FROM TIME TO ETERNITY

by

Alan Watts
A Speech When St. Augustin of Hipo was asked "What is time?" he replied, "I know what it is, but when you ask me I don't." And funnily enough, he is the man most responsible for the a erage !ommonsensi!al idea of time that pre ails in the West. "he #reeks and the $ast Indians thought of time as a !ir!ular pro!ess. And anyone looking at his wat!h will ob iously see that time goes around. %ut the Hebrews and the &hristians think of time as something that goes in a straight line. And that is a ery powerful idea whi!h influen!es e erybody li ing in the West today. We all ha e our arious mythologies. And I don't mean when I say the word "mythology," or "myth," something that is false in the popular sense. %y myth I mean an idea or an image in terms of whi!h people make sense of the world. And the Western myth under whi!h our !ommon sense has been nurtured o er many !enturies, is that the world began, if you look at the marginal notes in your !opy of the 'ing (ames %ible, whi!h of !ourse des!ended from hea en with an angel in the year )*)), you will see that the world was !reated in the year +,,, %.&., before whi!h, and naturally the -ord #od e.isted fore er and e er and e er through endless time ba!kwards. And then the world was !reated and of !ourse the world fell apart, and so in the middle of time, the se!ond person of the "rinity in!arnated himself in (esus &hrist to sa e mankind, and established the &hur!h. And when this institution has not altogether su!!essfully done its work, there is e.pe!ted the end of time. "here will be a day whi!h is !alled ""he -ast /ay" in whi!h #od, the Son, will again appear in glory with his legions of angels. And the -ast (udgment will be held. And those who are sa ed will li e fore er and e er !ontemplating the ision of the %lessed "rinity and those who did not beha e themsel es will s0uirm fore er and e er, that is to say, through e erlasting time in hell. And this, you see, is a one dire!tional pro!ess. It happened on!e 1 it will ne er be repeated be!ause St. Augustin fi.ed on the idea that when #od the Son !ame into this world and sa!rifi!ed himself for the remission of all sins, this was an e ent that happened on!e and on!e only. I don't know why he thought that, but he sure did think it. And so we ha e got the idea that the uni erse of time is a uni0ue story whi!h had a beginning and it is going to ha e an end, and whi!h will ne er ne er ne er happen again. And so although most Westerners do not belie e in this story anymore, although a great many of them think they ought to belie e in it, but they in fa!t do not. "hey still retain from this way of thinking a linear iew of time, that we are going in a single dire!tion. We will ne er again go ba!k o er the !ourse whi!h we ha e followed. And we hope that as we go on in time, things will get better and better. And this ersion of time lies in ery strange and fas!inating !ontrast to the iew of time held by most other people in the world. And as a spe!ial e.ample I will take the iew of time of the Hindus. "he Hindus had no su!h small1minded pro in!ial idea as that the world was !reated in a mere +,,, %.&. "hey re!koned the ages of the uni erse in units of four million, three hundred and twenty thousand years. "hat is your basi! !ounting unit, and it is !alled a kalpa. And their understanding of the world is of !ourse 0uite different from ours. We in the West think of the world as an artifa!t, something made by a grand te!hni!ian, the &reator. %ut the Hindus do not think that the world is !reated at all. "hey look upon the world as a drama, not as !reated, but as a!ted. And they see #od as the supreme a!tor, or what is !alled the !osmi! self, playing all the parts. In other words, you and the birds and bees and the flowers, the ro!ks and the stars are all a big a!t being put on by #od, who is pretending in order to amuse himself, through the many eternities, who is pretending that he is all of you. And this is not, after all, an unreasonable idea

be!ause if I were to ask you ery seriously to !onsider what you would do if you were #od, you might find, I think, that being omnis!ient for always and always and always, and being in !ontrol of e erything would be e.tremely boring. 2ou would want a surprise. After all, what are we trying to do with our te!hnology 1 we are trying to !ontrol the world. And if you will imagine the ultimate fulfillment of te!hnology, when we really are in !ontrol of e erything, and we ha e great panels of push buttons whereon the slightest tou!h will fulfill e ery wish, you will e entually arrange to ha e a spe!ial red button on it marked "surprise." And you would tou!h that button and you will suddenly disappear from your normal !ons!iousness, and find your self in a situation ery mu!h like the one you are now in, where you feel a little bit out of !ontrol of things, sub3e!t to surprises, and sub3e!t to the whims of a not altogether predi!table uni erse. And so the Hindus figure that that is what #od does e ery so often. "hat is to say, #od, for a period of four million, three hundred and twenty thousand years, knows who he is. And then he gets bored with it and forgets who he is for an e0ual period of four million, three hundred and twenty thousand years. As it were, he goes to sleep and has a dream. And this dream is !alled the man andara , but the period in whi!h he wakes up and doesn't ha e the dream is !alled the pralaya., and that is a state of total bliss. %ut when he has a dream, he manifests the world. And the manifestation of the world is di ided into four ages, and these ages are named after the four throws in the Indian game of di!e. "he first throw is !alled krita,, whi!h is the throw of four, the perfe!t throw. And that lasts for a ery long time. And in this period of manifestation, the world is absolutely delightful. It would be the same, for e.ample, if you had the pri ilege of dreaming any dream you wanted to dream when you went to sleep at night. 4or at least a month you would dream out all your wishes. 2ou would ha e ban0uets and musi! and dan!ing girls and e erything that you e er thought you wanted, you would ha e. %ut then after a few weeks of this you would say "well, this is getting a little dull, and let's ha e an ad enture and let's get into trouble.' It is all right be!ause we know we are going to wake up at the end of it. So you would engage dragons and res!ue prin!esses from them and all that sort of thing. And then you would, after awhile you would get more and more far out. 2ou would arrange to forget that you were dreaming, and think you were really in ol ed in danger, and what a surprise that would be when you woke up. And one of those nights when you were dreaming any dream you wanted to dream, you would find your self right now sitting in this auditorium listening to me, with all your spe!ial problems and hang1ups and in ol ement. How do you know that that is not what is happening? So then, after the first round in whi!h e erything is perfe!t, the krita yuga it is !alled, that epo!h of time, there !omes a somewhat shorter epo!h !alled the 555555 yuga , that is the throw of three, and you know in the same way that a three1legged table isn't 0uite as stable as a four legged table. In 555555 yuga, the light goes on but there is something a little bit off. It is a little bit inse!ure, though as it were the fly in the ointment. And then when that !omes to an end there is ne.t a still shorter period !alled the da apala yuga , whi!h is named after da a, the throw of two, in whi!h period the for!es of good and e il are e0ually balan!ed. And when that !omes to an end, there follows a still shorter period !alled the kali yuga . 2uga means epo!h. And the kali means the throw of one, or the worst throw. And in this period the for!es of negation and destru!tion are finally triumphant. And this is supposed to ha e begun shortly before 6,,, %.&., and we ha e got another 7,,, years of it to run. In this period e erything falls apart, and gets worse and worse and worse until finally at the end the -ord himself appears in the disguise of Shi a, the destroyer, blue1bodied, ten arms with a ne!kla!e of skulls, ea!h hand holding !lubs and kni es, but one hand in this 8 isual9 gesture, whi!h means don't be afraid, it is a big a!t. And there upon the entire !osmos is destroyed in fire, and in e ery soul the -ord wakes up again and dis!o ers who he is, and abides for a pralaya of four million, three hundred and twenty thousand in a state of total

bliss. And this pro!ess goes on and on and on fore er and e er and e er. 4or these kalpas, these periods of four million, three hundred and twenty thousand years are the days and nights, the in breathing and the out breathing of %rahma, the supreme self. And they ad up into years of %rahma, ea!h one of three hundred and si.ty kalpas. And these add up again into !enturies and it goes on and on and on. %ut it ne er gets boring be!ause e ery time the new mon ontara, the new play starts, the -ord #od forgets what happened before, and be!omes !ompletely absorbed in the a!t, 3ust as you did when you were born and you opened your eyes on the world for what you thought was the first time. And all the world was strange and wonderful. 2ou saw it with the !lean eyes of a !hild. And of !ourse as you get older you get more used to things. 2ou ha e seen the sun again and again, and you think it is 3ust the same old sun. 2ou ha e seen the trees until you regard them as the same old trees. And finally when you pass about 77 years old or so, you begin to get bored and you start to fall apart and disintegrate, and finally you die be!ause really and truly you ha e had enough of it. %ut then after you die, another baby is born who is of !ourse you, be!ause e ery baby !alls itself "I", and sees the whole thing from a new point of iew again, and is perfe!tly thrilled. 2ou see. And so in this wonderfully arranged way, so that there is ne er absolutely intolerable boredom, the thing goes on and on and on and round and round and round. "hese are two, I would say, of the great myths of time in the world. And we really, in our day and age now, need to !onsider this ery seriously. %e!ause we, as a highly te!hnologi!al !i ili:ation, with enormous power o er nature, really need to !onsider time. -et me ask the 0uestion that was asked St. Augustin "What is time?" I am not going to gi e you the same answer. I know what it is, and when you ask me I will tell you. "ime is a measure of energy, a measure of motion. And we ha e agreed internationally on the speed of the !lo!k. And I want you to think about !lo!ks and wat!hes for a moment. We are of !ourse sla es to them. And you will noti!e that your wat!h is a !ir!le, and that it is !alibrated, and that ea!h minute, or se!ond, is marked by a hairline whi!h is made as narrow as possible, as yet to be !onsistent with being isible. And when we think of a moment of time when we think what we mean by the word "now," we think of the shortest possible instant that is here and gone, be!ause that !orresponds with the hairline on the wat!h. And as a result of this fabulous idea, we are a people who feel that we don't ha e any present, be!ause the present is instantly anishing 1 it goes so 0ui!kly. As this is the problem of 4aust of #oethe's ersion of the story, where he attains his great moment and says to it ";h still delay thou art so fair" that the moment ne er stays. It is always be!oming past. And we ha e the sensation, therefore, of our li es as something that is !onstantly flowing away from us. We are !onstantly losing time. And so we ha e a sense of urgen!y. "ime is not to wasted. "ime is money. And so be!ause of the tyranny of this thing, we feel that we ha e a past, and we know who we are in terms of our past. <obody !an e er tell you who they are, they !an only tell you who they were. And we think we also ha e a future. And that is terribly important, be!ause we ha e a nai e hope that the future is somehow going to supply what we are looking for. 2ou see, if you li e in a present that is so short that it is not really here at all, you will always feel aguely frustrated. And also, when you ask a person "What did you do yesterday?" they will gi e you a histori!al a!!ount of the se0uen!e of e ents. "hey will say "Well, I woke up at about se en o'!lo!k in the morning. I got up and made myself some !offee, and then I brushed my teeth and took a shower, got dressed, had some breakfast and went down to the offi!e and did this and that," and so on. And they gi e you a histori!al outline of a !ourse of e ents. And people really think that is what they did. %ut a!tually that is only the ery skeleton a!!ount of what you did. 2ou li ed a mu!h ri!her life than that, e.!ept you did not noti!e it. 2ou only paid attention to a ery small part of the information re!ei ed through your fi e senses. 2ou forgot to say that when you got up first thing in the morning and made some !offee, that your eyes slid a!ross the birds

outside your window. And the light on the lea es of the tree. And that your nose played games with the s!ent of the boiling !offee. 2ou didn't e en mention it be!ause you were not aware of it. %e!ause you were not aware of it you were in a hurry. 2ou were engaged on getting rid of that !offee as fast as possible so that you !ould get to your offi!e to do something that you thought was terribly important. And maybe it was in a !ertain way 1 it made you some money. %ut you, be!ause you were so absorbed with the future, had no use for the money that you made. 2ou did not know how to en3oy it. =aybe you in ested it so that you would be sure that you would ha e a future in whi!h something finally might happen to you, that you were looking for all along. %ut of !ourse it ne er will be!ause tomorrow ne er !omes. "he truth of the matter being that there is no su!h thing as time. "ime is a hallu!ination. "here is only today. "here ne er will be anything e.!ept today. And if you do not know how to li e today, you are demented. And this is the great problem of Western !i ili:ation, not only of Western !i ili:ation, but really all !i ili:ation, be!ause what !i ili:ation is, is a ery !omple. arrangement in whi!h we ha e used symbols 1 that is to say words, numbers, figures, !on!epts to represent the real world of nature, like we use money to represent wealth, and like we measure energy with the !lo!k. ;r like we measure with yards or with in!hes. "hese are ery useful measures. %ut you !an always ha e too mu!h of a good thing, and !an so easily !onfuse the measure with what you are measuring> the money with the wealth> or e en the menu with the dinner. And at a !ertain point, you !an be!ome so en!hanted with the symbols that you entirely !onfuse them with the reality. And this is the disease from whi!h almost all !i ili:ed people are suffering. We are therefore in the position of eating the menu instead of the dinner. ;f li ing in a world of words, symbols and are therefore ery badly related to our material surroundings. "he ?nited States of Ameri!a as the most progressi e !ountry of the West is of !ourse is the great e.ample of this. We are a people who are belie ed by our sel es, although we are slightly ashamed of it, and by the rest of the world to be the great materialists. And this is an absolutely undeser ed reputation. A materialist would, in my way of thinking of it, be a person who lo es material, and therefore re eren!es it, respe!ts it, and en3oys it. We don't. We are a people who hate material, and are de oting oursel es to the abolition of its limitation. We want to abolish the limits of time and spa!e. "herefore we want to get rid of spa!e. We !all it the !on0uest of spa!e. We want to be able to get from San 4ran!is!o to <ew 2ork in nothing flat. And we are arranging to do 3ust that. We do not reali:e that what the result of doing this will be 1 that San 4ran!is!o and <ew 2ork will be!ome the same pla!e. And therefore it will not be worth going from one to the other. When you go to another pla!e you say you think you would like a a!ation and so let's go to Hawaii where we think we will find girls in grass skirts dan!ing the hula on sandy bea!hes under the sun and the lo ely blue o!ean and !oral reefs and all that sort of 3a::. %ut tourists in!reasingly ask if su!h a pla!e, "has it been spoiled yet," by whi!h they mean "Is it e.a!tly like /allas?" And the answer is "yes." "he faster you !an get from /allas to Honolulu, Honolulu is the same pla!e as /allas, so it wasn't worth taking the trip. "okyo has be!ome the same pla!e as -os Angeles and in!reasingly, as you !an go faster and faster from pla!e to pla!e, that they as I say, they are all the same pla!e. So that was the result of abolishing the limitations of time and spa!e. Also, we are in a hurry about many things. #oing ba!k to this a!!ount of one's day 1 you got up in the morning and you made yourself some !offee. I suppose you made instant !offee be!ause you were in too mu!h of a hurry to be !on!erned with the preparation of a beautiful !offee mi.ture. And so your instant !offee was a punishment for a person in too mu!h hurry. "his is true of e erything instant. "here is something about it that is phony and fake. Where were you going? What do you think the future is going to bring you? A!tually you don't know. I' e always thought it an e.!ellent idea to assign to freshmen in !ollege, the task of writing an essay on what you would like hea en to be. In other words, what do you

really want. And be spe!ifi! be!ause be !areful of what you desire 1 you may get it. 2ou see, the truth of the matter is, as I ha e already intimated, there is no su!h thing as time. "ime is an abstra!tion. So is money. As so are in!hes. @ause /o you remember the #reat /epression? ;ne day e erything was going on all right. $ erybody was pretty wealthy and had plenty to eat. "he ne.t day e erybody was in po erty. What had happened? Had the fields disappeared, had the dairy anished into thin air, had the fish of the sea !eased to e.ist, had human beings lost their energy, their skills and their brains? <o. %ut on the morning after the /epression a man !ame to work building a house, and the foreman said to him "Sorry !hum you !an't work today,. there ain't no in!hes." He said "What do you mean there ain't no in!hes?" "2eah" he said, "2eah, we got lumber, we got metal, we e en got tape measures." "he foreman said ""he trouble with you is you don't understand business. "here are no in!hes. We ha e been using too many of them and not enough to go around." %e!ause what happened in the #reat /epression was that money, there was a slump in money. And human beings are so unbelie ably stupid, that they !onfused money with wealth. And they don't reali:e that money is a measure of wealth, in e.a!tly the same way that meters are a measure of length. "hey think it is something that is aluable in and of itself. And as a result of that get into unbelie able trouble, in e.a!tly the same way time is nothing but an abstra!t measure of motion. And we keep !ounting time. We ha e the sensation time is running out, and we bug oursel es with this. And as we sit and wat!h the !lo!k, supposing you are working, are you wat!hing the !lo!k? If you are, what are you waiting for. "ime off. 4i e o'!lo!k. We !an go home and ha e fun. 2eah, fun. What are you going to do when you get home? Ha e fun? ;r are you going to wat!h t , whi!h is an ele!troni! reprodu!tion of life whi!h doesn't e en smell of anything. And eat a t dinner whi!h is a kind of a warmed o er airline nastiness until you 3ust get tired and ha e to go to sleep. 2ou know, the great so!iety. "his is our problem, you see. We are not ali e, we are not awake. We are not li ing in the present. -et's take edu!ation. What a hoa.. 2ou get a little !hild, you see, and you su!k it into a trap and you send it to nursery s!hool. And in nursery s!hool you tell the !hild "2ou are getting ready to go on to kindergarten. And then wow1wee, first grade is !oming up, and se!ond grade, and third grade." 2ou are gradually !limbing the ladder towards, towards, going on towards progress. And then when it gets to end of grade s!hool, you say "high s!hool, now you're really getting going." Wrong. %ut otherwise business, you are going out into the world and you get your 555555555 on and your diploma. Se!ond Side And then you go to your first sales meeting, and they say "<ow get out there and sell this stuff," be!ause then you are going on up the ladder in business, and maybe you will get to a good position. And you sell it and then they up your 0uota. And then finally about the year +7 you wake up one morning as Ai!e @resident of the firm, and you say to yourself looking in the mirror "I' e arri ed. %ut I feel slightly !heated be!ause I feel 3ust the same as I always felt. Something is missing. I ha e no longer a future." "?h uh" says the insuran!e salesman, "I ha e a future for you. "his poli!y will enable you to retire in !omfort at si.ty fi e, and you will be able to look forward to that." And you are delighted. And you buy the poli!y and at si.ty fi e you retire thinking that this is the attainment of the goal of life, e.!ept that you ha e prostate trouble, false teeth and wrinkle skin. And you are a materialist. 2ou are a phantom, you are an abstra!tionist, you are 3ust nowhere, be!ause you ne er were told, and ne er reali:ed that eternity is now. "here is no time. What will you do? &an you dis!o er for me the pop of a !hampagne !ork that popped last night? &an you hand me a !opy of tomorrow's /allas =orning Herald, whate er it is? It 3ust isn't here. "here is no time. "his is a fantasy. It is a useful fantasy, like lines of latitude and

longitude. %ut you are not going to e er tie up a pa!kage with the e0uator. It is the same as time, it is an abstra!tion. It is a !on enien!e so that I !an arrange to meet you at the !orner of =ain and lst, or whate er it is, at + o'!lo!k. #reat. %ut let us not be fooled by it. It is not real. So people who do not li e in the present, ha e absolutely no use for making plans. %e!ause you see ordinary people who belie e in time, and who belie e that they are li ing for their future, they make plenty of plans. 2eah. %ut when the plans mature, and they !ome off, the people are not there to en3oy them. "hey are planning something else. And they are like donkeys running after !arrots perpetually that is atta!hed to their own !ollars. And so they are ne er here, they ne er get there, they are ne er ali e, they are perpetually frustrated, and therefore they are always thinking. "he future is the thing with 555555. Someday it is going to happen. And be!ause it ne er does, they are franti! to sur i e. "hey want more time, more time please, more time. "hey are terrified of death be!ause death stops the future. And so you ne er got there. 2ou ne er ha e it. "here is always, somewhere around the !orner. <ow please, wake up. I am not saying, you see, that you should be impro ident, that you shouldn't ha e an insuran!e poli!y, that you shouldn't be !on!erned about how you are going to send your !hildren to !ollege or whate er other thing may be useful for them. "he point is, there is no point in sending your !hildren to !ollege and pro iding for their future if you don't know how to li e in the present be!ause all you will do is to tea!h your !hildren how not to li e in the present, and to keep dragging on for the alleged benefit of their own !hildren who will drag on in a boring way for the alleged benefit of their !hildren. $ erybody is so beautifully looking after e erybody else, that nobody has any fun at all. See we say of a person who is insane, he is not all here. ;r he is not all there. And that is our !olle!ti e disease. In the beginning of the regime of !ommunism in Bussia, when they had fi e year plans, and e erything was going to be great at the end of the fi e year plan, and you got through that and they had another one. As some philosopher said, "2ou are making all human beings into 55555555. <ow you know what a 555555 is, it is a pillar in the form of a being holding up the ne.t floor. 2ou are making e erybody into 5555555 for a floor upon whi!h posterity shall dan!e. %ut of !ourse they ne er get around to it. @osterity also is the 5555555 holding up another floor. And they hold up another floor. And they hold up another floor, fore er and e er and nobody e er dan!es. %ut you see our philosophy and the philosophy of the !ommunists is e.a!tly the same. In fa!t we, our system is their system. And in!reasingly we be!ome more alike be!ause of this la!k of per!eption of reality. We are obsessed with time. And so it is always !oming. So =ao "se "ung !an say to all the &hinese, "-et's li e a great boring life and e erybody wear the same !lothes and work and !arry around a little red book so that one day, some day perhaps it will be great." %ut we are in e.a!tly the same situation. We are the ri!hest people in the world, and most of our males go around looking like undertakers. We eat Wonder %read whi!h is styrofoam in3e!ted with some !hemi!als that are supposed to be nutriti e. We do not e en know how to drink. In other words, li ing, we li e in the abstra!t, not in the !on!rete. We work for money, not for wealth. We look forward to the future, and do not know how to en3oy today. So as a result of this, we are destroying our en ironment, we are -os Angeli:ing the world instead of !i ili:ing it. And we are turning the air into gas, the water into poison, and tearing the egetation off the fa!e of the hills, for what? "o print newspapers. In our !olleges, we alue the re!ord of what goes on more than what happens. "he re!ords in the Begistrar's offi!e are kept in safes under lo!k and key, but not the books in the -ibrary. "he re!ord of what you do is of !ourse mu!h more important than what you did. We go out to a party and ha e a pi!ni! and somebody says ";h we are ha ing a lo ely time, what a pity somebody didn't bring a !amera, so we !ould re!ord it." @eople go on tours and they' e got these wret!hed little bo.es and instead of being with the s!ene, whate er it is, they go !li!k, !li!k, !li!k, !li!k, !li!k5555555a little bo. so they !an get

home and show it to their friends and say "See what happened." ;f !ourse I wasn't there, I was 3ust photographing it. So when the re!ord be!omes more important than the e ent, we are really up the !reek with no paddle. So the most serious need of !i ili:ation is to !ome to now. "hink of all the trouble we would sa e. "hink of how pea!eful things would be!ome, we would not be interfering with e erybody. We would not be dedi!ated to doing e erybody else good, like the #eneral who the other day destroyed a illage in Aietnam for its own safety. "hat is what he said. "'indly let me help you or you will drown" said the monkey putting the fish safely up a tree. <ow you see is the meaning of eternal life. When (esus said "%efore Abraham was," he didn't say "I was," he said "I am." And to !ome to this, to know that you are and there is no time e.!ept the present. And then suddenly you see you attain a sense of reality. And you want always to be looking ahead for the things that you wanted to happen. 2ou ha e to find it now. And so really, the aim of edu!ation is to tea!h people to li e in the present, to be all here. As it is, our edu!ational system is pretty abstra!t. It negle!ts the absolutely fundamentals of life, tea!hing us all to the bureau!rats, bankers !lerks, a!!ountants and insuran!e salesmen> all !erebral. It entirely negle!ts our relationships to the material world. "here are fi e fundamental relationships to the material worldC farming, !ooking, !lothing, housing and lo emaking. And these are grossly o erlooked. And so it was like a little while ago, the &ongress of the ?nited States passed a law making it a gra e penalty for anyone to burn the flag. And they did it with great flourishes of patrioti! spee!hes. 2et those same &ongressmen, by a!ts of !ommission or omission, are responsible for burning up what the flag stands for 1 for the erosion of the natural resour!es of this land. Although they say they lo e their !ountry, they don't. "hey lo e their flag. So I think it is a great time to get ba!k to reality, that is to say, to get ba!k from time to eternity, to the eternal now, whi!h is what we ha e, always ha e had, and indeed always will ha e. So now I ha e monologued at you enough. "here will be one minute intermission in !ase any of you ha e to lea e. "hereafter I will be most happy to entertain 0uestions from the audien!e and try to answer them as best I !an.