Sanatana Dharma and Time

From the standpoint of Sanatana Dharma and its eternal vision, history is not a linear or progressive development but a cyclic return, symbolized by the lotus which is the most enduring symbol of Hinduism. We are ever moving around the great center of Truth which lies within us. While we may try to divide people up into different identities, religious or otherwise, we are thereby only fragmenting our own deeper universal nature. While we may place human beings on a time line leading to heaven or utopia, we are only removing ourselves from Eternity, in which alone is liberation.

The timeless view of Sanatana Dharma affords two aspects to its teachings. First the same basic or eternal teaching endures throughout all the diverse layers of the Dharma, like a single thread on which many gems are woven. Second, and complementary to this, the teaching is reformulated anew with every generation, in fact with every practitioner. Each practitioner must gain his or her own realization and cannot merely be saved through belief or by the action of another, however great. The teaching of Sanatana Dharma is thereby both eternal and ever-new. This is its twofold beauty. It abides in the timeless present.

In this regard the Hindu tradition is not only the oldest of the world's religions, it is also the newest. On one hand, having no founder it goes back to beginningless time. On the other hand, being recast by living sages in every generation it reflects the present moment. The Hindu religion provides not only the oldest teachings in the world but living exponents of them in every age, great gurus who have realized the Divine Self. In fact Sanatana Dharma teaches that we are all that Divine Being and that we must realize That in our own lives. It is a religion that is coterminous with Life itself and with our own individual life.

Seeing no final goal within the realm of time, Hinduism is thought by some to be outside of the progressive movement of history. However, being oriented in the Eternal, Hinduism sees the final goal existent each instant of time. It is not bound to a history that makes us look to the future rather than to the present, but teaches that the Eternal itself pervades all the waves of time.

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