If I ask you this question – where is the Sun ‘Now’? Then you may look at me strangely and then point to the sun in the sky. The next question therefore becomes quite inevitable-are you sure? We know light takes 8 minutes to reach us from the sun, so the sun we are seeing is a (now – 8 min) sun. It is not a ‘now’ sun. It just cannot be the ‘now’ sun, because for the finite time taken by the light to reach us. It is a ‘dated’ sun and not a ‘now’ sun. You cannot deny this logic. So, I repeat the question– where is the sun ‘now’? The sun cannot be in the current location, because in 8 minutes the sun has moved from its current location. The (now – 8 min) sun is at the current location, but the ‘now’ sun must be somewhere 8 minutes away. But where do we locate the sun ‘now’?

It may be easier to understand this for the sun, because in 8 minutes the sun could not have moved much. It may be somewhere near its current location. What about the faraway stars? Some of the stars seen through the powerful telescopes are more than 1 billion light years away. One light year is the distance that light travels in one year. So, these stars are very far away. Since light has taken 1 billion year to reach us, the star we are watching is the (now – 1 billion year) star. At this location we do not see the ‘now’ star, but we see the (now – 1 billion year) star. Once again, the same question – where is that star right ‘now’. It is just impossible to answer this question. It is so, because, after the passage of one billion year, this star could be anywhere. It may not even exist ‘now’; it could have collided with a meteoroid. It is true; no one knows where that star is right ‘now’. All this may sound strange, but it is a fact that nobody knows where any of these stars out there are right ‘now’.

Science has a knack of confusing us. When science discovers a new planet, say 5 million light years, scientists and researchers announce this new planet. In this announcement, they give an impression that the new planet is at that location right ‘now’. It is incorrect. It is the location of the (now – 5million years) planet. Right ‘now’, nobody knows where the planet is. 5 million years have passed for the planet. You cannot be sure if the planet even exists.

So, I repeat the same question – where is the sun right ‘now’, where is this star which is 5 billion light years away or the planet which is 5 million light years away? Where are any of the objects right ‘now’?

Read on, you will be surprised by the answer!

The Sun Must be at the ‘Now’ Location

The ‘now’ sun must be at the ‘now’ location, but where is this ‘now’ location? Is there a ‘now’ location. Yes, there is a ‘now’ location in which there is no place for the (now – 8 min) sun or the (now – 5 billion years) star or the (now – 5 million years) planet. Everything in this location only has ‘now’ objects. So, how to discover and understand this location?

It is not difficult. Let us analyze a typical scene we see every day. Light takes 8 min from the sun, so we see the (now- 8min) sun. Light takes 3 seconds from moon, so we see the (now-3sec) moon. Light takes 10^-3sec from a plane flying at 30,000 feet, so the plane we see is the (now – 10^-3 sec) plane. Light from the tree outside the window takes 10^-6 sec, so the tree we see is the (now-10^-6 sec) tree. The light from the laptop takes 10^-9 seconds, so the laptop I see is the (now – 10^-9 sec) laptop. 

Do you see any trend in the scene described above? The objects which are nearer to us are closer to the ‘now’ version, than the objects which are far away. So, as we move inward, there must be a location which is (now – 0 sec). At this location, the ray of light will take 0 seconds to reach us and that location must be the ‘now’ location. So where is that location? The only logical location must be within us. Vedanta teaches us that the Observer within us is the location for the ‘now’ objects. At this Observer location, not only the sun, the plane, the trees or the stars, but all the objects in the universe are within us as the ‘now’ objects. At this location, only the ‘now’ objects exist.

Sun and ‘Now’ Sun

To support the above finding, let us look at this from a different angle. Let us do a thought experiment for the sun. At its current location light takes 8 min to reach us, so we see the (now-8min) version of the sun. If for whatever reason, the sun could move and it we see a (now-4min) version of the sun. What does this mean? It means that light will take 4 minutes to reach us and the sun will be located at halfway mark, which will be nearer to us. If the sun moves even closer and we see the (now – 10^-3 sec) version, it would mean that the sun is only 30,000 feet away. As the sun comes closer to us, the only place where we can find the (now – 0sec) sun is within this. This also shows that the ‘now’ sun must be within us. It is in the Observer within us. This logic and reasoning apply not only to the sun, but to every object in the universe.

Wow, what a conclusion – all the ‘now’ objects in this universe are within us. The Observer or Sakshi within us is the location for these ‘now’ objects. There is the ‘now’ universe within us. What is more interesting is that there is a ‘now’ universe within you, there is a ‘now’ universe within me and in the same way, there is ‘now’ universe within every living being. In this ‘now’ universe there are only the ‘now’ objects. It is quite difficult to imagine the full universe within the Observer. It is impossible to have the physical objects within us. So, what is the format of these ‘now’ objects? Vedanta teaches us that these ‘now’ objects are made up of mental waves or ‘vrittis’. Each object has its unique mental wave.

Projection of the Sun

We just concluded that the ‘now’ location is the Observer within us. The Observer has two functions

• perceive all the objects out there
• it is the repository for all the ‘now’ objects.

How does the ‘now’ sun, which is a mental wave in the Observer become the (now-8min) physical sun out there? The simple answer is that the sun and all the objects in the universe are projected by our mind. It is like the projection of the movie in a theatre. We project the (now-8min) sun and place it 8 min away in space. In the article ‘The Science Behind the Projection of the Universe’, there is a detailed explanation about how the projection works. Here we will give a quick summary. The ‘now’ sun combines with the time waveform in our mind, and we get a combined (sun + time) mental waveform. When the ‘now’ sun waveform combines with the time waveform, magic happens. Since the time waveform is involved, the combined waveform has the complete linear history of the sun from the day it was born to the ‘now’ moment. Each time the moment of the sun is available in the combined (sun + time) waveform. Not a single time moment is missing. For us, the sun is 8 minutes away, so our mind chooses the (now-8min) version of the sun and projects it out there. If someone was living in Mars, their mind would choose the (now – 13 min) version of the sun. Light from the sun takes 13 minutes to reach Mars. They see a different version of the sun.  In the same way, if someone from the planet 5 million light years away sees the sun through a telescope, they will project a sun which is (now – 5 million years) old.

In the same way, each ‘now’ object will combine with the time waveform. Depending upon the distance of the object from us, the appropriate version of the object will be projected by the mind.

Conclusion

The sun we see as a part of the Milky Way is the (now-8min) version of the sun. The ‘now’ sun is within us and part of the Observer or Sakshi. Not only the sun, but all the ‘now’ objects in the universe are present within each one of us as mental waveforms.