' Oppressions of time '...

That which never dies and was not born, which has existed from one eternity to another, can exist only in a timeless Now which is beyond human conception but not beyond human experience. He who can learn to live feelingly in this everlasting Now knows how artificial are all those oppressions of time to which humanity clings so slavishly and so short‑sightedly.

He knows that these divisions which it insists on making are mere conventions which help to make practical life possible but which are illusions in the greater absolute life of Infinite Duration. The passive submission to time keeps man enchained. The willed meditation on the infinite observer which is ever with him and within him is a revolt which weakens every link of his chains.

If the unimaginably stretched‑out time‑life of World‑Mind is beyond human reach the timelessness of pure Mind is with­in possible experience. As the Overself it is the stupendous ever-­present fact of his life. If he ceases to ignore it and repeatedly strives to know it, the hour will certainly arrive when he shall do so.

For gently and gradually a realization will come to the student that he is no longer imprisoned by the body, that an inexpressible spaciousness of being is now his. The planetary scene will seem like a shadow show. The people in it will seem like shadow actors play­ing allotted parts.

He himself will feel fleshless and ethereal. A queer feeling that this is an experience he has been fated to meet since birth will creep into his heart. He will find in himself the wonderful confirmation of that which reason merely affirms and religion only hints at ‑ the glorious fact of the timeless soul.


-Paul Brunton