time and thought

Time is the interval between idea and action [...] That interval is essentially thought.

In the last two episodes, in this series on quotes from Krishnamurti, we touched on the topic of time. And in this quote, we again look at what is time.

Krishnamurti's teachings on time are quite insightful. In other places, he talks about the difference between clock time and psychological time. Of course, there are outer things happening, which, in a sense, measure time for us. The spinning of the earth gives us the feeling of a day. The phases of the moon give us the feeling of a month. And the seasons give us the feeling of a year. And of course, we make watches and clocks, nowadays of tremendous accuracy. So we can have an outward sense of a regular time.

But of course, inwardly, each of each of us also has a feel for time, for time passing. And from our own experience, each of us knows that sometimes time seems to drag on rather slowly and at other times it seems to pass very quickly. So clearly this feeling for time is of a psychological nature. And so the question arises, what is this psychological time? And Krishnamurti here asserts that time is the interval between idea and action. And he goes on, that interval is essentially thought. And it's quite a curious concept, really, that Krishnamurti is suggesting here: that our sense of time is tightly bound up with thinking, the interval between idea and act action.

This is reminiscent of the previous episode, where we carry something in our mind. So we have a little project to work on. There's an idea popped up and we're thinking about it. Until we take such action that the project is complete, then it's within us and we are thinking about it. And it's this thought process, this ongoing thinking, that gives us the feeling of time, particularly if we're thinking about one issue or one project. It gives a sort of continuity over a time interval. It's like a piece of thread running through time, from when we first had the idea to when we complete the project through action. So this thread of thought is really what constitutes our feeling of time passing.

You might also notice from your own experience, when you are in deep sleep there is no real sense of time passing. Or perhaps at some point you've lost consciousness, fainted, and when you come around, you don't really know how much time has passed because there has been no thinking. It's as if that thinking process is a sort of internal clock by which we sense time.

And if you ever sit in silent meditation with your mind becoming silent, with prolonged gaps between thoughts, then you may also know that the sense of time is very different in such circumstances. And really when there is no thought in the mind, time stops in a way, there is no time. It disappears and re-emerges with the next thought. If you are an accomplished meditator, you might sit for an hour in meditation, and when the chimes sound to end that hour's meditation, it feels like only ten minutes has passed. That's because there have been such long silent gaps, without thinking, that only ten minutes worth of psychological time has passed, even though one hour has elapsed on the clock.

All of this is of significance on our spiritual journey, because normally, we tend to live in time. So much of our lives is scheduled, from being woken up by an alarm clock, through arriving at our workplace at a certain time, when we take a break for lunch, when we have a meeting, at what time we eat dinner in the evening, even when we go to bed – it's often not determined by when we're actually tired. We eat food not so much when we're hungry, but according to the schedule. And with this, we tend to have a very strong, implicit understanding of life as something taking place in time.

And as previously mentioned, our thinking processes are referring back to the past and projecting into the future. This is really what thought is all about. So this is the life we live, typically. And part of the spiritual journey is to come to realise that actually, there is only this moment, now, and to be present with this moment; and that this psychological time that we've been talking about only exists in conjunction with thinking.

So for me, at least, implicit in this quote from Krishnamurti, is an invitation to think less, to have gaps between thoughts, to spend some time at least really being present, now, in whatever is happening, in whatever is in the sensory field, right now, in this moment. And with this, if practised enough, the whole feel of life can change. This implicit understanding – that life is something taking place through time – can be replaced with an implicit understanding that life is now. And that brings a tremendous feeling of intensity and connectedness with whatever is happening in this moment, and at the same time a relief from the burden of worrying about the past and the future. It's a great liberation.

So we would do well to probe into Krishnamurti's insights into psychological time.