there is no time in nature

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One of the psychological problems in growing old is the fear of death. People resist the door of death. But this body is a vehicle of consciousness, and if you can identify with the consciousness, you can watch this body go like an old car. There goes the fender, there goes the tire, one thing after another— but it’s predictable. 

And then, gradually, the whole thing drops off, and consciousness, rejoins consciousness. It is no longer in this particular environment.

—Joseph Campbell

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You want somehow or other to maintain that the world is real. What is the standard of Reality? That alone is Real which exists by itself, which reveals itself by itself and which is eternal and unchanging. Does the world exist by itself? Was it ever seen without the aid of the mind? 

In sleep there is neither mind nor world. When awake there is the mind and there is the world. What does this invariable concomitance mean? 

You are familiar with the principles of inductive logic, which are considered the very basis of scientific investigation. Why do you not decide this question of the reality of the world in the light of those accepted principles of logic? 

Of yourself you can say ‘I exist’. That is, yours is not mere existence, it is Existence of which you are conscious. Really, it is Existence identical with Consciousness.


—Ramana Maharshi

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There is no time in nature. There is rhythm in nature, yes. There is motion in nature. But the clock as a measure of motion is a human artifact. 

The world, as it spins on its axis, doesn’t tick.

—Alan Watts 1967

 

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As the self moves in this body from childhood to youth to old age, so it passes into another body at death. 

The wise are not confused by this change.

—Bhagavad Gita, 2.13

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