Acharya Peter Wilberg's Bulletin

REVOLUTION AS 'KALI YOGA' - THE NEW YOGA OF TIME

Time is not an ‘objective’ function or property of anything that is – of ‘being’ – but a mode of subjective awareness of what is. Yet if our lives consist of nothing but constant movement from ‘one thing to another’ – one activity or focus of awareness to another - then we remain fettered to the narrowest and most constricting experience of time as mere one-dimensional line in ‘space-time’. This linear experience of time quite literally offers no time for a type of free and unfocussed awareness – one that could allow us to experience time itself as an expansive space of awareness – as ‘time-space’. That is why ‘going from one thing to another’ - from one focus of awareness or action to another, is the very opposite of living a meditative life – a life of freedom and awareness. For it deprives us of what is most essential to life and time quality – namely taking time for a free and unfocussed awareness of all there is to be aware of – all there is to reflect on, look back on, look forward to and enjoy. Yet today’s global business culture is one of incessant busyness – a constant ‘going from one thing to another’. This culture of busyness expresses the very essence of the capitalist business and economic system – which demands that people sell their time to an employer - to be used at the behest of their bosses, and paid only according to its quantity and market value. In this way work becomes what Marx called ‘wage slavery’ – taking what is most precious to each individual - namely their time and awareness - and turning it into a mere commodity to be bought, sold, focussed and directed by the will of another. The capitalist employer seeks to extract ever more quantities of time out of their employees in order to exploit it as the source of ‘surplus value’ – profit – whilst at the same time demanding an ever-greater focussing or concentration of awareness on multiple tasks and objectives. The result is not just a quantitative loss of time for those things of most value to the individual, but a general diminution of time quality – and with it both quality of life and work. Along with this goes a narrowing of awareness accompanied by ‘anxiety’ or ‘angst’ (both words whose Germanic roots (angu / angxt ) refer to ‘narrowness’ or Enge – as in the name Eng-land or ‘narrow land’).

The culture of capitalism is also one in which time is seen as something to be ever more productively used or filled. Yet the very identification of ‘productivity’ with speed and measurable quantities of times is ultimately counter-productive, diminishing quality of time, quality of work - and quality of decision-making and action in all spheres of life - personal, economic and political. Actions become purely reactive or mere expressions of wilful or egotistic ‘single-mindedness’ rather than arising out of an awareness of alternate possible actions and decisions – the foundation of free choice and of patient and considered decisions and actions. ‘Meditation’ on the other hand, means giving ourselves time rather than using or filling time - above all giving ourselves time to come to rest in a state of free and unfocussed awareness – a ‘pure awareness’ (chit) unbound to any particular focus of awareness, perception or activity.

In this sense, meditation is the very opposite of an ultra-focussed or ‘single-pointed’ concentration of awareness. Nor is meditation merely one more thing to ‘make’ time for in our culture of busyness. Instead, what ‘meditation’ means in everyday life is a strict discipline or yoga – the discipline of granting ourselves intervals of time between each and every everyday task or activity we engage in – not just as ‘pauses’ or ‘breaks’ for relaxation, entertainment or ‘rest’ but intervals in which we allow ourselves to come to rest in a expanded ‘space’ of free and unfocussed awareness. This expanded time-space restores our relation to time in its wholeness – transcending the demands and pressures dominating the present moment and encompassing both past and future as well as the immediate present - thus allowing us to reflect on and feel more deeply into all that has been, is and is yet to come.

Within the spacious expanse of a free and unfocussed awareness field we cease to be lost in any particular focus of awareness and activity, or else overburdened by a multiplicity of foci in the form of different life aims, daily tasks or work demands. At the same time, since this expanded time-space also encompasses and embraces every possible focus of our life and awareness – past, present and future – it is a source of fresh creative insights and impulses to action of a sort that do not arise from a narrow, single-pointed focus or concentration of awareness, however intense. Yet this time-space of pure, unfocussed awareness cannot be opened up in everyday life without practicing daily ‘meditation’ in a specific way - not just at the beginning or end of the day – but between each period of focussed awareness and activity that we engage in during the day. This meditative discipline or ‘yoga of time’ is by nature subversive and revolutionary. It is a Kālī Yoga (from the Sanskrit kāla –‘time’) for the Kali Yuga - that ‘dark age’ which is above all characterised by a patriarchal and global capitalist culture designed precisely to keep people bound in a constant state of busyness – one in which they busily go ‘from one thing to another’ without ever giving themselves time to come to rest within that unbounded cosmic time-space or circumference of awareness that is the womb of the Great Mother goddess - Ma Kālī. Her counterpart in Hindu mythology is the male demon Kali, hence the so-called Kali Yuga or ‘Age of Kali’ - associated with unbridled avarice, violence, monetary gambling and godlessness. Kālī on the other hand is the divine power of manifestation latent in pure awareness (Shiva) and realised through the unfoldment of its creative potentials in time.