Loh o Qalam [34]

Lecture 34

Non-serial Time

When we deliberate in the teachings of the holy books, it is observed that the life, whether it is of an individual person or of the whole universe, is associated with the Nature, which is the Serial Time. The Unseen Realm is the Non-serial time. In the Real Time the moments are invariant. And, these very invariant moments are encompassing the whole length of time from Eternity (azal, the remotest Beginning) to Infinity (ab’ad, the remotest Ending).

These very Invariant Moments are the very being of Knowledge. Knowledge as the knowledge is not merely a collection of words rather it is such a being that enjoys perception of its being like any other beings. The Knowledge as a being is rooted in the Non-serial Time. When the Serial or Non-serial time is mentioned, it means that the being named as Knowledge has granted us the knowledge of the variant and invariant moments.

In the context of the moment of the Real Time it was stated that it is an Invariant Moment. The Knowledge, as a being, remains in pursuit of exploring the characteristics of the very Invariant Moment. This attempt on the part of Knowledge is the journey from the Infinitude towards the Finitude. The moment that travels towards the Finitude is the moment composed of Compound Noor. How does the moment undertakes this journey, what happens during this journey and what is the role of time and space in this journey, remain unknown to the human Conscious because the Conscious commences in the limits of Finitude.

This means that when one moment sets on its journey, the next moment begins. This traveling from one moment to the other is the temporal time that we are familiar with in this world of divided senses. This time begins at the Simple nasma and is concluded at the compound nasma. When the human conscious is attentive towards the fantasy, thought and imagination, it is directed towards the simple nasma and when we enter into the limits of the feeling after getting away from the limits of fantasy, thought and imaginations, our conscious gets to know the compound nasma. Now, to summarize this, it would be said that the ability of the Conscious to know the variation is the consciousness, that is, the Conscious remains incarcerated in that moment which is ever variable. This very variation, in terms of the holy Quran, is known as Aafaq (The World as seen up to the Horizons). Name of the invariant moment is the Non-serial time and it is called the anfas (The inner realms).

When the moment of noor is mentioned, in fact, the reference is made to the human soul and when the nasma is mentioned the human mind is referred to thereby.

Tom is an individual. If it is inquired as to who is Tom? In reply it would be stated that he is son of such and such person, he is intelligent, sober etc. or to say, the properties and the characteristics of Tom would be mentioned and not his physical body of flesh and bones is ever meant. We know Tom with the reference of his acts and deeds. Although the physical body of Tom is there before us, we know him because of his characteristics, which are not physically visible to us.

Analysis of the life of Tom would force to eventually conclude that Tom is the title name of the film of the properties and characteristic mentioned. The film features the characteristics of the person named Tom. This film is the Unconscious and the Compound Noor.

Tom can also be understood from this example. A thought concerning the sun comes to the mind of the person named Tom, i.e., Tom’s mind unconsciously grasped the solar system, that is, the solar system entered into the Unconscious of Tom in a pictorial form. In this picture, the details of the solar system are the one moment of the Non-serial time. For this, this can be postulated that if all the details of a moment or the characteristic of a person along with all their situations and effects were wrapped up in the form of a film then this would constitute one moment of the life of that person. This moment is the moment of the Non-serial time.

According to the laws of God nothing in this universe is created with one side, everything existing in this universe is dihedral and is composed of two aspects, therefore, a moment is also having two sides. One of them faces the senses and is known as the World of Nature. Tom, Dick or Harry is the name of such countless moments. This is same Tom that is seen, known and felt by the senses. Tom is the name of incalculable moments rolled up in the form of a film, or in other words, Tom is the title of the life span spent in the Serial Time. The details of this title are that format of Tom, which is the unit of the Non-serial time. Here format is indicative of that noor or the light, which is the pictorial film of the components of the unit. In this pictorial film every fantasy, every thought and every sensation of the unit are recorded therein.

God has stated in the holy Quran, “And, what will explain to thee what this illiyeen is? And, what will explain to thee what this sijjeen is? This is a written book.”

Human life is based upon two aspects, one is the higher and the other is the lower aspect of life.

Moment of the Serial Time is the body and the moment of the Non-serial Time is the detailed film of the pictures of the feelings of that body. The moment of the Non-serial time always remains before the soul but our mind seldom pays any attention to it, therefore, it is the Unseen.

When we look at something, Moment of the Non-serial time measures the intermediatory distance without letting us know about it, in such a manner that neither the light coming from the object detaches from our mind nor does it penetrate into the mind. This is the reason that we can see an object because if the light of the object penetrates into the mind, the Non-serial Time will no longer be the Non-serial time and it the lights of the object caves into the object then the Serial Time would no longer remain the serial time and the object would not be available for its existence.

Serial Time is continuous and sequential. Day after tomorrow cannot come unless tomorrow is lived through. Similarly, the month of June cannot be seen after March if the months following March do not pass. The Non-serial time, contrary to this, is not necessary to be in sequence. Dreams, in this regard, are a very good example of this phenomenon. A dreamer can all of a sudden start witnessing the events of ten years hence although he has not noticed the intermediatory years. It means that the vents, happenings and incidents pertaining to any era of time can be sighted by virtue of Non-serial senses. For surveying the cosmic events Non-serial time contains all the scales that can measure past, future or present without any obligation of the sequential order. Times of thousands of years ago can be brought back in our thoughts or dreams skipping over the intermediatory intervals.

When we happen to see a person who had been known to us some twenty years ago, we recognize him instantly without tracking back the past record in any sequential order and the record of all the events concerning about that person is immediately recalled to our memory. In fact, that person was preserved in the Non-serial time and in recollecting him our mind skipped over all the moments spent since last twenty years. Or in other words our mind found a way to look into that circle of the non-serial time where that particular person is recorded safely.

Qalander Baba Auliya, giving another example of the Non-serial time has stated, when we climb down the stairs, the already existing record of the measurements of the stairs in the Non-serial time keeps on guiding our steps and we do not have to be consciously bothering about the size of the stairs at every step. Sometimes our mind drifts away from the Non-serial time and the Serial time takes over the control of our step. This causes us to make a mistake and we stagger upon our steps because the size of the steps are not recorded in the Serial time, it is found in the Non-serial time only.

Cosmic Thinking

Proclaimer of Reality, His Divine Grace, Qalander Baba Auliya has stated in his remarkable work ‘Loh-o-Qalum’, which is hereby explained to you that human thinking is of three types. First of them is that a person being the member of the mankind family makes proper use of the urges produced in him individually. When a person makes a correct usage of the urges and his every activity is based upon sincerity for the mankind then his thinking enlarges to such an extent that he starts understanding the urges at the species level, after rising above the individual level he enters into the collective level. The urges produced in him remain no longer individual urges but he starts looking at then with the point of view of the urges of the whole mankind. The individual thinking is replaced by the collective thinking approach. And, after having been able of understanding the urges at the level of the mankind, his thinking enlarges further and surpassing the species level he enters into the cosmic level and he starts understanding the urges in the cosmic perspective.

First type of thinking ------- Individual thinking approach

Second type of thinking ------- Species approach of thinking

Third type of thinking ------- Cosmic level of thinking approach

When the thinking of a person is no longer confined to the individual level, he starts understanding the secrets of the universe. And, a person who could still rise above the cosmic level of the thinking approach, he succeeds in enjoying the cognition of God.

We perceive, according to the laws of the Preserved Scripturum, only one thing at one fraction of a moment after negating all the rest of the things that are there in our knowledge. We are familiar with six directions, namely; right, left, forward, backward, overhead and below but there is only one direction that we follow and that is the direction where our urges lead us. We cannot see in any direction unless our mind is focused in one direction.

We travel in one of the six directions at one time. These six directions, according to the spiritual point of view, are only a product of the conjecture. In actual effect, there is only one direction in which all our mental inclinations are focused at any one moment. This very direction of the mental inclinations is the Serial Time. We think that time is passing by. It is not so, Time is being recording in. This thing is not very difficult to understand. A person who is thirty years of age today has lived through for thirty years or to say he has traveled into the time for thirty years. When it is said that he has spent so much time, in fact, it means that so much time has been spent in the recording of the events of his life. It is not that the incidents experienced in childhood and youth are deleted, these have been incorporated as a record. This very record, in the Quranic terminology, is the Written Book (Kitab-ul-marqoom). This record, in the modern terminology could be considered something like videotape that contains all the impression of a recorded event. This very record is the Knowledge of the Appellations because all that God taught to Adam was recorded and this very record is being transferring to the mankind generation after generation.

It is the quality of the narrative style of Qalander Baba Auliya that he explains the same one thing in so many different ways so that our mind could assimilate it easily. We had explained that all the senses of human life put to use for perceiving are based upon information. Man has been given the right to ascribe meanings to the information according to his choice. But, before ascribing meanings to the information received, it is perceived. This perception remains preserved in a corporeal or incorporeal form.

Cosmos is such a point that we have to assume in our mind. This is the secret of the existence of the universe. A point, according to the mathematicians, has neither any length, nor width, breadth nor any depth. It is only a product of the Conscious. This very point after traveling from the conscious takes the form of the sensual perception in a very simple manner. The point establishes in the conscious and keeps on reminding itself, that is, the conscious keeps on repeating the record upon which it is established. Entering into the old age after journeying from the childhood is a process of repetition of the record. If the conscious does not repeats its record and does not keep on reminding itself, the child can never be able to get out of the child hood and enter the youth. Youth, in fact, is reminding of the record from childhood to youthfulness. The Conscious claims, I am this, I am that, I am looking at the moon, I am seeing the stars, I am doing this, I have a pen, etc. This all is nothing but a repetition of the record.

In the childhood, when the child starts becoming conscious of his surroundings, he learns about things like book, pen, toys, car, etc. All these things are recorded. This very record is repeated till one expires. It never happens that a child starts calling a tree, a pen and a pen, a tree. All that is recorded in the conscious are the senses and the Conscious of a person. Conscious uses the recorded pictures in different ways. The method of using this record, that is common in every species, is by means of the sight. The Conscious sees and repeats the record after seeing it within. The sight that is operative in us functions at two levels. One, it is centered in the Conscious and the other, it witnesses in the Unseen. Whether the sight functions in the conscious, in the unseen, it is individual or it is of the collective nature, only one and the same sight is operative.

It is our routine observation that if we happen to see an almond tree we declare it an almond tree without any hesitation. Then, if inquire from another person that what this tree is, his reply would also be the same. And, if we ask the same question from thousands of people, they would all maintain the same that it is an almond tree. This thing is evident upon the fact that the witnessing sight operating in all individuals is one and the same. Had there been two different sights, each would have been witnessing the same one thing as two different things because of the difference of their angles of sight, that is, one sight would be seeing a tree as tree and the same tree would be appearing as an animal to the other sight. Therefore, we have to acknowledge that Conscious at one level is a collective consciousness and the very common level is the Sensual Perception.