a specific context.

He said by the power of science and specifically by its power of technology we will be able to control nature and in that sense we will get power. So his idea of knowledge is power was largely in terms of using scientific knowledge to control nature and gain power over nature. Now this conception also applied this attitude of controlling also extended to time.

So the idea of science operates on the conception of reductionism. Reductionism means anything that is big divide it into its components. We try to divide it into its components.

Now that itself is not bad but science wants to divide things into its components so that we can control. So it is a Rajasic mentality. So science originally if we are enquiring about the nature of things the nature of how things work that is Sattvic.

But when that shifts, focus shifts from science to technology that the focus is primarily on control. So we divide nature into small small fragments so that we can learn to control them. Then that becomes Rajasic.

And then further there is a third variant we could say descendant of science which is Tamasic. And that is Scientism. Scientism is the idea that if anything is not shown by science then it doesn't exist.

Scientism is not science. Scientism is a philosophical school that claims that science is the only valid source of knowledge. And there is no knowledge beyond science.

So now this is itself illogical because there is nothing there is no scientific experiment there is no mathematical postulation there is no scientific law by which somebody can say science is the only valid way of acquiring knowledge. This is not a scientific statement, it is a philosophical statement. So that science is the only source of acquiring knowledge is not a scientific statement, it is a philosophical statement.

And by common sense experience we can understand that it is not true. There may be the world's biggest brain surgeon and suppose that brain surgeon comes home and he finds his wife is upset with him. Now will he say wait a minute, I will do a brain scan to find out why you are upset.

She will whack him on the brain. So we understand with common sense that science is not the way to acquire knowledge about everything. Another example we can have is, I think I gave the example earlier about when a person is dreaming.

So science can tell us whether the person is dreaming or not by REM, by the rapid eye movement. But if you want to know what the person is dreaming, no sensor can tell you that. You have to wake up the person and ask what were you dreaming.

So science can give us a lot of knowledge of lot of things. But the idea that science can give us complete knowledge of everything or science alone has monopoly over all knowledge. That is a misconception and that comes from scientism.

And this is actually tamasic. Krishna talks about knowledge in the mode of ignorance. Knowledge, something is opposite.

Ignorance is the opposite of knowledge. But Krishna talks about knowledge in the mode of ignorance in the 18th chapter. In 18.22 he says yad tu krishna vad ekasmin karye saktam ahaitukam atatvarthavad alpam cha tattama samudharitam yad tu krishna vad ekasmin.

One takes one thing and makes that into everything. So to take science it is one branch of acquired knowledge. And to say that that is everything yad tu krishna vad ekasmin karye saktam ahaitukam and one becomes very attached to that ahaitukam.

One does not understand the, this is not ahaituki bhakti, this is ahaitukam. Causeless means one does not understand the proper causal chain of cause and effect. Prabhupada says that when you are enquiring about the chain of cause and effect we need to go to the original point to understand.

If we stop at an intermediate point we don't get complete knowledge. So scientists will go till say they want to understand the nature of the origin of the word they will go to the singularity. Say something that exploded and then everything came about.

But where did that something come about? They don't go into that. So what else? Ahaitukam means that they do not go to the ultimate causes. Karye saktam ahaitukam, a tattvartha vad alpam cha.

A tattvartha vad. The tattva, the truth is not there. Alpam cha.

Alpam means that it is small. It is minor. It studies, science studies and studies well but only a minor fragment of reality.

Now this background, so I said science itself is sattvic, technology is rajasic, scientism is tamasic. So with this background now we can understand modern science conception of time and then we will contrast it with the other conceptions of time. So at the time of Newton, Newton is the, is considered the founder and the foundation of classical physics.

Newtonian physics practically ruled the scientific world for 300-400 years. And in his time itself, between him and his peers, especially Kepler and others, there was a debate about what time means. So normal conventional understanding is that time is a factor in material nature which brings about changes.

So Newton's theory of gravity or his conception of physics explains a lot of things but he could not give a proper place for time. Because time it is, if it is just another dimension, we have in Newtonian physics, three dimensions of physics, we have length, breadth and height. So now time is often thought of as 4-4th dimension.

And actually this idea of time in the 4th dimension was especially postulated by Einstein. He came up with the integrated concept of space-time. So now he tried to resolve some problems in the conception of time which were there in Newtonian physics.

That will be very technical. But he came, he faced another problem. So he basically said that in order to explain the world in a reductionistic way, he postulated that time is another dimension like space, like the three dimensions of space.

So x, y, z and d. Now the problem with this conception is that in all the other three dimensions, in x, y, z, we can move backwards and we can move forwards. But in time, we cannot move backwards. Time always moves forwards.

And now, that's why in science fiction, there are so many time machines, time travel devices. Sometimes people jump space and go into the past, go into the present or go into the future. Now philosophically also, the concept of time travel.

Why time travel is so central to science fiction? Of course, the human imagination wants to know what is there in the past or what will be there in the future. But apart from that, this reductionistic depiction of time as just another dimension. Because of that, then we want to control time.

I should be able to go into the past, I should be able to go into the future. But that doesn't seem possible. And it's not just, see that there are, when we talk about something is impossible, there are two kinds of impossibilities.

There is practical impossibility and there is logical impossibility. So practical impossibility means somebody may say that how could Krishna, a 7 year old boy, have lifted up a whole mountain? If there is an ant over here and his ant is moving over here, then that ant may ask the question how can anybody lift this whole big Bhagavata book? Isn't it? For the ant it is impossible because its size is so small. Similarly, because we are so small as compared to the vastness of the universe, something is a practical impossibility for us.

And practical impossibility is because of practical limitations. People ask, one sceptic, he asked, when Krishna lifted up Govardhan Hill, how did he find the centre of gravity to put his pinky under that? So Krishna does not have to find the centre of gravity because he is the source of gravity. So when he wants, he can suspend the law of gravity according to his will.

Mayadhyakshena Prakriti. Material nature and its laws work under him. So, there is a practical impossibility.

Something which we cannot do because of our personal practical limitations. But much more crippling than practical impossibility is conceptual impossibility or logical impossibility. So for example, if somebody asks, can there be a square circle? Now, can there be a square circle? This is not it's not that somebody is not a good artist so that person can't draw a square circle.

It's not a practical impossibility, it's a logical impossibility. So time travel, is it just a practical impossibility or is it a logical impossibility? Is it that we just don't have the machines by which we can travel or it's just logically itself impossible to travel? Now from the logical point of view, at least time travel into the past is considered by mainstream philosophers, eastern and western, as impossible. Why? It's a simple thought exercise.

Suppose a person X or there is a person Z, he was born from a person Y, he was born from a person X. This person Z goes into the past when his grandfather X is still unmarried. And he enters in the past and murders his grandfather. Now X dies before he is married.

So Y cannot be born. If Y is not born, then Z cannot be born. But Z is already existing.

So how can a grandson murder a grandfather when the grandfather did not produce a father you would not have produced a grandson. So this is not just a practical impossibility, it's a logical impossibility. And this is called the standard grandfather paradox in time travel.

The point which I am making by this is that the materialistic depiction of time just as another dimension, this has many logical problems. Although from an operational point of view, putting T as one dimension in many calculations will help. And that is okay.

It is a fact of calculation, but time is not all that there is to it. Time is not just one dimension. There is much more to time than just one dimension within the within the fabric of space-time that characterises material existence.

So science's conception of time is very unclear even now. Although in mathematics it is used as a unit, but definitely that's not a complete understanding and many scientists also recognise this. Now, modern science emerged in the western world.

And in the western world, prior to science, there was the Abrahamic world. And in one sense, the history of science and religion is a history of conflict. You know, say Copernicus proposed that the earth is not at the centre, some other centre.

And because of that, the Catholic Church had him sentenced, convicted. And then from that time it is said science and religion had a war. Now, yes, there was a conflict between science and religion, the western tradition.

But still, science itself inherited many of the conceptions of the western religious religion. Or rather, there are many similarities also. And one of the similarities within both the scientific conception and the Judeo-Christian conception is the time, is the notion of time as an object or as a concept in linear motion.

As a concept in linear motion. Linear motion means that in Christianity, Jesus himself, he taught about devotion to God. And he clearly talked about how I am not the father, I am the son.

And I have come to tell you about the father. But, one of his prominent followers, St. Paul, who actually never directly met Jesus, who was in the Greek government, who persecuted Jesus and his followers while they were alive. And afterwards, on the road to Damascus, Paul is said to have a conversion experience.

And then he became a proponent of Christianity. Now, he shifted in his teachings. If you look at the Bible, it has many books in it.

The Gospels describe the life and teachings of Jesus. And Paul's epistles are the primary set of books within the Bible. And there, Paul's shift, in his books, the shift from the principle of devotion to God to Jesus' saviorship occurs.

So, rather than devotion to God, that Jesus came to save us, that became central. And why is that related? Why is that related to our discussion of time? So, that is how, in Christianity, the conception has come that Jesus is the saviour and we are all sinful and because Jesus has saved us, we will be saved if we accept him as the saviour. So, the idea in Christianity is that since Paul's interpretation or reinterpretation of Christianity, which was further done by St. Augustine, who tried to reinterpret the whole of history as a linear progression towards the climactic event of Jesus' descent and Jesus' deliverance, Jesus delivering humanity.

So, the whole idea is he reinterpreted time as a linear arc and the whole arc is preparing towards Jesus' coming. And then, all the previous thinkers, you know, for example, Socrates, Plato, there are many Christian depictions in the mediaeval ages where, because Christianity borrowed a lot of philosophy from these thinkers, but Christianity itself came later. If, there are many logical problems with this idea, I am not going to do a critique of Christian conception of Jesus as the only way, but I will focus on the point of the linear conception of time.

So, what happens is that if Jesus is the saviour, then what about all the millions of people who lived before Jesus came? Are they never to be saved? Because further Christianity, mainstream Christianity also doesn't accept the idea of reincarnation. They have come and they have gone. So, what about all the people who never heard of, who existed before Jesus came? How are they going to be saved? So, then some Christian philosophers thought that actually, there were pre- Christian representatives of Christ and they made these things into that.

So, the idea was that they conceived of time as a linear progression till the climactic event of Jesus' coming. But the problem with this linear conception was, if Jesus has said I have come to bring the kingdom of God, but actually Jesus did not bring the kingdom of God, in the sense that Jesus himself was crucified and his followers were completely scattered and devastated after that. So, then to have the further linear conception of time, they the Christian theologians conceived the second coming of Jesus.

And they said, in the future Jesus is going to come and when Jesus comes, at that time the kingdom of God will manifest on the earth. And at that time, those who have accepted Jesus as saviour, they will be saved. And everyone else will be cast to hell forever.

So, now there is a linear conception of time still going on in Christianity. And they still think that time is progressing, progressing towards when Jesus will come again and at that time, everyone will be, or those who accept Jesus as saviour will be saved. So, now the the linear conception of time, the problem with that is that it contradicts most of what we observe in reality.

If you look at everything in nature, it's not linear, it's cyclic. The day, it's cyclic. The morning, afternoon, evening, night and morning again.

If you look at the months, now time, the calendar is conceived differently in different traditions. But no civilisation ever has conceived the calendar as simply linear. Simply linear means, you start from one month and just have new months piling up till the rest of eternity.

Now, everybody conceives of the year as a cycle. Where there are certain number of months, but those months are cyclic. The days of a week are cyclic.

The years themselves are cyclic. And if you look further as science has understood the cosmos, we see the prominent celestial bodies in the sky are moving in cycle. So, the earth, so the time divisions of day, week, month, season, year, all these are cyclic.

So, we don't see anywhere in nature, the linear conception of time as depicted. So, firstly, it militates against, so the linear conception of time, militates against what we observe everywhere else in nature. And, this linear conception of time is also very egocentric.

Why egocentric? That means, you know, yes, we, the followers of Jesus are the chosen people. We are the saved people. And, the whole of history is reinterpreted for our being saved.

And, unfortunately, this is also lead to many counterproductive things that many Christians in order to galvanise people, oh, you should surrender to Jesus. They say there is going to be a judgement day. At the time of judgement day, if you not surrender to Jesus, then, you will go to hell.

And, Christian thinkers, Christian teachers, they are not really thinkers, at least some of them. So, they have been saying, oh, the judgement day is going to come. Now, if you just look, till now, the judgement day has come and gone 25 times.

That's according to mainstream interpretations. And then, every time the judgement day comes and goes and no judgement happens, they say Jesus is so merciful. He has given an extension to us.

Now, surrender. So, actually, this has put many intelligent people off. So, this linear conception of time was adopted by science.

And, how did it adopt it? The whole theory of evolution is, yes, originally, there were just unicellular organisms and from there, multicellular, from there, animals, from there, aquatics, from there, amphibians, from there, animals and from there, humans came. And now, at the pinnacle of evolution, we have the mobile building, laptop operating, aeroplane flying, modern human beings. That's the linear conception of time.

If you see, according to the materialistic conception, the modern times is considered to be the best of times. In the past, people were so uncivilised, people were so uneducated, people were so unscientific. And now, this is the best of times.

Now, if you look at the Bhagavatam, this is Kaliyuga, the worst of times. So, it's exactly the opposite. So, that's why I said that this linear conception of time can be very egocentric.

When we think that, you know, the time that I am in is the best of times. So, now, the Bhagavatam's conception of time is not linear. It is cyclic.

So, that's why we have Yugas, we have Dipayugas, we have Malvankaras, and all of them are cyclic. And that reflects the natural cyclicity that is there in nature. And the cyclic nature of time, it does two important things.

First is, it frees one from the obsession with material improvement. Why? Because if time is just going to go around, then nothing is going to be really new in material world. So, punah punash charvita charvananam.

Again and again, chewing the chew. There is really nothing going to be new. Same eating, sleeping, mating, defending.

Maybe in new forms people will do it. But same eating, sleeping, mating. So, detachment from the material world becomes much easier when we understand that there is nothing new in the world.

And that we understand when we understand that time is cyclic. There is really nothing going to be new. Now, in fact, initially when there is a conflict between science and religion in the Christian tradition, so one of the ways the early scientists tried to deal with the conflict was religion was still influential.

The Catholic Church had tremendous influence. The Catholic Pope at one time was like the king of kings. All the kings of Europe, they had to pay tribute to the Pope.

So, he is the king of kings. He had tremendous power. And they couldn't go against church directly.

So, what they said is some of the early thinkers, scientific thinkers, they said that Jesus is the spiritual deliverer of humanity. And the same God who sent Jesus for the spiritual deliverance of humanity has now given science for the material deliverance of humanity. So, the point is there is a conception of material deliverance and science was thought of as an instrument of that.

Now, we see Krishna, he does say that he descends. He comes in again and again. But then, even within his descent, there is cyclicity.

That means, he says, I will come, I will set things right, but again things will go wrong. And again I will come. So, in that sense, the scientific and the Christian conceptions of time have more in common than apart.

And both do not reflect the cyclicity that is evident in nature. I said the first effect of recognising time as cyclic is that we are no longer excited, too excited by what is going to happen in time. Because ultimately the same things are going to happen again and again.

And the second consequence is that we start seeing the divinity which is latent in time. That means, now, nowadays, because of us being a clock driven civilisation, people think time is very valuable. Time is money.

People say. Time is money. Time is very valuable.

So, some people may say that, that is something Chanakya Bani also talks about. Prabhupada also quoted that. That one moment of time cannot be got even if you sell thousand, get, are offered to offer thousands of gold coins.

That is true. But this, this definitely is one way to start appreciating the value of time. But even when we appreciate it thus, this is still a very utilitarian conception of time.

Utilitarian conception means I am valuing time because of what time can do for me. Because of what I can do with time. It is not a intrinsic appreciation of time.

Intrinsic, what is the difference between intrinsic and utilitarian? That means, we value someone, like sometimes some relative, some person dies and all the relatives say, oh, now who will take care of him? So, that means we are valuing the person not for who that person was, but what that person was doing for me. That is utilitarian appreciation. So, that is good.

At least we should appreciate time that way. But the Bhagavatam offers us a much deeper appreciation. Not just what time can do for us, but what time is.

And, the Bhagavatam tells us, Kundi Maharani, she is in front of Krishna, when Krishna is about to depart from Asinnapur, and in 1.8.28 in her prayers, she says that, Krishna, I consider you to be time. So, Manye tvam kalam ishanam. The Bhagavatam also says, kalosmi.

So, the Bhagavatam tells us, time is not just valuable because we can do valuable things with it. Time is valuable because time is Krishna himself. Time is God himself.

Now, what do we mean by when we say time is God? I'll talk about three things and then I'll conclude this class. First is, that time manifests God's omnipotence in this world. In this world, many people can become very powerful.

Atheists can challenge, where is God? I don't believe in God. That's all fine. But, even though the atheists who don't believe in God, what is going to happen? They are going to die.

And, no matter how powerful they become, they are going to have to succumb to death. So, people may not accept God's omnipotence, but God manifests omnipotence through time. And, when Agamanyu is killed and Yudhishthira is distraught, at that time, the Asadeva tells Yudhishthira that no living being in this world can violate the law of death because, the law of death manifests the supreme's omnipotence.

So, that's all. Time is God in the sense that just as God is all-powerful, time is all-powerful. No matter how powerful a person becomes, that person will have to succumb to time.

That is first level of understanding. Second level of understanding is, now Krishna, when he defines time, he says, कालोस्मी लोगक्षे कृत्प्रभधो कालोस्मी, I am time. In 11.32 he says, and then what he says, how does he immediately give the attribute of time over there? लोगक्षे I am the destroyer of all the worlds.

So, now, the destruction of the world, it can be very ghastly. Suppose some earthquake occurs and the big big houses are shattered and the trees are knocked down, everything is destroyed. It can be very very ghastly.

And, this ghastliness, where does it come from? If God is good, why is there so much destructiveness in this world? And especially when there is the कालरूप that is described in the Bhagavatam, in the Bhagavata also, when Krishna manifests his विरातरूप, his विश्वरूप, with that he manifests the कालरूप. And the description of the कालरूप is very fearsome. It is said that लमिष्टा करालानि ते मुखानी श्ट्वाइव कालानसन् निभानी He says, I am seeing your mouth with its big teeth and there is a fire of destruction coming out of it.

And then he says, चूर्णितर उत्तमांगई He says that all the warriors are entering into your mouth. And as they enter into your mouth, उत्तमांगई, अंग is the body. उत्तम is the best part of the body.

The best part of the body is the head. चूर्णितर उत्तमांगई So as they are entering into your mouth, what is happening? The head is smashing against your teeth. And the head is just smashing apart.

And there is a whole bloody mess. And when all the bloody mess is there, what are you doing? लेली ये से एकर समाना You are licking all the blood. So, what is going on here, Krishna is saying that I am time, and you will see very interestingly, that initially when Arjuna starts, 11th chapter is the most dramatic chapter in the Bhagavad Gita.

So, Arjuna starts, he first, you know, he asks, can I see your form? he asks, can I see your form? मिल्ने से एरेत चक्क्य मया दर्ष्ट्मिति प्रभो, योकेश्यतो मेत्वा, he says that, if it is possible for you, please show me your form. At this point, Krishna is there, Arjuna is there. Now, when we have the photos, Krishna is showing the universal form, now we are actually, it is not a realistic depiction, it is a conceptual depiction.

So, Krishna is here, Arjuna is here, and Krishna is saying, I will show you the universal form. And the universal form is seen. So, in the photos that we depict, usually, there is Arjuna, Krishna, and the universal form.

But actually, when Krishna sees the, when Arjuna or Krishna shows the universal form, and Arjuna sees the universal form, at that time, Krishna disappears. Because he is looking all around, and he says, all around I see hands and legs, and heads and bodies, and I can't see anything. Initially, he is outstruck.

But then gradually, from that Vishwaroopa, within the Vishwaroopa, there is a Kaalaroopa that is living. And, when he sees the Kaalaroopa, it is so scary, that Arjuna, he has, he says, He says, who are you? Now, if Krishna had been visible to him, he would have said, Krishna, who is that? Now, Krishna is gone, and he has to say, who is this? Such a ghastly looking form. And, in Sanskrit, there is the, when we address a second person, there is a common second person address, and there is a respectful second person address.

So, that means, like in Hindi, we say, Tu or Aap? Tu kya kar raha hai? You may say to some person, but if you want to respectfully ask, Aap kya kar rahe ho? So, there is this, there is Tuam and there is Bhavan. Suppose somebody, you pick up a phone on a weekend, hello, who is there? And suddenly you find your boss is there. Oh, yes sir, sir, what can I do for you? So, the whole discipline changes when we have somebody very respectful.

So, like that, when Arjuna, initially when he surrenders to Krishna, he uses the word Tuam. He says that, He says, I surrender unto you, Tuam, he uses. But, when he sees this Vishwaroopa, it's so scary, Who are you? It's very scary for him over there.

So, what is happening is that, Arjuna is not able to recognise Krishna at all. Sorry, yeah. He is not able to recognise Krishna, because Krishna is not visible, only the Kaalaroopa is seen.

And the Kaalaroopa is so scary. And, interestingly, when Krishna responds also, Krishna doesn't say, I am Krishna. He says, I am time.

Kaalosmi loka kshayakul paroom. I am time, I am the destroyer of all the worlds. So, the Bhagavad Gita, and later on the Bhagavatam also talks about the destructive conception of God.

As Dev Amit Maharaj quoted in this Bhagavatam, often the conception is, like a snake coming to devour. And now, that is a scary conception. But in the same Bhagavatam, it says, time is like a snake coming to devour.

It also says, time is God. Is God a snake who is coming to devour us? What is going on here? We need to understand that, yes, destruction is a fact of the world. And the Bhagavatam does not divorce anything from God.

So, even the destruction is included as a feature of God. And when it is included as a feature of God, is God being cruel, being destructive? No. Because, God destroys the temporary to make way for the eternal.

God destroys the temporary to make way for the eternal. So, how does He make way for the eternal? Now, when we are attracted to the temporary and the temporary gets destroyed, then we are jolted. What really counts in life? What is important? What should I live for? So, the destruction, it is not that God wants to destroy everything.

The nature of the material world is that it is temporary. But the destructiveness that we see, when the destructiveness happens gradually, we don't notice it. But when it happens suddenly, like you know, in one day, 10,000 people die in the hospitals every day.

More than 10,000 die. But when 10,000 people died because the twin tower collapsed, that became a memory permanently etched on the modern psyche. Why? Because it happened suddenly and drastically.

So, the destruction, when it is done with a fearsome power, that catches our attention. And that reminds us of the temporality of the world. So, when it is said that Prabhupada, in this purpose only, when Krishna is saying that I am time, I am the destroyer, Prabhupada quotes an upanishadic verse which says that God devours all living beings including the brahmanas also.

We say Krishna is brahmana priya and how can God devour brahmanas? The point is that everything in this world is going to be destroyed and the bhagavatam says that the destruction of the temporary is for us to redirect our attraction towards the eternal. So, the destructiveness that is manifested within matter or the material world, that manifests God's mercy. How? Because, just like if a child is very attached to playing with sand castles and mother says, come on, you have to go to school now.

He says, no, I want to play with the sand castles. And then the wave comes and destroys the sand castle. Now I will go and study.

So, like that, sometimes the destruction of the temporary is necessary for us to shift our attention to the eternal. So, the destructiveness that is manifested by God, that is also a manifestation of His mercy. And lastly, for a devotee, it is Krishna manifests as time for you to take the devotee towards Krishna as Shamsundar.

That means, Krishna manifests as time for a devotee. Time is not just something material. Time is not just something destructive.

Time is not just a manifestation of God's omnipotence. For a devotee, time is Krishna himself manifesting to give him or her the opportunity to serve Krishna and move closer towards Krishna. So, a devotee considers time not just from a utilitarian point of view as valuable, but from an intrinsic point of view as Krishna himself manifesting.

Just as when we say that we consider the paraphernalia, the Mrudanga we consider sacred. We say that it is a manifestation of Tyanandapuram, manifestation of Balram. It is a facility which we use for serving Krishna.

The most fundamental facility we need for serving Krishna is time. So, a devotee sees or when Kalosmi Krishna says, I am time. That means Krishna has manifested as time to help us move towards him as Shamsindra.

And that's why the Bhagavatam says, with these two conceptions of time, we see the Bhagavatam आयूर्हरतिवैपुंसा उद्ध्यन अस्तन्चेनसो तस्यार्थेय शनोणि उत्तमिष्लोकत्वार्थे उत्तमिष्लोकत्वार्थे So, what it says is that with every rising and setting of the sun, life is being stolen away. Except for those, for whom they are glorifying the Supreme Lord. Because when they are glorifying the Supreme Lord, by that glorification, their heart is becoming attracted to the Supreme Lord.

When the heart is attracted to the Supreme Lord, then that attraction of the heart towards the eternal will take the soul from the temporary towards the eternal. So, you know, time is cyclic. But within the cyclicity of time, the human form offers us a catapult.

So, you know, there is normally in samsara, we go up, we go down, we go round. But in human life, there is an opportunity to go, get out. So, go up is also still in the material world.

आप ब्रह्म भोना लोका खुनरा आवाल के नवा जाना है। It's not in 8.15. But it is get out. So, for us as devotees, time is Krishna Himself manifesting to give us the opportunity to serve Him. And by that return to Him.

And it is this conception of time that is simply a associate of Krishna meant for His service that Krishna manifests ultimately in His vila in the spiritual world. So, when Krishna manifests His vila in the spiritual world, for Him, is there time in the spiritual world? Sometimes it is said there is no time in the spiritual world. निमेशा धाक्यो नवरजिति It is said in the Brahma Samhita, there is no time.

But we see in Krishna's pastimes, there is time. In fact, there are books like Govinda Lila Amrit, which actually describe how Krishna performs different pastimes at different times of the day. So, when we say there is no time in the spiritual world, what it means is there is no controlling and destroying feature of time.

Everything is eternal, so nothing is destroyed in the spiritual world. कालोस्मि लोकक्षे कृप्रोड Time I am destroyed upon the earth. This destructive feature of time is not there.

And the controlling feature is also not there. When Krishna is performing Raslila with the Gopis, He is dancing and He doesn't think Oh, now time over, I have to go back. No, He expands time.

He expands time so that one night becomes the night of Brahma. And He just rejoices in their Sangha over there. So, time in the spiritual world is simply another associate of Krishna which enhances the service.

So, yes, sometimes there may seem to be hurry also. But that hurry is also to enhance Krishna's service. So, the Radharani is cooking for Krishna.

She is so eager to cook the best for Krishna and she is thinking now it's lunch time, I have to finish the cooking. She is actually in great anxiety. So, when she is cooking in great anxiety, she cooks at Pavan Sarovar.

It is described that she cooks on 50 stoves at the same time. Can you imagine how much anxiety there will be? And yet everything comes out perfect. And it's interesting that in the spiritual world there are Kalpatarus.

There are desire-fulfilling trees. They are there, but nobody asks them anything. You know, Radharani or the Gopis or Yashodamayi, when they have to cook for Krishna, they could very well say, you know, Krishna wants sandesh, your desiratory provides sandesh.

No, then there is no joy of service left. So, they want the joy of serving Krishna. And although the facility is there, they don't use the facility to the desiratory.

They actually strive to serve Krishna. And yes, when to increase the ecstatic anxiety, when Radharani is anxious about finishing the cooking in time so that Krishna will come and eat, there is anxiety. But that anxiety intensifies the remembrance of Krishna.

And anything that increases the remembrance of Krishna is ecstatic. So, that's why even the anxiety in the spiritual world is ecstatic. It's ecstatic anxiety.

And when that time, when it is required to increase the ecstasy of a devotee, at that time there may seem to be a pressure of time also. Oh, I have to complete this on time. Yashodamayi or Radharani, I have to cook on time so that food will be ready for Krishna.

But again, time is not controlling. Krishna is controlling and time is moulding itself for enhancing the past times of Krishna. And this is how Krishna manifests himself as time to enhance his past times.

And this is the ultimate revelation of what time is in the Bhagavad Gita. So, I'll summarise. I started by talking about how there are, we'll discuss the modern scientific, the Abrahamic and the Bhagavatam's conceptions of time.

So, in scientific conception of time, I mentioned how science itself is sattvic, technology is rajasic, and scientism is tamasic. And time, as its conception has evolved throughout history, it is in order to control nature, as is the conception of technology-centred science and scientism. So, science was reduced to just another dimension, like the three dimensional space.

By such a reduction, it runs into logical impossibilities. It is logically untenable because time doesn't move backward. And then I discussed the grandfather paradox.

And then I discussed about how the scientific conception of time actually emerges from the Abrahamic conception of time, which is, time is a linear flow towards some climactic event. So, in Christianity, that climatic event was the coming of Jesus, and then the second coming of Jesus, which is supposed to happen in the future. And science kept the linear conception of time, but re-envisioned it as a natural progression without any divine intervention through evolution, towards the modern human beings who are the summit of evolution.

Now, this linear conception of time militates against all the features of time that we see in nature. Nature everywhere depicts cyclic time. And that cyclicity is what Bhagavatam talks about in its understanding of time.

And for understanding the cyclic nature of time, detaches us from expecting anything extraordinary to happen at the material level. It's all one and the same. Punarapi jananam, punarapi maranam.

Cyclic. So, then, the impetus for turning towards spirituality becomes much more. And then, we discussed with respect to the cyclic conception of time.

Further, it enables us to turn towards the Supreme Lord. In the Bhagavatam's conception of time, people may say time is very valuable, but that is a utilitarian conception. The Bhagavatam offers us the intrinsic value of time, because time manifests the divine.

Time manifests the omnipotence of God. Time manifests the mercy of God through the destruction it broughts. Because by that destruction, we become detached from material and we become attached to the spiritual.

And lastly, time is Krishna manifesting as a facility for us to serve him so that we can attain him as Shamsundar in the spiritual world. And I conclude by talking about time in the spiritual world. It's simply a part of the setup of the spiritual world which does not have the controlling or destroying features which material time has.

Time simply enhances Krishna's pastimes. And Krishna can expand time whenever he wants so that his Leela can become more intense and more sweet. So as devotees, when we practise bhakti, we understand that time is an opportunity given by us, given by Krishna to us to serve him.

And to the extent we serve him, to that extent, although time is cyclic, in the human form, by practising bhakti, time becomes a catapult which takes us out of material existence to Krishna's eternal abode. Thank you very much.