2 0 S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 5 - 1 S p r i n g 2 0 1 9 terious than I just described – to the extent that something distantly similar to them really exists. Even the idea of connectedness of past, future and present probably presents the reality which we try to comprehend by our concepts related to time-idea very poorly. What is really going on may be well beyond our strangest speculations. When mystics and ancient spiritual texts speak about eschatology, end, final salvation, nirvana and so on, they are not able to grasp properly this reality even with the help of paradoxes, let alone with the capacities of reason. Let us ponder the following statement, for example. In Lankāvatāra Sūtra, a text from Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition, we read: “But no beings are left outside by the will of the Tathāgatas; someday each and every one will be influenced by the wisdom and love of the Tathāgatas of Transformation to lay up a stock of merit and ascend the stages. But, if they only realized it, they are already in the Tathāgata’s Nirvana for, in Noble Wisdom, all things are in Nirvana from the beginning.” (Lankāvatāra Sūtra, Chap. XIII, Nirvana) [2]. The thought that all is in “eschatological time” already, if we only realized it, occurs repeatedly in Eastern spirituality. “Eschatological reality” as if covered from “above” all time like an umbrella and transcended time barriers. Mystics and spiritual teachers often spoke of ultimate reality as being beyond time. Yet, from their reports it seems that reality is not simply out of time in the sense laws of nature presumably are or in the sense in which the space-time object we described earlier is out of time. It cannot be grasped by reason. It seems that for example Tolle imagines the present moment differently than a point on the line of time or a snapshot of the movie of reality. I speak here of “imagining” only regarding his texts and speeches, in which he uses also concepts and language. I do not claim that his understanding of present moment in his experience is his imagination or mental construct. But in his teaching as embodied in his texts and words we can certainly discern conceptual structure. And in it we can see that his understanding of present, based of course on his experience and feeling, is different from at the first sight rationally easily comprehensible images of point on a line or a snapshot of the movie – or the like. Tolle speaks of present not only as of a present moment (in time) but also as some “active agency with intelligence” from which intelligent and adequate action, words or thoughts can arise. Sometimes his present seems to be identical with “pure consciousness” or “pure observer”. These and similar aspects suggest that he understands by present something in many respects different from our ordinary understanding. It cannot be adequately understood as a point in time or a snapshot, or some mathematical object between two different mathematical objects: past and future. His understanding of a present cannot be fully grasped by reason. It seems that only experience similar to his can show what he means by present. This does not mean that his understanding does not partly grow from our ordinary experience of a present. But this ordinary experience does not fully and on a whole adequately contain experience which he is talking about. Present moment as ordinarily experienced thus can be the starting point of our understanding of what he means by present, but this experience has to be deepened and developed. And this is done also with the help of other ordinary experiences, like that of a consciousness or observing, which at first seem to be clearly different from the experience of the present moment. 6 The Concept of the Beginning of All Let us think briefly about another problem connected with time idea, the problem of the beginning of all. Both possibilities imaginable by reason – a universe with beginning and a universe without beginning – are, after deeper analysis, nonsensical to the reason. In the case of beginning, we are not able to explain why anything began, from what, and how it is possible. If we say that time also began with the beginning of cosmos, this does not answer how the beginning was possible. Why beginning happened? If we brand this question as nonsensical, an issue is still unexplained and unintelligible: without reason, from nothing, and without “how”, universe began. If you look at it, is does not make much sense. But the image of a universe with no beginning is problematic too. Although we need not explain now how, why and from what it began, we are not able to imagine well infinity of the past. Every moment of the universe arises from the previous state, but, since infinity means there is no first point in time, it is not determined from what universe arises ultimately. If we say that for every moment it can be said from what it arises, namely from the previous one, and that we cannot speak of ultimate “from what” (it arises), because it just not has a beginning, problem still remains. If infinite amount of time already passed, then universe could have not come to this state, which is infinitely distant from some other past state. And such infinitely distant past state has to exist, because if all past state were only finitely distant, that there would be a beginning. Now infinity means that you cannot go to the end, because there is no end, and thus it cannot be traversed. In consequence, infinite distance between any of the infinitely distant states in the past and the actual state could have not been traversed and universe could have not arrived at this state, so this state should not exist – but it does. And if we say that infinite distance can be traversed, but only in an infinite amount of time, this does not work
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