B Hari

March 15, 2021

Infinity & Time

When in school we were taught that 1/0 is infinity. During my younger days , I always thought of INFINITY as a concept in mathematics.

As life progressed and went into several twists and turns , I read and heard from several spiritual books , teachers and gurus about the "infinite"  which has no beginning nor end , which is timeless  and unborn , which many people also call as GOD.

As I discovered the path of non duality /Advaita , the quest for the SELF started and I now know conceptually that where there is the INFINITE , nothing can exist separately . Anything added or removed from infinity does not change the infinite nor does it have any impact on the characteristic or nature of the infinite . This line of thinking   is a no brainer to the logical mind . If you take out a drop of water from the ocean it does not change anything. In a similar logic , if you pour a cup of water in the ocean , it loses its identity instantly and there is no way it can stand out separately.

Are we not drops of water in the ocean of life ? Do we need to think and behave as if we are separate from this ocean of life ? Advaita says that WE ARE THE SELF , the one and only SELF. It does not PREACH anything , nor asks you to believe anything blindly . It asks you to question , investigate and find out for yourselves . Mere understanding is no good . You have to be it - thus speak the sages. If you can be it - you are THAT ,the infinite which cannot be expressed in words. The veil of ignorance once removed , true knowledge shines instantaneously since you are always that .

" Who Am I ? " is the most definitive question that one can ask . When this question is answered , the realised ones say that the questioner disappears and all that remains is silence ,  which does not have any beginning nor  end which is also called  the SELF , the INFINITE , GOD or any name  that you would like to call IT . 

Does "Time " have any separate identity ? Is it another dimension of the infinite ? Logically , Infinity has to be  dimensionless and hence time cannot exist independently . The past , present and future are all contained in the infinite . The only time that can be  is the NOW .  In fact NOW is not TIME . NOW never changes. Everything is in the NOW.  The infinite does not change , so why should we bother about all that changes ? They are only illusions of the mind . This reminds one of the the great sage Bhagawan Ramana Maharshi who said ' The "I"removes the " I " yet  remains the "I" .''

Is infinity real ?

Plan to explore this further .

Take care.

In loving service,

Hari

Simplicity with substance
www.bhari.com