Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academy-advaita.com
The Netherlands
23 February 2018
Birth of Future
“Gross and Subtle”
Every man and woman is convinced that the future will happen and it is ahead of them. They also hope that in the future what they expect to happen only happens and not what they do not expect to happen.
This implies that the birth of the future, including the hope of what should happen in the future, happens in the present because, if the birth of future were to happen in the future, man and woman would never know their future.
Firstly, what could the understanding of birth of future be is the question? The moment in daily life gives a clue to this understanding, because every moment in daily life is in the present moment and not in the future moment. Secondly, what could the understanding of the moment in daily life be is the question?
For the first question it is obvious that the future is known only as words and only through words. Now, a word is made up of letters in the alphabet and a letter is an illusion of a particular sound.
Similarly, letters in the alphabet are a collection of particular sounds. This implies that a word is a collection of sounds as illusory letters in the alphabet. The moment when man recognised a word in the mind, it was the birth of a word.
This is evident because the child recognises one letter at a time and speaks one letter at a time as the child grows. The recognition of a letter is the birth of a letter as an illusion of subtle sound. Similarly, speaking a word is the birth of a word as an illusion of gross sound.
Therefore, the moment a primitive man recognised a letter and spoke a letter in the moment, it was the birth of subtle and gross future respectively. This is because words evolve indicating the future in modern man and woman’s mind.
For the second question, the understanding of the moment in daily life is: The primitive man was without a letter in the moment and, so too, the modern child is without a letter in the moment. To both the primitive man and the modern child letters have evolved as words in the present moment.
Next, a moment is followed by the next moment. Wisdom reveals that, if there are many moments, there would be in between a moment and the next a moment as well. Wisdom signifies that a moment in daily life is eternal and a division between moments is not an actuality.
The moment in daily life also signifies that the future is an illusion of the moment, because the moment was without a letter in primitive man and also in the modern child. A moment has evolved in daily life of modern man and woman with illusory letters as the illusory future.
The enlightened have rightly proclaimed that the future is illusory in the moment of daily life, because the moment in daily life is without a thought in primitive man and also in the modern child. An illusory thought, as the illusory future, is present only intermittently in the moment in daily life and not in every moment in daily life.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V. S. Shankar 2018
Editor’s Note:
Existential life may be defined by the terms the past, the present and the future. These terms are universally recognized and accepted as broad measures of time-zones for what is believed to have happened, to be actually happening and to be yet to happen. Each signifies a relative, though illusory, reality. In these articles the deep understanding of the wise reveals that there is no other reality save the moment that is, the eternal and undivided moment that evolves as the past, the present and the future in existential life.
Julian Capper, UK.