Time, the avenger of everything, comes, and nothing is left. He swallows up the saint and the sinner, the king and the peasant, the beautiful and the ugly; he leaves nothing.
Vivekananda
Can I tell you a story about the illusion of time? I am telling you anyway lol.
The Power of Maya
Once a long, long time ago there lived a divine sage called Narada. Narada had a deep and questioning mind and wanted to know more about Maya...or the illusion of what appears to be so real. One day he approached Lord Krishna and asked, "Oh Wise and Divine Being of the Light, could you show me Maya?"
A few days passed before Lord Krishna asked Narada to make a trip with him into the dessert. They walked and walked over the dry and parched land for what seemed like days. Lord Krishna, at one point, turned to his student and said, "Narada, I am thirsty; can you travel into the nearest village to fetch some water for me please?"
Narada, a loyal devotee to this Master said, "Of course my Lord, I will go at once to fetch you water?"
Fetching his master water was the only thing on his mind for the first few miles he walked towards the village...Then slowly his mind began to wander onto thoughts about his own thirst, on how hot the sun was, and how long and challenging this course was. Still he perservered. "I must get my master water as soon as I can."
Day fell into night and night fell into day until finally he reached the village boundary.
He approached the door of the first house he came to. Blistered and exhausted from the trek and overcome by his own need for water he knocked at the door. "I must get water for Lord Krishna," he kept reminding himself of his mission, "and also for myself. I will drink first and then I will bring the water back to Him straight away."
A young and beautiful girl answered the door leaving the young Narada suddenly forgetful of why he ws there. Her presence took his breath away and all other thoughts of his very thirsty master, who might be at this point ready to perish on the dessert floor, escaped his mind.
"Yes?" the young woman questioned.
Narada could say nothing except for "uhmm, uhmm."
Suddenly a look of concerned crossed her face."Oh my, you look like you have travelled for miles in the heat and sun. You must deperately need water and a cool place to sit. Come in."
She gestured for him to come inside.
And Narada did go in. He drank the water she offered and he sat in the cool place she provided for him. And they talked and they laughed and time went on. Day turned to night, and night to day, and day back to night, and night back in to day many times. Narada fell deeply in love with the young woman...totally forgeting the Master who took him into the dessert weeks before to show him Maya and who by this time must have succumbed to thirst.
Narada soon met and received blessings for marriage from the young woman's father. He married her and had children with her. He worked with the father tending his field and minding his cows as the days and nights turned into weeks, and the weeks, into months and the months into years. When his father -in-law died, he took over the work and the house as his own. He continued to be blessed with children and had three healthy offspring as beautiful as his wife, and as happy and blessed as he. He never once thought of his Master and the request for water again.
Then on the twelfth year after he left the dessert a flood hit the village. It swept through the village roads and lifted the houses, threatening to carry all things away in the rush of the stream. Narada knew he had to escape. He grabbed his wife in one hand, two of his children in another, and placed the third child on his shoulders. He tried to walk through the tremendous torrent of water. After a few steps he found the current too strong. He stopped and the child on his shoulders fell over into the rushing waters and was carried away. Narada released a deep moaning cry of despair as he fruitlessly reached out to save that child. While doing so he lost the grip on one of the other children and that child was pulled away into the force. "Oh no!' he wailed. He grasped and held tightly to his wife but the current pulled her away too. She too was swallowed up by the water, never to be saved.
Suddenly Narada himself was caught by a wave and thrown onto the river's bank choking, weeping, and wailing in bitter lamentation he cried into the air. "All that I gained, all that I learned to love, all that I clung to over the last 12 years is gone! I have lost such a big portion of my life!"
Then he put his face into the earth and cried. He cried and cried himself to sleep.
Behind him there came a gentle familiar voice waking him up, "My child, where is the water? You went to fetch water for me thirty minutes ago and I am still waiting."
Narada lifted his head and turned to see the kind patient face of his Master looking down at him, "Thirty minutes ?" he croaked disbelieving. "Too many nights, too many days, too many scenes, too many things have passed my Lord, to happen within thirty minutes! I just lived through 12 years! "
To which Lord Krishna just lifted his shoulders and asked, "Did you?"
"And this is Maya."
All is well.
Vivekananda: 2.5 Jnana Yoga- Complete Works, Kindle Edition
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