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Do you often find yourself saying “I don’t have time,” in response to invitations from people or life in general?
Well, you’re right, you really don’t have time but not because of the reason you think.
You don’t have time because
1. there is no you
2. there is no time
Yes, I really went there. Let’s begin with point 2 here, ok? Great!
We’ve all probably heard that time is just a concept and doesn’t really really exist one too many times, but have we truly understood this viscerally?
Your line of thinking might be along the following lines:
“Ok cool, time doesn’t exist, I get it, I really do, but this doesn’t change anything about how I live my life. There are still places I have to be at and meetings I have to attend at a certain time.”
Of course, you do.
We all play along with the imaginary rules of time. Relatively speaking, time is a thing and exists as much as anything else exists relatively, like watermelons and kittens.
And saying time doesn’t exist to never look at a clock and be on time again probably doesn’t serve you.
Although our perception of time can vary from moment to moment, the brain is somewhat equipped to track time.
So, what I’m saying here is not supposed to be a way to completely dismiss the existence of time but rather to see how we limit our experience of life through psychological time.
Thinking in terms of past, present, and future may make sense at certain times but most of the time when we do this, we are putting ourselves in a box of limited thinking.
What is Time?
Let’s see if we can keep this as simple as possible.
Time is the tracking device of movement through space or the progression of events if you will.
And all this tracking of movement through space happens inside our minds.
The logical conclusion is that without thoughts, there is no time. Before you dismiss this as nonsense, I invite you to really think about this.
Think about time and think about thoughts, and see how they interrelate. See how time can’t exist without thought.
If there is no cognizing of the movement in space, how can there be time?
And this, by the way, applies to space as well. How can there be space without thought?
What is space anyway? What determines if something is a space?
The mind does.
What is there but appearance if there is no thought that labels the appearance as space?
And what’s the point of space and time then?
The concept of space-time is crucial to our dualistic worldview as it gives birth to interdependent counterparts such as positive and negative, subject and object, hot and cold, yin and yang, etc.
So far so good.
Past, Present, Future
“But our minds are bound to the yardstick of yesterday, today and tomorrow, and with that yardstick we try to inquire into the unknown, to measure that which is not measurable.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti
Let’s look at the concepts of past, present, and future.
The past and the future usually give us a whole lot of headaches but only because we have accepted them as an actuality.
– The ‘past’ has no autonomous existence, it simply is the impression of an event extended in duration in our imagination.
– The ‘present,’ which is purely theoretical has no autonomous existence either since it has no duration.
– The ‘future,’ which is a speculation about the possible extension of an event, likewise doesn’t exist.
So as you can see, past, present, and future are all imaginary concepts.
None is more real than the other, they are all mental gymnastics.
But what about the infamous present moment?
Being in The Present Moment
“Spontaneity is being present in the present.” – Wei Wu Wei
When you started reading this, you might’ve started to assume that my point is going to be telling you to live in the present.
Surprise! That’s not my point at all.
I’ll get to the final point, don’t worry, but let us first dismantle this living in the present moment thing.
The idea of getting into the present moment is one of the most common myths in spirituality.
It stems from the idea that the present is somehow more real than the past or the future, which we have already determined untrue.
Being completely present is being no one and because you are already no one you are already completely present.
The you (ego) that wants to get into the present moment is what is standing in the way for you to be in the present moment.
Yet, the ego (you) has no concrete existence whatsoever, so there’s nothing standing in the way.
Or to put it even more accurately, you are the present moment.
Though there is no present moment, there is just Presence, which is you.
You “become” completely present by recognizing that no matter what you do – be it pondering past, present, or future events – you are already completely present.
Ok, now that we have determined that past, present, and future are non-existent in their own right and that you are always present no matter what, let’s get to the final point about what this means for your life.
Living Free From Psychological Time
“Time is a created thing. To say, ‘I don’t have time’ is to say, ‘I don’t want to.”
– Lao Tzu
Again, this is not about dismissing the relative aspect of time, but about freeing yourself from the shackles of psychological time.
Many of us project much of what we want to do onto the future and determine much of what we can do based on the past without ever questioning why.
How often have you heard someone say, “When I have more time/money/energy/[insert any resource here], I’ll do this”?
And how often has this someone not done what they said they’ll do when they have more of the resource they thought they needed for doing the thing they said they’ll do?
And how often has this someone been you?
The point here is that when you always project your goals and desires into the future, they most likely will stay in the future, which doesn’t exist as such.
Similarly, how often are we walking around telling others who we apparently are based on cherry-picked memories from the past?
So this whole talk about time being non-existent is an invitation to stop limiting your expression by past events and stop projecting your desires into the future.
Instead of fooling yourself by putting off things, ask yourself how you can live your desired future right now.
If you want to travel the world and don’t have the means right now, ask yourself to what degree you can already live it right now.
You might not be able to go on a year-long trip right away, but you can still live your desire to some extent right now. You can, for instance, look up countries you want to visit and start preparing.
Or instead of going on a round-trip around the world right away, you can pick one country to visit.
Don’t limit what’s possible by creating psychological time and then living by your self-created prison.
The ‘You Don’t Have Time’ Bit
Here I want to discuss the ‘you don’t have time’ part from two perspectives.
Memento Mori
The first one is that you never know when death comes for you.
Keep in mind that there is never a time or day too mundane for death to strike. This is the essential practice of memento mori – contemplate your death.
Surely you have heard others saying “live every day as if it was your last.”
Most of us would nod in agreement, but why aren’t we living like that?
Because we haven’t really looked at the fear.
And this fear is a fear of living, which is synonymous with the fear of dying.
Thinking about your death once won’t cut it. You have to become intimately acquainted with death.
Just turn around, death is breathing down your neck right now.
When you truly get this, you’ll finally become fully alive.
Being fully alive is not about doing reckless things every day, but about embracing every moment as it comes, fully aware that each might be your last.
There is No You
Now let’s get to non-duality 101.
The simple truth is that you don’t have time because there is no one that can have time.
Every time you think “I don’t have time.” you can investigate and look at who or what or where this ‘I’ is that claims it doesn’t have time.
When you take a hard and honest look, you’ll quickly see that there is no ‘I’ behind all this mentalization.
Sure, there is a thought that says “I don’t have time.” But that’s about it.
Only because the word ‘I’ appears in a thought, do we assume that ‘I’ has a concrete existence.
This is an unquestioned assumption.
Whenever you feel bound by psychological time, investigate.
Sooner or later this obsession with time and trying to control it will relax. Things will be less sticky.
Instead of believing a mental story in the context of the concept called time, you’ll simply see life living itself.
And even if the thoughts about lack of time continue appearing, you’ll no longer believe them.
You have no time.
You have all the time.
Life is living itself.
And in all of this, there is no you.
△△△
“In the spiritual world there are no time divisions such as the past, present and future; for they have contracted themselves into a single moment of the present where life quivers in its true sense. The past and the future are both rolled up in this present moment of illumination, and this present moment is not something standing still with all its contents, for it ceaselessly moves on.”
– D.T. Suzuki
Luka
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El “pasado” “regresa” en forma de recuerdos al azar al presente. El “futuro” “viene” en forma de planes al azar al presente. El “presente” se transforma de manera infinitesimal de futuro a pasado. Ninguno existe excepto en nuestra mente, si queremos.