Last week someone told me how much they liked the way I rendered a Sanskrit phrase into English in my book, Journey Into the Bhagavad Gita.
It was an especially meaningful compliment because I’d put a lot of thought into how to render this particular phrase. I felt obliged to honor the requirement of matter-of-factness in the delivery of one of the Gita’s heavier reality checks. I also felt the need to convey the message with a level of poetic sensitivity that would honor the lyrical character of the Gita’s verses and, in the process, take some of the edge off of the message.
The phrase in question, duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam, appears in the 15th verse of the 8th chapter of the Gita. After looking at many different word-for-word equivalents and fluent translations, I chose to render the phrase as, “this transient place of sorrows.”
It’s how Krishna characterizes the essential nature of the material world.
The Gita attributes the inevitability of sadness to one of the world’s great mysteries: the indomitable force of time.
One of my teachers describes time this way:
When did time begin? Well, you can’t have a “when” without the existence of time, so it’s kinda hard to say. Questions about time have a way of chasing their own tails.
We can think of time as a continuous linear force that propels us through sequences of past, present, and future.
We can think of time as a container that holds a perpetual cycle of creation, maintenance, and destruction.
And we can think of time as a marker of when something is meant to happen:
The sky can be a wonderful source of inspiration for contemplating the simultaneously linear and cyclical nature of time.
I’m blessed to have a wonderful view of the sky from our apartment, and when I look at a crescent moon swinging low in the night sky, I think about how the moon was here long before I arrived and will still be here long after I’m gone, arriving every night to look down on the Earth and departing at its appointed hour when the sun rises.
For me, the sky represents both time and eternity; the passing of light into darkness and back again marking time while the act of becoming new at every moment, moment after moment, transcends moments.
Some years ago, I happened to pass by a couple who were looking at the sky.
Or at least they were looking in the direction of the sky. I don’t know what they were seeing.
I only saw them for a second (any more would have been intrusive), but I think I will always remember them; their image was so powerful and sad and sweet, all at the same time.
It was an image of love in anticipation of separation.
I was visiting someone who was residing at an assisted living facility. As I walked through a wing reserved for people for whom time was short, I passed by an open door.
I glanced side-long into the room as I passed by, without hardly turning my head or breaking my stride. An elderly couple were sitting together, facing a window, their backs to the door.
She was in a wheelchair, her head resting on the shoulder of the man sitting stoically in the chair beside her.
The setting outside the building was quiet and pastoral. The window in their small third floor room offered them an unobstructed view of the sky; a painting of light unfolding above a hill that rolled gently up from behind a parking lot.
She would be leaving soon.
I thought about how lucky they were; how she would leave her body with someone who loved her by her side; how he got to be with her to support her in her moment of greatest need.
Time is the great separator; the demolisher of dynasties and destroyer of worlds. In the end, nothing and no one withstands the test of time.
Time is also the great uniter; the cradle of creation and cause for celebrations. In the end, all of us find meaning and purpose in relationship to time.
Once upon a time, I used to be able to just look at the sky without thinking about it or holding on to it or feeling anxious about spending time looking at the sky when I had so many things that needed to get done . . . in time.
As this year heads into the home stretch and the new year readies itself for yet another on-time arrival, I’m making a vow to set aside some time every day to just look at the sky.
I hope I can remember how to do it.
Wishing you all good fortune and a happy New year,
– Hari-k