When anything is said to be eternal, it means that it is ever lasting, it has been existing without a beginning and it will have no end also. That something can be eternal is basically a concept of man and an imagination since he feels that as his life itself is for a limited period, there must be something about nature that needs to be eternal.
It is practically every one’s opinion that this space-time-matter universe had been existing all along and at some point of time, man emerged on the scene. Herein lies a fallacy and we need to analyse the concept of time and existence from a proper perspective. Actually any entity whether it is space, time, matter or just about anything exists because it is ultimately established by the mind or consciousness as such. The space-time-matter universe cannot exist without consciousness and in turn the consciousness also cannot exist without the space-time-matter. So it emerges that both consciousness as well as the space-time-matter universe are one and the same. Space, time and matter are qualities or attributes of the mind or consciousness in order to establish the concept of existence and ultimately existence itself is only mind or consciousness. As such it is fallacious and untenable to imagine about a past when the mind itself never existed. In fact when the mind tries to analyse the past, this analysis is invariably done with respect to the present moment only and as such the existence of the past itself depends on the present moment and is not absolute. As time itself is a concept of the mind, it is impossible to accept the nature of time as absolute and existing independent of the mind. It is only due to the memory and intelligence of the mind that we extrapolate the present moment and cause the concepts of time with a past and future.
Thus it emerges that as the consciousness exists only from moment to moment, this universe also exists only from moment to moment. Even the question of what exists in the absence of mind cannot arise because questions need to be asked by the mind only and also answered by the mind only. In this scheme of things, talking of eternity of any entity is unrealistic and pure imagination and it belongs to a realm of fantasy.
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