The Realisation of the Absolute :4-4.4.

Chapter 4: The Nature of Reality : 4.4.

4. Space, Time and Causation-4.

Space, time and causality represent, ultimately, only ideas and nothing more. These are the self-projections of the process of thought, in the form of an external world, in order to make possible and give value to the act of thinking.

The law of Nature is always in relation to an individual or a group of individuals, and never an eternally existent fact, except, of course, in the sense of the eternally changeless indivisible Nature of Brahman. Space, time and cause are certain manners of the perception of external conditions or objects, and thus form relations and not anything truly existent. The perceiving mind always wishes to work in terms of system and order, and not in a chaotic manner.


For this purpose these universally accepted relations called space, time and cause are formulated by the perceiving consciousness which is individualised and externalised. The whole universe is summed up in the three ideas of spatiality, temporality and causality. These are the very condition of all knowledge and experience in an individual, and hence these concepts refuse to become objects of knowledge in any way.


Either we know everything in terms of space, time and cause or we know nothing at all. Individuality is subject to these categories of relative experience, and so all knowledge in the universe is relative, phenomenal, a make-shift, and not ultimately valid.


As space, time and cause are the ideal necessary constructions of all empirical experience, all the objects of experience, too, are mere conditions, becomings, relative to the reality of the experiencers, and do not have independent existence. The object of perception lasts only as long as the particular mental states of the individuals cognising the object last.

Swami Krishnananda
To be continued  ...