Is man master or slave of time?-5

In waking-time we choose, we become, we are held under necessity. That is the time in which we grow and decay. In sleeping-time we do not choose, we do not become what we are not. Becoming is suffering, for in becoming we choose and we die. We die only in waking-time. Waking-time is symbolic of choice and conflict. We never die in sleep and by sleep I mean not the usual sleep, but the epoch of peace and the absence of conflict. Choice means death, for choice brings in time-consciousness and with time-consciousness comes in the notion of the end of time, namely death. We think, death cuts us off from time, from life, from everything.

Suppose we do not choose, because we do not feel the urge to choose; suppose we realize what we are and hence feel no more tempted to become something other than what we are. Suppose we are liberated of that 'necessity to become', liberated of the thralldom of the necessity to become  and necessity brings in time - then what happens? Time which was pushing us on and on to fresh and fresh necessities, to new and newer choices rolls back into us. Time which was liquid becomes solid. When we feel there is nothing to achieve, time not only stops, but rolls into us and becomes an inner dimension and certitude. For the man who has no rendezvous(appointment) to keep hut looks out of his window on a busy street, time is not a master but a nucleus that relaxes him.

It is just the feeling of the traveller in the couchette(seat convertible to bed) of night trains, when he hears the people outside struggling for seats and he himself is quiet and sheltered. Not that life loses all meaning and charm when time stops; becoming loses its charm. Attention, life's attention becomes interiorized. Lucidity increases, so too love. Love and lucidity which were before focussed on things roll back to their source. When attention finds itself without object, then it is eternity. When all criterion to measure disappear, then it is eternity. That is what happens at the time of death. At death our attention transforms into attention without object. We think it is the annihilation of time, the losing of life. In reality it is the moment when we have dispensed with all choice and becoming, with all necessity and time. This moment is a moment of spiritual plenitude.