Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 08.

Reflect on time’s cyclicity to reduce the mind’s imbecility by Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 08.

The mind’s imbecility is to believe that the things that haven’t provided fulfillment till now will provide fulfillment next time round. It imagines that the same unfulfilling activities – eating, sleeping, mating and defending – that we have indulged in millions of times in this and previous lives will give us something new, something exciting, something sensational, if we just do things right next time. By this hope the mind keeps us trapped in material existence, looking for something materially enjoyable and enduring the repetition of birth, old age, disease and death.

Time’s cyclicity refers to how things go round and round in nature – from the seconds hand on an analog clock through the periodic cycling of the days, months and years to the circular movement of the celestial bodies. From a philosophical perspective, the cyclic nature of time implies that ultimately there’s nothing new in material existence – there’s only the eternal recurrence of the old. As it is wisely said, news is simply old things happening to new people.

Understanding the cyclicity of time is a good medicine for the mind’s imbecility. The Bhagavad-gita (08.17) while countering the human craving for fulfillment at the material level warns that even the heavenly abodes such as that of the creator divinity Brahma are time-bound and perishable. Only by rising from the material level of consciousness to the spiritual level and learning to love the non-material supreme divinity Krishna can we get everlasting fulfillment. He is ever-accessible in his many manifestations internally and externally, still we are often unable to focus on him due to the mind’s material infatuation. Meditating on time’s cyclicity helps us realize that materially things only run down, never work out. This realization can provide us the necessary detachment to determinedly focus on spiritual realization and thereby find devotional satisfaction.