September/October 2025: What Time Is It?
Time is a social institution and not a physical reality. There is, in other words, no such thing as time in the natural world - the world of stars, and waters, and mountains and clouds and living organisms.
-Alan Watts
Time isn’t precious at all because it is an illusion.
-Eckhart Tolle
One who is afraid of time becomes a prey of time. But time itself becomes a prey of that one who is not afraid of it. One who transcends time, the Beingness and its attributes, abides in the Absolute.
-Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Time is money.
- aphorism popularized by Benjamin Franklin, among others
Every moment is a fresh beginning.
-TS Eliot
A google inquiry, reveals there are approximately 40 calendars in active use in the world today, which begs the question which one is the most accurate? Wisdom says none of them. The Gregorian calendar, the one most agreed upon and the one our culture is bound to for all societal convention, places us in the month of September in the year 2025, marking the birth of Jesus as the beginning of our era and hence our calendar. This is only an arbitrary beginning given the historical accuracy of his birth is highly suspect and debatable at best. It was the Catholic Church and Pope Gregory XIII (thus, Gregorian calendar) in 1582 that decreed what the new calendar would be, when it would begin - and of course, long after the birth of Jesus. Even still, this calendar was not fully adopted until the 18th Century. That our whole planet agrees to use this calendar definitely could provide insights into the chaotic nature of our species.
The Hebrew calendar has been in existence longer, and begins at the creation of the world according to the Old Testament, about 5800 years ago. It is this time of year, that marks Rosh Hashanah - the Jewish New Year, and this “new” energy can be felt strongly across many parts of the world (maybe even more than January 1) as so many of us end one season to begin school years, sports seasons, etc. Maybe this is the best time to make a New Year’s resolution.
Interestingly enough the passing of time is less fixed than it is a variable of an object floating through vast distances of space relative to its surroundings and their mass. This was calculated by Einstein’s theory of relativity and proven by the fact the satellites that orbit the Earth have built into their software a system to turn back their clocks every so often because for the satellites, time elapses faster than it does on Earth. This is due to their distance away from our planet’s core. WTF! Neil DeGrasse Tyson, a well-known astrophysicist, says knowing this is the one thing that keeps him up at night. Moreover, this provides a clue to the mystery as to why the Hatha Yoga Pradipika (ancient source text of yoga) says inverting our human bodies suspends the aging process, perhaps because we place our heads closer to the earth, which on a small scale, time slows down for your head. Don’t you have less wrinkles on your ankles? Fun!
The Vedas, which are considered to be the oldest sacred texts in the world, have a larger understanding of time as being more astronomical. Simplifying, time is measured in cyclical ages of millions, billions, and trillions of years, where physical existence itself comes and goes (kinda like quantum physics). This model deifies time (kala), surmising time as Divine in nature - where it is so expansive and includes the rising and falling of universes and reincarnation, that it seems to support wholly the notion of why don’t you just relax, take it easy, you really have all the time in the world!
Given the aforementioned aspects of measuring time, the result is our notion of reality often can be as convoluted as the way we measure time. Apart from the Vedas, our modern calendars are not only a creation of the controlling agendas of a few, but to identify a certain calendar as time itself, means we buy into a particular model of the way the the world is, which ultimately is an insidious form of attachment. Given that so much of our worth, fear, anxiety, and suffering is intricately woven into time and its passing - it would behoove us to wholeheartedly throw out all understanding of time and embrace the only thing that is available to us, at any given time, which is… this present moment. Ah!
In the natural physical world, there is rhythm and there is motion. From a yogic perspective it is our practice of vinyasa that allows for alignment with rhythm and motion. It could be said when we align, we experience ourselves as timeless. In other words time disappears. We find our hearts beat, our wounds heal, and our love expands.
In Yoga we dwell,
Jeffrey
Sept 2025
*Al was not used to write this Pushti