10.33: Time expresses Krishna’s tough love

The Bhagavad-gita (10.33) identifies time as a manifestation of Krishna. Time is one of the most forceful teachers about the temporary nature of worldly existence.

All of us can learn about the fragility and the perishability of all things material by everyday observation and common sense inference.

Yet most of us don’t.

Why?

Because of our strong desires to enjoy the world. These desires maintain their hold on us by making us averse to contemplating on the harsh realities of life, for such contemplation would make apparent the futility of worldly desires.

Due to our lack of contemplation, we see sickness and death shoot down people all around us, yet we imagine that we have – or will soon get – a suffering-proof armor.

However, time demonstrates the truths we deny by making the unthinkable unavoidable; time forces us to dry and die. The prospect of being ground into oblivion by the relentless grinding of time can horrify us – till Gita wisdom helps us realize that time is Krishna in disguise.

Time is the guise through which Krishna expresses his tough love, an expression that is necessary for those who don’t learn from his gentle love in the Gita. Gita wisdom helps us to connect the “tough” side of time with the “love” side and learn the indispensable lesson: the futility of loving the temporal and the urgency of redirecting our love to the eternal.

When we start learning and living this lesson, time reveals itself to be Krishna waiting with open arms to welcome us back home.