This time is not another; time has come as a dream

Mental stillness reveals an experience of time incompatible with Newtonian physics, and not even with Einsteinian relativity. It is not that time “is illusory” in a negative sense—that it does not exist—but rather that its apparent absoluteness depends on identification with a persisting subject. Time is the form taken by the succession of vṛttis when there is a supposed entity—the “I”—that accumulates them into a continuous narrative. In nistaraṅga stillness, vṛttis may arise and dissipate without anyone linking them into a personal “before” and “after.” Time then becomes like space in a lucid dream: present, functional, but without the coercion of irreversibility suffered by the unconscious dreamer.

Vasiṣṭha does not deny kāla as cosmic order—the cycles, seasons, and ages—but reveals that psychological kāla, the one that produces anxiety about the future and melancholy for the past, is a projection of the agitated mind. When the mind grows still, time ceases to be an enemy and is recognized as the very dance of consciousness.

Mental stillness reveals an experience of time incompatible with Newtonian physics, and not even with Einsteinian relativity. It is not that time “is illusory” in a negative sense—that it does not exist—but rather that its apparent absoluteness depends on identification with a subject that persists. Time is the form taken by the succession of vṛttis when there is a supposed entity—the “I”—that accumulates them into a continuous narrative. In nistaraṅga stillness, vṛttis may arise and dissipate without anyone linking them into a personal “before” and “after.” Time then becomes like space in a lucid dream: present, functional, but without the coercion of irreversibility suffered by the unconscious dreamer. Vasiṣṭha does not deny kāla as a cosmic ordering—the cycles, seasons, and ages—but reveals that psychological kāla, the one that produces anxiety about the future and melancholy for the past, is a projection of the agitated mind. When this mind grows still, time ceases to be an enemy and is recognized as the very dance of consciousness.