By Prana Lite 
A student approaches his wise teacher, seeking deeper understanding about the illusion of ‘time’.
Student:
“Master, you speak of time as an illusion, but my life feels like a series of events—past, present, and future. How can you say it all exists in the now? It feels so real.”
The teacher looks at him thoughtfully and says,
“Would you like to experience the truth of what I’ve been saying, beyond words?”
The student nods, eager to understand. Without warning, the teacher grabs the student and plunges his head into a basin of water. The student struggles at first, surprised and confused. Panic rises as he fights for air. But soon, something extraordinary begins to happen.
The world around him fades, and he finds himself reliving his entire life. At first, he’s a young child again, carefree and full of wonder. He runs through fields, laughs with friends, and feels the love of his family. Every moment is vivid, each sensation real. As the years pass, he grows older—he experiences the joy of first love, the excitement of adventure, the pride of accomplishment.
But along with these highs come the inevitable moments of sadness. He suffers losses, heartbreak, disappointments, and grief. He watches loved ones grow old and drift away. In time, he too ages—his hair turns gray, his body weakens, and the once-bright energy of youth fades. He feels the weight of life’s burdens—the joy, the sorrow, and everything in between.
Now, as an old man, he watches helplessly as the people he loves most slip away. He feels the profound sadness of loss, the deep ache of separation, and the loneliness that comes with the passing of time. The sense of finality is overwhelming, and his heart breaks with grief. Tears well up in his eyes as he watches everything he cherished fade away.
Suddenly, just as he feels completely consumed by this sadness, the teacher pulls his head from the water. The student gasps for air, his chest heaving, and to his surprise, tears are streaming down his face. He’s confused, disoriented. He feels as though he’s lived an entire lifetime in those few moments underwater.
The teacher, standing calmly beside him, asks softly,
“Why are you crying?”
The Illusion of Time
The experience the student had while underwater represents how deeply we are immersed in the illusion of time. In that brief moment, the student lived through an entire lifetime. He experienced the joy of youth, the complexities of adulthood, and the sorrows of old age. It all felt profoundly real to him—so much so that he was overwhelmed with emotion.
But this entire “life” was a product of thought. It arose and dissolved in mere seconds, yet while immersed in it, the student was convinced that he was moving through time. This is the illusion we all live under—the belief that time is something real, external, and linear.
In reality, time is a construct created by thought. We use thought to divide our experience into past, present, and future. But these divisions are not inherent in reality—they are mental concepts. When we dwell on memories or anticipate the future, we are simply engaging with thoughts in the present moment.
The mind creates the story of a lifetime, much like it did for the student, but that story exists only in thought. The awareness in which this story arises is timeless, ever-present. It is the same awareness that was with the student during his childhood and his imagined old age—unchanging, always here.
The teacher’s question, “Why are you crying?” invites the student to realize that his tears come from believing in the illusion of time. He weeps for the imagined losses, for the people who were never truly separate from him. But in reality, there was never any loss, never any passage of time—just the unbroken, eternal presence of awareness.
Time seems real because we believe in it, but when we look closely, we find that it is only a series of thoughts and perceptions passing through the ever-present consciousness that we truly are.
Here are some links to video’s of Rupert Spira where he speaks about the illusion of time:
- “Time Is an Illusion”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl5mYoXqI2s - “Time Is an Illusion and Life Is a Dream”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QkIRf7gzzg - “The Non-Existence of Time”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNk49fZLQzE
You can watch these on the official YouTube-channel of Rupert Spira for more insight about this topic of time.
