Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha 1.23—Vicissitudes of Time
Channel: Consciousness Research Centre
Date: 2017-08-28

This series is classified Ajata-vāda | Jñāna-yoga | Turīya | Sahasrāra-cakra

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“Time is a rat that gnaws off all threads of thoughts that men may entertain about the contemptible pleasures of this world. There is nothing in this world which all-devouring time will spare. He devours all things like an undersea fire consumes the overflowing sea. Time is the sovereign lord of all, and equally terrible to all things. He is ever ready to devour all visible beings. Time as master of all, spares not even the greatest of us for a moment. He swallows the universe within himself, whence he is known as the Universal Soul. Time pervades all things, but has no perceptible feature of his own, except that he is imperfectly known by the names of years, ages and millennia.” — 1.23.3-7

“Time accompanied by action as his mate, entertains himself in the garden of the world, blossoming with the moonbeams of the Divine Spirit. As the high and huge rock supports its body upon the earth, so does time rest itself in endless and interminable eternity. Time assumes to himself various colors of black, white and red which serve for his vestures. As the earth supports the great hills that are fixed upon it, so time supports all the innumerable ponderous worlds that constitute the universe. Hundreds of great kalpa ages may pass away, yet there is nothing that can move eternity to pity or concern, or stop or expedite his course. It neither sets nor rises. Time is never proud to think that it is he who, without the least sense of pain or labor, brings this world into play and makes it exist.” — 1.23.27-33

“Time destroys youth as the moon shuts the petals of the lotus. It destroys life like a lion kills the elephant. There is nothing so insignificant that time does not steal. After sporting for a kalpa period in the act of killing and crushing of all living beings, time comes to lose its own existence and becomes extinct in the eternity of the Spirit of spirits. After a short rest and respite, time reappears as the creator, preserver, and destroyer of all who remembers all. He shows the shapes of all things whether good or bad, keeping his own nature beyond the knowledge of all. Thus does time expand and preserve and finally dissolve all things by way of sport.” — 1.23.41-44

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