Did you know that according to ancient Indian texts, one year of the gods is equal to 365 human years, “one year of the demigods is equal to 360 years of human beings”? That 4,800 divine years equal 1,728,000 human years? That the life span of any Hindu deva spans nearly or more than 4.5 million years? That a Mahā-Yuga or 4.32 million solar years equal one day of Brahma and the life span of Brahma is 313,528,320,000,000 human years? Śloka 8.17 in the Gita— “sahasra-yuga- paryantam ahar yad brahmaṇo viduḥ rātriṁ yuga-sahasrāntāṁ te ‘ho-rātra-vido janāḥ”—meaning, a day of Brahma is of 1000 Mahā-Yuga, and thus a day of Brahma, Kalpa, is of duration 4.32 billion solar years—is often quoted. Similarly, one day of pitras or our forefathers or the departed who have assumed an astral body is equal to one solar month and the lifespan of the pitras is 100 years that equal 3,000 solar years. It is interesting that while the time scales of divine years and those of the pitras vary in the texts and so do their interpretations, the magnitude remains astounding from our human perspective.
Incidentally, it has been worked out that the value of 24,000 years in ancient texts fits relatively closely with the modern astronomical calculation of one full precession of the equinox, which takes 25,772 years. All the major religions of the world have their own divine time scales, and to make an understatement, there is no doubt that though the time units and measurements vary, time controls and rules not only our lives but also our deaths and beyond, which is why Kala or time is another name given to death. In the Selected Upanishads 2013, Jayaram V writes : “Time is one of the highest aspects of Manifested Brahman… the foremost among the deities…He is the same God whom Lord Krishna manifested before Arjuna in the battlefield of Kurukshetra. In theBhagavadgita, when Arjuna asks who he was, he replies, ‘I am Time, the Destroyer of the worlds, vast and mighty, who manifests to destroy the worlds. Even without you, all the warriors who are standing on the other side will cease to exist’.”
Variations in time scales shouldn’t surprise us, familiar as we are with the different time zones of the hemispheres and the time differences between countries. Here in India itself, there is a difference in time between, for example, the north eastern States and Delhi. But no matter what the variation, time never stands still, except for a few seconds every year—seconds which are keenly awaited by dabblers in the occult in particular. Remember that old favourite , “Time, you old gypsy man,/ Will you not stay, /Put up your caravan/Just for one day?” Regrettably, except in the world of ghosts, there are no yesterdays. In the world of the living, there is only the all important present and a whole series of tomorrows. It is not without reason that the spiritually evolved like Mother Teresa have noted, “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today…” But for those interested in the concept of tomorrow, according to Wikipedia, “The current Kali Yuga began at midnight 17 February / 18 February in 3102 BCE in the proleptic Julian calendar. As per the information about Yuga periods, only 5,120 years have passed out of 432,000 years of the current Kali Yuga, and hence another 426,880 years are left to complete this 28th Kali Yuga…”
In the vast future that lies ahead of us, just like the variations in time scales and zones, there are variations in the speed at which time moves, both in this world and beyond. I can vouch for this from personal experience. When my father passed away before my eyes, my distressed soul too left my body and travelled with his departing soul for quite a distance into what seemed to be nothingness till he sent me back with an urgent “ I have to go but you have to go back and now”. While leaving my body had seemed to happen automatically, the re-entry was accompanied with a jerk. Analysing the event later on, I realised that though my soul had travelled for quite a distance, it had actually taken just a few seconds, because my body was still standing and our family doctor was still providing mouth to mouth resuscitation.
I’ve written earlier about how my mother and a couple of other relatives were taken on a “visit” to one of the other worlds while still alive. They were there for a very short while, quickly hustled back by their spirit escort, but on returning to earth discovered they’d been away for several hours. Remember Rip Van Winkle? According to Encyclopaedia Britannica,
Rip Van Winkle, an amiable farmer wandered into the Catskill Mountains, where he came upon a group of dwarfs playing ninepins. Rip accepted their offer of a drink of liquor and promptly fell asleep. When he awoke, 20 years later, he was an old man with a long white beard; the dwarfs were nowhere in sight. When Rip returned to town, he found everything changed: his wife dead, his children grown…” In his case, time had moved on, but in the case of ghosts or of a soul that temporarily leaves its body, the time dimensions vary. It is believed that souls who get caught in a “time warp” after death become ghosts.
Remembering people who have moved on to the other world is as important as moving on. J.R.R. Tolkien, the British writer, poet philologist, and academic, best known as the author of the immensely popular The Lord of the Rings, wrote, “I sit beside the fire and think/Of people long ago/And people that will see a world/That I shall never know/But all the while I sit and think/Of times there were before/I listen for returning feet/ And voices at the door.”
Some things are certain like, for instance, time being central to our lives and to our deaths. Kahlil Gibran wrote in The Prophet: “The timeless in you is aware of life’s timelessness. And knows that yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.” But paradoxically, despite all the talk of timelessness and variations in time, there is one occasion for each one of us when the time is fixed and unchanging : the time of one’s death. There are some other things too where there is a time limit, like the number of breaths you can draw—the bio-clock now acknowledged by scientists that governs a life span, the amount of food and water you can consume in a life span. Does that mean if you eat in smaller quantities you can defeat time and extend your life span? More on this intriguing subject in a future column.