As usual for my morning routine, when I browsed through top news articles on the Internet, a very interesting headline caught my eye – “Time Might not exist”. I read through the article which threw up more links on similar topics and concluded this has been a doubt in the scientific community for quite some time.
There are 2 prominent theories that dominate how the universe behaves and came into being. One is Einstein’s “General theory of relativity” which explain how the universe behaves in a larger physical world and the other is “Quantum Mechanics” which describes how things work in the world of tiny particles like photons and quarks. Although both theories have been proven correct, they seem to conflict at various points. Hence scientists believe there is a need to unify these two theories that could provide answers to all questions related to how the universe came into being. This missing theory is called “quantum gravity”. One aspect of this missing theory is to eliminate the concept of time itself.
Carlo Rovelli, the famous physicist claims that “Time is an illusion” and it’s a complex network of events of past, present, and future. This theory that links past, present, and future is called Causality. But wait a minute! Doesn’t this fit the definition of Karma? What is happening to us is a consequence of the past and what we are doing right now is going to impact our future thereby creating a network of events. This philosophy we have known since the advent of Vedic civilization.
To understand the crux of the argument about the non-existence of Time, I first tried to understand what exactly is time? Our concept of time is tightly coupled with how we measure it. So far we have been taught in school that time is irreversible and linear. We can only move forward in time. Scientists are now arguing that all the laws of physics will behave the same whether time runs in a forward direction or backward. The notion of time as linear stems from our perception of events occurring around us. Suppose I spill a cup of coffee on the floor. I cannot put back the coffee into the cup. Hence we assume that time is irreversible. Now assume a hypothetical situation when there is total stillness and nothing happens around us. Even our biological clock stops ticking. In this scenario, time seems to be non-existent.
Our notion of time is mostly shaped by a clock or calendar. Einstein has already proved that time is not absolute but varies according to where and how you measure it. An astronaut who orbits the earth and returns to earth is a few seconds younger than others who stayed on earth. Hence it is impossible to measure time itself, on the contrary, how we record events is called time. If we record events using a clock, it is clock time. If we record events in correlation to other events, we say something happened after a certain event in chronological order. Similarly, if we record events by year, then time is linear. If we record events by season, it is cyclic. The other aspect of time is completely psychological. Neither our past nor our future is real. The only thing that is real is NOW. In this case, also, time is reversible since psychologically we can move forward to our future or backward to our past. Is time non-linear? Are there parallel universes where there are other versions of our existence except events playing differently based on our decisions like events branching off from one single point of time in the cosmos? This theory has been used in many sci-fi movies like ‘Back to the Future’, way back in 1985 to recently in ‘Spider-Man: No way Home’ in 2021. This would mean we might be living one of the infinite number of possible lives. Although many favor the existence of multiverse, so far no major scientists have come forward to support the existence of a parallel universe with different versions of our existence. But no one has challenged to prove the theory wrong either. With the discovery of quantum physics, the laws of physics that govern our daily life seem to be irrelevant in the quantum world.
In the Vedas, time is a manifestation of GOD, is always cyclic in nature, and all the past, present, and future coexist in the absolute thereby proposing the idea of a multiverse. The non-linearity aspect of time is explained in the concept of rebirth and is called Kalachakra or the “Wheel of Time” which goes on eternally without a beginning or end and where events repeat endlessly. The Vedas also have very elaborate descriptions of timescales to measure time. For example, 311 trillion earth years or Mahakala is only 100 Brahma years at the end of which this universe will be destroyed. It is clearly a subject of faith, for who can prove it, but at least the idea that time scales are different in a different part of the cosmos had been there for a long time. Vedic mythology and Puranas also talk about multiple parallel universes through stories, however, Puranas are not the Vedas and we should not confuse stories with the teachings of the Vedas.
Before even questioning the possibility of the existence of time, scientists believed time stops in the Black Hole. The literal translation of the word ‘Black’ is ‘Kala’ in Sanskrit which is also called Time. The Vedas state that the universe originated from ‘Kala’ or Time and will end with Time and then get recreated after a period of being in an unmanifested state. Does this indicate that the Universe originated from Black Hole and will ultimately be swallowed by the Black Hole before being reborn again? This is again a possible theory suggested both by some scientists and the Vedas to describe how the universe came into being. Scientists around the world now claim around 95% of the universe is composed of dark energy and dark matter. These are mysterious forces and particles which cannot be measured by any instrument available today. The word Dark is again a synonym of the word ‘Kala’, one of whose meaning is ‘Time’, the other being ‘Black’. All these coincidences make me wonder, is it possible the sages of ancient India experienced this truth through their meditative powers?
Wether Time exists or is just an illusion of the mind, whether it is linear or cyclic, who knows for how many more years the debate will continue. I look at the sky and realize the vastness of the universe and how insignificant is our existence. Newton once rightly said, “What we know is a drop, what we don’t know is an ocean.”
I am the author of the book “A Cosmic Connection of two Souls”. If you liked my blog, please check out my book on Amazon or Flipkart which will open your thoughts on Vedic philosophy.
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Very interesting and thoughtful topic
No doubt time is a really very important part of our lives. Of course, it’s defined by humans …and you have elaborated things so perfectly…time is something which is getting older along with us…..and we keep on counting it as days, months & years….
What science is discovering now , the vedas had discovered them 1000 of years ago. Intellectually. It is not possible to understand the notion of non existence of time. One has to experience it and meditation in the only way !!