Sat-darshana Bhashya (translation)

Verse 17.

भूतं भविष्यच्च भवत्स्वकाले
तद्वर्तमानस्य विहाय तत्त्वम् ।
हास्या न किं स्याद्गतभाविचर्चा
विनकसंख्यां गणनेव लोके ॥

Past was present when that was current. The future coming will then be present. Unaware of the present in threefold time, Vain to discourse on future and past. Canst thou the numbers count, without the unit one?

When it was occurring, past was current, i.e., present. Similarly the future, when it occurs will then be present. Thus one can see that the real character of the threefold time, past, present and future is one eternal flow, the present. It is an eternal now. In itself without a break, an unbroken continuity, itself indivisible, it gives room for the mind to relate it to what has happened and to what is yet to happen, and thus to divide it into past, present and future. Hence without knowing the true nature of the present, it is futile, if not impossible, to discourse upon past and future, or to think of having a true knowledge of them, just as numbers cannot be counted without the unit one. Counting not merely begins with ’one’ the unit, but it is the unit that swells the numbers and is present in every number. The true character of time is an eternal present; really, past and future are in themselves present. This eternal now is the Time-spirit kalatma which is but the becoming of Brahman, the Real, and is like the string in a garland, present in and as the whole indivisible time movement.

One way to attain settled poise in the Self is by meditation upon Time. One can meditate upon Time by being closely watchful and thus becoming intimately aware of the interval between thoughts of the past and those of the future and can realise that the consciousness that backs the incessant thought-flow is really the eternal now which is not other than the Brahman itself, the ultimate Truth.

We sense and feel that we are the body and our embodied existence is subject to space and time. But if our existence is traced to its source in the infinite Self, the ultimate Reality beyond space and time, then it would be clear that we are beyond space and time, and yet have a spatial and temporal existence.