As creation began, time was created first and rest everything came after that. Whenever anything starts, first of all its time is determined. Think about it, all the pleasures that you take through the day - relationships, property, business, money - is there anything that is beyond time? There is only one thing that is not tied to time - reality. What is real, is not bound by time.

So first, time was created. Next, came the primordial sound of ‘om’. Is om then bound by time? Om is both, tied and free from time. How?

When om is chanted, it can be a short ‘om’ or a continuous ‘ooooooooom’. The om is tied to time butoooooom has no beginning or end, it is the brahmnaad, a continuous loop of countless short oms. It is the separated smaller oms that manifest as various aspects of creation.

So first came time, next came om and from it emerged prakriti and purush, the two aspects of creation. So om becomes the doorway between this world and that or the key to enlightenment. Purush further manifested as brahma, vishnu and mahesh while prakriti gave rise to saraswati, lakshmi and adi-shakti. Thereafter the tridevas got tied to their respective karyakshetra in creation and the devis further divided to form the navdurgas which further split into more and more parts giving us the creation as it exists today.

Each one of us is ‘om’, a poorn ansh of creation comprising of purush and prakriti. In that respect, each individual is tied to time and at the same time independent of it. Every individual is living in unreality and also in reality. How is this possible?

Let us understand this with a practical example. When you go to watch a movie, you take yourself to be reality and what is happening in the movie as unreal and yet, you get so involved in that unreality that you laugh and weep as the movie progresses. A movie-seer has the option to sail out of the movie or remain engrossed in it. It has got both limited and unlimited aspect to it. The limited aspect is the movie (om) and the unlimited aspect (oooooom) is the seer. So is true of the movie called physical life. Every human being is tied to it and yet not tied to it. He just has to realize it.

The om is one, every human being is that om but he has tied himself to the physical world which he mistakes as real. The irony is that the physical world is slipping way from his hand with every passing day – every new day brings with it another grey hair, another wrinkle on the skin, a new disease or problem, further weakening of the senses – and yet he does not want to leave the physical. The one who knows that what he is doing is foolish and does it because he knows that the physical has to be passed, karmas have to be carried out and that he has the choice to walk out of the movie hall anytime he wants - that person is called a realized soul, a Yogi. A fool is the one who continues sitting on the chair as he wants to enjoy a little longer. And what happens in that ‘little longer’ is that the time, which he could have utilized somewhere else, passes and as that time passes, he is left with nothing. His back bends, hair fall and senses dull. Finally his body becomes useless and is put to fire.

Each one of you has a choice to exist in reality or continue fooling yourself in the unreal. Each one you is an oooom formed by the smaller oms, that are temporary and limited are the physical world, the unreal. You may live in the oms or access the unending oooom, which is the param satya. On specific nights of energy, such as tonight (Diwali), as you do dhyan on the form of Guru with the internal chant of ooom at the agyachakra, you will experience the reality, the limitless and the unreal will leave you automatically. All the secrets of creation are hidden in the om. But the chant should be correct.

Otherwise you can go on watching movies…every new movie is more interesting and fun than the previous. There is no end to entertainment, but what is lost is –time. When time passes, you take another birth, another life with similar or aggravated pains and tensions, the same cycle yet again. You can keep going round and round in the unreal, and keep wasting time because it is very easy to live in a lie. You keep thinking, now this will happen, that will happen, but nothing happens. Whatever you are thinking, even if that happens, then also what will you do? For how long will that continue to happen? Whenever you are enjoying something, try to separate yourself from it and observe that who is it that is enjoying and for how long will it continue. Because whether you like it or not, everything in the physical is going to go as it is tied with time. It is only reality that is beyond time, rest everything is time-bound. No matter what you get, the day you get it, it’s time to go away from you also gets fixed.

—To be continued

- The Writer Yogi Ashwini Ji is the head of Dhyan Foundation, Delhi.

For details contact: ashwiniyogi@yahoo.co.in.