Time Is Unreal

Sri Ramana Maharshi

18-3-1946

One Mr. Girdhari Lal, an old resident of Aurobindo’s Ashram, came here last evening and is staying at the Asramam. He asked Bhagavan this morning. “It is said in the puranas that the kaliyuga consists of so many thousands of years, and that so much of it has passed and that so much yet remains, etc. May I know when this yuga is to end?” 

Bhagavan: I don’t consider time real. So I take no interest in such matters. We know nothing about the past or the yugas which were in the past. Nor do we know about the future. But we know the present exists. Let us know about it first. Then all other doubts will cease. After a pause he added, “Time and space always change. But there is something which is eternal and changeless. For example, the world and time, past or future, nothing exists for us during sleep. But we exist. Let us try to find out that which is changeless and which always exists. How will it benefit us to know that the kaliyuga started in such and such a year and that it would end so many years after now?”