Page 38 - Complete Works of Dr. KCV Volume 1

Time and Mysticism
TIME is indeed one of the most important categories which had varying fortunes in the history of Philosophy.
It is well-known that time walks at divers paces with divers persons. There is such a distinction as subjective time and objective time or subjective duration and objective times, or standard times which vary from place to place. But the Indian conception of time is that Time can be defined generally as having triple stages or successive moments such as the past, present and the future. It is irreversible though events may be cyclical. Time extends both sides up to infinity. And the secret of Time is its present tense according to some well-known thinkers not because of the other two being irrelevant but because the present has the consequence of the past within it and has the potency of the future within it. If we know the 'Now' then we know 'all' about the Time. But some thinkers hold that this approach to the problem of Time as successive triple moments connected closely with the concept of Negation (abhava) is unsatisfactory as also the theory that time is but the divisions of the day or month or year into arbitrary 24 parts or 60 ghatikas and 60 minutes and seconds etc., till we come to the infinitesimal indivisible span of time (truti). This is spatialised Time say some thinkers.
Astronomical times are different from the temporal times and differ according to some arbitrarily chosen measuring rod, very valuable for close social work. Thus some hold that this kind of time is binding because it is socially regulated and adopted by all by convention and being a social contrivance and convenience an illusion or unreal in the real sense of the term. Relatively it is infecting the concept of Time and therefore time itself is relative.
The whole problem of Time must be viewed not indeed in this manner but in terms of the larger standpoint of the 'ingression' of the eternal in the temporal which is characterized by different grades of times or durations or measures (chandamsi). The subjective conception of Time as the process of becoming and not the arbitrary social (spatialised) time, is valuable. The speed of time is calculated by the vigour which attends upon the upward