English
Time exists solely in our minds. It is merely a form of perception by which we express our consciousness of the Change in Things. We cannot think of Time except in connection with a succession of changes of things in our consciousness 12 GNANI YOGA. — either things of the outer world, or the passing of thought-things through our mind. A day is merely the consciousness of the passing of the sun — an hour or minute merely the subdivision of the day, or else the consciousness of the movement of the hands of the clock — merely the consciousness of the movement of Things — the symbols of changes in Things. In a world without changes in Things, there would be no such thing as Time. Time is but a mental invention. Such is the report of the Intellect. And, besides the conclusions of pure abstract reason- ing about Time, we may see many instances of the relativity of Time in our everyday experiences. We all know that when we are interested Time seems to pass rapidly, and when we are bored it drags along in a shameful manner. We know that when we are happy, Time develops the speed of a meteor, while when we are unhappy it crawls like a tortoise. When we are interested or happy our attention is largely diverted from the changes occurring in things — be- cause we do not notice the Things so closely. And while we are miserable or bored, we notice the de- tails in Things, and their changes, until the length of time seems interminable. A tiny insect mite may, and does, live a lifetime of birth, growth, marriage, reproduction, old age, and death, in a few minutes, and no doubt its life seems as full as does that of the elephant with his hundred years. Why? Because so many things have happened! When we are conscious of many things happening, we get the impression and THE ONE. 13 sensation of the length of time. The greater the con- sciousness of things, the greater the sensation of Time. When we are so interested in talking to a loved one that we forget all that is occurring about us, then the hours fly by unheeded, while the same hours seem like days to one in the same place who is not interested or occupied with some task. Men have nodded, and in the second before awak- ening they have dreamed of events that seemed to have required the passage of years. Many of you have had experiences of this kind, and many such cases have been recorded by science. On the other hand, one may fall asleep and remain unconscious, but withh out dreams, for hours, and upon awakening will insist that he has merely nodded. Time belongs to the rela- tive mind, and has no place in the Eternal or Abso- lute. Next, the Intellect informs us that it must think of the Absolute as Infinite in Space — present every- jwhere — Omnipresent. It cannot be limited, for there is nothing outside of itself to limit it. There is no such place as Nowhere. Every place is in the Every- where. And Everywhere is filled with the All — the Infinite Reality — the Absolute. And, just as was the case with the idea of Time, we find it most difficult — if not indeed impossible— to form an jdeajDi^an^mnipresent-^of That w hich o c- cupies Infinite Space. This because everything that our minds have experienced has had dimensions and limits. The secret lies in the fact that Sp ace, l ike 14 GNANI YOGA. Time, has no real existence outside of our per- ception of consciousness of the relative position of Things — material objects. We see this thing here, and that thing there. Between them is Nothingness. We take another object, say a yard-stick, and meas- ure off this Nothingness between the two objects, and we call this measure of Nothingness by the term Distance. And yet we cannot have measured Noth- ingness — that is impossible. What have we really done? Simply this, determined how many lengths of yard-stick could be laid between the other two objects. We call this process measuring Space, but Space is Nothing, and we have merely determined the rela- tive position of objects. To ^measure Space" we must have three Things or objects, i. e., (i) The ob- ject f rom which we start the measure ; (2) The ob- ject with which we measure ; and (3) The object with which we end our measurement. We are unable to conceive of Infinite Space, because we lack the third object in the measuring process — the ending object We may use ourselves as a starting point, and the mental yard-stick is always at hand, but where is the object at the other side of Infinity of Space by which the measurement may be ended? It is not there, and we cannot think of the end without it. Let us start with ourselves, and try to imagine a million million miles, and then multiply them by an- other million million miles, a million million times. What have we done? Simply extended our mental THE ONE. IS yard-stick a certain number of times to an imaginary point in the Nothingness that we call Space. So far so good, but the mind intuitively recognizes that be- yond that imaginary point at the end of the last yard- stick, there is a capacity for an infinite extension of yard-sticks — an infinite capacity for such extension. Extension of what ? Space ? No ! Yard-sticks ! Ob- jects! Things! Without material objects Space is unthinkable. It has no existence outside of our con- sciousness of Things. There is no such thing as Real Space. Space is merely an infinite capacity for ex- tending objects. Space itself is merely a name for Nothingness. If you can form an idea of an object swept out of existence, and nothing to take its place, that Nothing would be called Space, the term implying the possibility of placing something there without dis- placing anything else. Size, of course, is but another form of speaking of Distance. And in this connection let us not forget that just as one may think of Space being infinite in the direction of largeness, so may we think of it as being infinite in the sense of smallness. No matter how small may be an object thought of, we are still able to think of it as being capable of subdivision, and so on infinitely. There is no limit in this direction either. As Jakob has said : "The conception of the infinitely minute is as little capable of being grasped by us, as is that of the infinitely great. Despite this, the admission of the reality of the infinitude, both in the direction of greatness and of minuteness, is inevitable." *$ GNANI YOGA. And, as Radenhausen has said: "The idea of Space is only an unavoidable illusion of our Consciousness, or of our finite nature, and does not exist outside of ourselves; the universe is infinitely small and in- finitely great." - The telescope has opened to us ideas of magnificent vastness and greatness, and the perfected microscope has opened to us a world of magnificent smallness and minuteness. The latter has shown us that a drop of water is a world of minute living forms who live, eat, fight, reproduce, and die. The mind is capable of imagining a universe occupying no more space than one million-millionth of the tiniest speck visible under the strongest microscope — and then imagining such a universe containing millions of suns and worlds similar to our own, and inhabited by living forms akin to ours — living, thinking men and women, identical in every respect to ourselves. Indeed, as some philoso- phers have said, if our Universe were suddenly re- duced to such a size — the relative proportions of everything being preserved, of course — then we would not be conscious of any change, and life would go on the same, and we would be of the same importance to ourselves and to the Absolute as we are this mo- ment. And the same would be true were the Uni- verse suddenly enlarged a million-million times. These changes would make no difference in reality. Com- pared with each other, the tiniest speck and the largest sun are practically the same size when viewed from the Absolute. THE ONE. 17 We have dwelt upon these things so that you would be able to better realize the relativity of Space and Time, and perceive that they are merely symbols of Things used by the mind in dealing with finite ob- jects, and have no place in reality. When this is realized, then the idea of Infinity in Time and Space is more readily grasped. As Radenhausen says: "Beyond the range of human reason there is neither Space nor Time; they are arbitrary conceptions of man, at which he has arrived by the comparison and arrangement of differ- ent impressions which he has received from the out- side world. The conception of Space arises from the sequence of the various forms which fill Space, by which the external world appears to the individual man. The conception of Time arises from the se- quence of the various forms which change in space (motion), by which the external world acts on the individual man, and so on. But externally to our- selves, the distinction between repletion of Space and mutation of Space does not exist, for~each7 is in con- stant transmutation, whatever is is filling and chang- ing at the same time — nothing is at a standstill," and to quote Ruckert: "The world has neither begin- ning nor end, in space nor in time. Everywhere is center and turning-point, and in a moment is eternity." Next, the Intellect informs us that we must think of the Absolute as containing within Itself all the Power there is, because there can be no other source or reservoir of Power, and there can be no Power out- 18 GNANI YOGA. side of the All-Power. There can be no Power out- side of the Absolute to limit, confine, or conflict with It.