Time and Timelessness

Abstract

Born in time and bent to timelessness, man is a mystery ever explored anew and yet never explained fully. The exploration of this mystery to which history bears witness has pulled man in both directions, reducing him to a mere moment in time or raising him above time to absolute timelessness. He has been explained as a pure being-in-the-world, thoroughly earthbound and timebound; but his meaning has also been explored in his being which is above time and temporalities. Setting his goal on productivity and growth man has laid emphasis on his temporal dimension. But elaborating man's aspirations for nirvana and moksha he has also shown his transcendence over matter and the process of his becoming in matter, his taste for the immaterial and yearning for what is not in time. Time is the experiential aspiration of a timeless being to become temporal and timelessness is the essential aspiration of a timebound being to become eternal. Time and timelessness, temporality and eternity meet in the consciousness of man, creating inner tensions, leaving him all the more aspiring and dynamic.