The Price of Time
by Bhakta Carl Sheppard
One time
there was a hairy sage who had a benediction that he would live until every
hair fell off his body. However, only
one hair would fall off every then thousand years. So the village people said, “Let us build you
a small hut so that you can live in it.”
The sage immediately replied, “Why?
I am only here temporarily!”
Of all commodities, time is the most
valuable. The great politician Pandita
Canakya said, “Even one moment of time cannot be returned even if one is
prepared to pay millions of dollars.”
Time can be neither bought nor sold; it is irreplaceable and, therefore,
priceless. The Lord Himself is the
creator and provider of time and this is described by Lord Brahma in Srimad-Bhagavatam (2.5.21): “The Lord who is the controller of all energies, thus creates, by
His own potency, eternal time, the fate of all living entities, and their
particular nature, for which they were created, and he again merges them
independently.”
Every living material being is allocated a certain amount of
time. This time period begins with birth
and ends at the moment of death. If we
waste the time we are given in this life we will have the opportunity to take
birth again. This is explained in Bhagavad-gita (2.27): “One
who has taken birth is sure to die, and after death one is sure to take birth
again. Therefore, in the unavoidable
discharge of your duty, you should not lament.”
However,
there is no guarantee that one will take birth in the human form of life: there are 8, 400,000 different types of
bodies such as human, beast, bird, aquatic and plant. Due to our mentality at the time of death, we
may receive the body of an animal in our next life. This is explained In Bhagavad-gita (15.9): “The living entity, thus taking another
gross body, obtains a certain type of ear, eye, tongue, nose and sense of
touch, which are grouped about the mind.
He thus enjoys a particular set of sense objects.”
Fortunately, one can break this repeated succession of births
and deaths by utilizing this valuable time to understand the Lord Himself. Lord Sri Krsna says: “One
who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not,
upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains
My eternal abode, O Arjuna,” Bhagavad-gita (4.9).
Our time
is meant to be spent in God realization, or Krsna consciousness. When one is
engaged in Krsna consciousness, or devotional service, he will automatically
realize the value of time. Even whilst
in the material world, if one utilizes his time engaged in devotional service
he will become free of any material entanglement: “One
who engages in full devotional service, unfailing in all circumstances, at
once, transcends the modes of material nature and thus comes to the level of
Brahman,” Bhagavad-gita (14.25).
Time is
not to be ‘spent’ making as much money as one can. No amount of wealth can bring about
liberation from the material world. We
cannot buy our way into the
Our time is not to be merely spent eating,
sleeping, mating, and defending; this is no more than animal life. Time should be used in developing Krsna
consciousness. Time engaged in mundane
activities is simply wasted. One may
think, “Oh, I don’t have time to spend in God consciousness.” This sort of attitude should be considered
nonproductive. Unless one can free
himself from such ignorance, he will take birth again and again and
consequently will be subject to the miseries of the material world.
Therefore,
one who is intelligent will utilize his time developing Krsna
consciousness. Only by such development
will one truly appreciate and realize the “Price of Time.”