BENGALURU: You are seeking, asking, longing, to walk on the other shore. The other shore implies that there is this shore, and from this shore to get to the other shore there is space and time.
That is what is holding you and bringing about this ache for the other shore. That is the real problem - time that divides, space that separates, the time necessary to get there and the space that is the distance between this and that.
So, how is the mind to free itself from time? Time, after all, is knowledge. Time comes into being when there is the sense of achievement, something to be arrived at, something to be gained.
‘I am not important, but I shall be; in that idea, time has come into being, and with it the whole struggle of becoming. In the very idea, ‘I shall be,’ there is effort to become; and I think it is this effort to become which creates time, and which prevents a comprehension of the totality of things.
You see, so long as I am thinking about myself in terms of gain and loss, I must have time. I must have time to cover the distance between now and tomorrow when I hope I shall be something, either in terms of virtue or position or knowledge. This creation of time breaks life up into segments, and that becomes the problem.
Is it possible to meet every issue without this space-time interval, without the gap between oneself and the thing of which one is afraid? It is possible only when the observer has no continuity, the observer who is the builder of the image, the observer who is a collection of memories and ideas, who is a bundle of abstractions.
Time means moving from what is to “what should be.” I am afraid, but one day I shall be free of fear; therefore, time is necessary to be free of fear, at least, that is what we think. To change from what is to “what should be” involves time.
Now, time implies effort in that interval between what is and “what should be.”
I, to analyze, to dissect it, or I am going to discover the cause of it, or I am going to escape totally from it. All this implies effort and effort is what we are used to. We are always in conflict between what is and “what should be.” The “what I should be” is an idea, and the idea is fictitious, it is not “what I am,”which is the fact; and the “what I am” can be changed only when I understand the disorder that time creates.
So, is it possible for me to be rid of fear totally, completely, on the instant? If I allow fear to continue, I will create disorder all the time; therefore, one sees that time is an element of disorder, not a means to be ultimately free of fear. So there is no gradual process of getting rid of fear, just as there is no gradual process of getting rid of the poison of nationalism.
If you have nationalism and you say that eventually there will be the brotherhood of man, in the interval there are wars, there are hatreds, there is misery, there is all this appalling division between man and man; therefore, time is creating disorder.