The way of the bird

of time and space, there is nothing to think about. Therefore, one has to assume a false
position before one can even discuss time and space!
Many of the desires in our ordinary human life are directed towards the future. But where
does that future exist? It is solely a mental construction, a fantasy. When tomorrow does
materialize, it has already become today. Because we imagine a tomorrow and remember
a yesterday, we always think we have time. However, time does not exist in reality,
where concepts cannot reach.
In Vedanta, the test for reality is to enquire whether something is eternal (nitya) or
whether it is bound by time. Eternal does not mean a very, very, very, long time, just as
infinite does not mean very, very, very, big. It is the opposite or the negation of time. In
eternity, there is no such thing as time. In the Self there is only pure existence that is
always whole and complete and which never comes and goes. The rhythm of time in the
gross world is kept by the breathing of the body, inhalation and exhalation, over and over
again. But in that emptiness after one breath has gone out, and before the next breath is
taken in, reality is always, already there.
2.8 "Power starts from zero, but reality is beyond."
Brahman in its original, unmanifest aspect is the reality. When Brahman becomes active, it
manifests itself as Maya. The nature of Maya is zero-it doesn't really exist. So you have
One (Brahman/reality) and zero (Maya). In Vedanta, Brahman plus Maya is called Ishwara,
which Maharaj refers to as the power. (Note here that one plus zero is still one!) The
power is free to create as many forms as it needs to satisfy its innate urge to expand
indefinitely. To accomplish this, it creates beings with sense organs of increasing degrees
of refinement. However, all the time that this is going on, the basis remains zero.
For this reason, nothing is permanent, everything is impermanent. Whatever appears,
sooner or later has to return to the zero from which it appeared. For this reason, every
experience is fleeting. Nothing can be held; it all slips away like water through the
fingers. Nothing that the power creates is true, because it starts from zero. However,
reality, Brahman, is One and it is nitya, eternal. It never comes and it never goes away.
2.9 "He is everywhere. He is not the body, and I am He."
What greater miracle is there than to be sitting here now, the body breathing effortlessly,
and to know that you are alive? Life is everywhere; and sometimes you can feel your own
power of consciousness enveloping everything that comes into awareness. The power that
you feel energizes the body and fills it with the light of "I-amness." And yet that sense of
"I-amness" is not focused on this apparent individual person-it goes far beyond that, into
the limitless and timeless realm of pure knowledge, of universal consciousness. It is just
one simple mistake that you make-to associate this limitless awareness with the limited
and time-bound body. Nothing can limit the Self that you are, Its freedom is absolute. It
is a freedom that has never known bondage.