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Time is eternal but...
Professor Durckheim: May I put a question to the meaning of time? I think there are two ways to look at time and to look at eternity.
Prabhupada: Time is eternal. Time is eternal, but we calculate time, past and present and future, according to my temporary material existence. Just like a small ant. The ant’s past and present is different from my past and present. I am a human being. I live for hundred years. So my past and present is different from the ant who lives for, say, a few hours.
Professor Durckheim: Is different from?
Prabhupada: From the ant, a small living entity. And similarly, Brahma, his past, present, is different because he has done millions and millions of years as one day. So the time is eternal, but according to our condition, occupying the time and space, we calculate past and present and future. Otherwise time itself is eternal.
Professor Durckheim: Well, now I question you. You see, talking about eternity, there are two meanings or concepts at the same time. The one is that the finite life is going on infinitely, infinity, millions of years. That is one way to think about eternity.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Professor Durckheim: But there is another one.
Prabhupada: Eternity means, we say, no beginning no end. That is eternity.
Professor Durckheim: Isn’t there also this other one, when, for instance, Christ says, “I am before Abraham was,” this “I am.” There is one kind of eternity which has nothing to do with past and future at all, which is beyond past and future.
Prabhupada: Past and future is concerned with this body.
Professor Durckheim: Is concerned with this body. It is concerned, exactly, with this body and with this ego, with regard to which there is a before and an after, up and down. And if you take away this ego, what’s there, what’s left?
Prabhupada: That is pure ego. Now I am born Indian, say, seventy- five years ago, or seventy-eight years ago, and I have got this Indian body, I have got this false ego that “I am Indian; I am this body.” This is misconception.
Professor Durckheim: That is one way to look at time.
Prabhuada: Time is there, but because I have got this temporary body, I am thinking past, present, future. The temporary body will vanish. I shall get another temporary body. Then again my begins past and present. So therefore this is called illusion. Time is eternal. It has no beginning, no end, but we transmigrate from one body to another. We are calculating, miscalculating, past, present, future.
Professor Durckheim: Yes, time has no beginning and no end. But time in this second sense has nothing to do with beginning and end.
Prabhupada: It has no end, beginning, no end. The beginning and end is of this body. And in relationship with this body, we are calculating past, present, future.
Professor Durckheim: But without this body, you wouldn’t become conscious of what is beyond body.
Prabhupada: I am conscious always. Just like in sleep, I am getting different body, but still I am conscious. And daytime, that sleeping body is gone; still, I am conscious. That consciousness is impure on account of our contact with this temporary body. So when you come to the pure consciousness, that is Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Professor Durckheim: But as an experience, the pure consciousness as an experience, has to have a background which is not pure consciousness. Otherwise it could become…
Prabhupada: No. Pure consciousness is actually you are. Just like water. Water is pure. When it is comes from the sky, it is clear crystal water. But as soon as it touches the ground, it becomes muddy. Similarly, we soul, spirit soul, we are pure. As soon as we come in contact with this matter, material existence, we become impure. And there are three stages of impurity: goodness, passion and ignorance. So all of them are impure. Unless one comes to the spiritual consciousness—he may be a very nice man—he is infected with the impurity of goodness. He is thinking, “I am very big man, I am very…” That is also impurity. And another man does not know what he is, just like animal, all the animals. That is also impurity. When both of them will come to the clear consciousness that “I am part and parcel of God; my duty is to serve God,” that is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So long he identifies with this material consciousness, he is impure. Just like people are fighting: “I am German,” “I am Englishman,” “I am this,” “I am that,” “I am black,” “I am white,” “I am brahmaṇa,” “I am sudra”—so many, designations. These designations are impurity. Just like sometimes the artists, they manufacture some statue naked. In France I saw, naked. They take it this naked statue is pure art, not dressed. Similarly, when you come to the nakedness of spirit soul without this designation of this body, “I am American,” “I am German,” “I am this,” “I am that,” that is purity.
Professor Durckheim: But the meaning of the impure is to be the background of the consciousness of the pure without any experiencing the suffering in the impure.
Prabhupada: The consciousness is covered by impurity, just like your health is covered by disease, and the symptom is fever. But that is a covering. That is not your healthy state. Similarly, my consciousness, when I think that “I am American,” “I am German,” “I am this,” “I am that,” “I am that,” that is impurity. And when he thinks that “I am neither German, neither American, nor this nor that. I am part and parcel of God,” that is pure consciousness.
Room Conversation
with Professor Durckheim
German Spiritual Writer
His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
June 19, 1974, Germany