​How is there no passage of time in the spiritual world?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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What is the Brahmasamhita statement about time? It says that there is not the passage of even one moment. Eternal time exists. What does that actually mean? So it is basically time.
Does it exist in the spiritual world? Definitely it exists. So in fact there is a whole Smarana Paddhati, Govinda Leela Smarana Paddhati, Govinda Leela Amrit talks about it, where it describes that which pastimes Krishna performs in which times of the day. So in the morning Krishna wakes up, he performs pastimes with his mother, the time when he goes out, with the Gopas, in the evening with his mother.
Then like that at different times he performs different pastimes. And what the sadhaka does is, sadhaka meditates on the activities that Krishna is performing in the spiritual world at the time correspondingly. That means in the morning the sadhaka maintains on Krishna’s Vatsalya’s pastimes.
In the daytime the sadhaka meditates on Krishna’s Sakhira’s pastimes, like that. So definitely there is time in the spiritual world. So what does it mean? Then he says that there is no passage of time.
See what it means is that in this world time does two things. It controls and it deteriorates. It controls means I am able to do something very enjoyable.
But this time gets over. I have to go now. Now when Krishna is performing Rastila with the Gopis, he will say, oh I have to catch a local now.
Krishna is performing Rastila. What happens? It’s for one night but Krishna makes that one night into a Brahma’s night. He expands it unlimitedly so that Krishna can perform pastimes to his heart’s content.
The Gopis can perform pastimes to their heart’s content. So essentially the time is not the controller. Time is controlled by Krishna.
And secondly in this world time deteriorates. I may be young and healthy right now but 20-30 years down the line I will be decrepit. I will be old.
I may become sickly. Everything is deteriorated by time. But in the spiritual world there is no deterioration by time.
There is just the circling of time that happens but there is no deterioration. So when Nanda Maharaj is elderly, he is eternally elderly. And he doesn’t grow further old than what he is.
So like that whoever is there, they are basically the same. Basically Krishna Leela goes on cycling again and again. New pastimes, new reciprocations.
But there is no passage of time in the sense of there is no deterioration that happens because of time. So it is in this sense, if you see when Krishna defines in the Bhagavad Gita also specifically, how does he define it in 11.32? Kaalosmi lokakshe krutapravartho. Time I am, Kaalosmi lokakshe, the destroyer of the world, krutapravartho.
I have come for that purpose. So Krishna talks about time primarily in terms of its destroying capacity, its deteriorating and destroying potency. And that destroying and deteriorating potency is not there in the spiritual world.
So in that sense there is no passing away of time. That means it is not that oh at that time we had good old times and now the good old times are gone. No.
All times are good times in the spiritual world because nothing is lost. The same Leela, all the facilities for Leela, they are eternally available. They are eternally relishable.
And Krishna performs pastimes accordingly. So it is, when we talk about living in the present here, it is talking more in terms of our focus of our consciousness. Whereas where there is an eternal present, when it is talked about, that means that whatever is, when that is talked about in the spiritual world about things being eternally present or eternal present, what it means is that whatever is required for Krishna’s pastimes is eternally present and nothing passes away.
Nothing gets deteriorated. Everything stays eternally fresh, available and relishable for being engaged in Krishna’s pastimes. Does it answer your question?