When Prem Rawat first arrived in the West, it was a time of fear about nuclear war or some other great destructive catastrophe. Seeing him as some kind of authority in such matters, people often asked him, “Will the end of the world happen in our lifetime?” He would laughingly reply in his high-pitched, adolescent voice, “Don’t worry, you will definitely see the end of the world,” meaning that for us, the world — our world — does end. It ends when we do. When the questioner, after a moment’s shock, realized what he meant, there was a palpable sense of relief — possibly misplaced.

Of course the world will end one day. If we have not self-destructed or been hit by an enormous meteorite, we can rest in the certainty that the sun will, millions of years into the future, finally burn itself out. But that will not be the end of time or, necessarily, of human beings. Maybe our distant descendants will have traveled to a faraway galaxy, finding another solar system that could potentially host life. Or maybe another “human race” could evolve elsewhere, taking up the baton and continuing life as we know it. Whatever the circumstances, time — like its bedfellow space — has no end, whether there are humans around to observe it or not. Sadly the phrase “until the end of time,” so beloved by poets and songwriters, does not literally mean what it says.

That brilliant British scientist with the pop star looks, Professor Brian Cox, raised the ante recently on such debates by pointing out that the big bang did not actually happen in one particular place, thus depriving us of the convenient mental image of an enormous explosion in the midst of an infinity of space. It happened, he said, everywhere at once. In the same way it could be said that the big bang did not take place as a historical event at some distant point in time, but is happening all the time. In our limited freeze-frame we just perceive that it took place at some point in the past.

Never has there been such a frenzy of new theories, new discoveries and reversals of previously held certainties. The beautiful symmetry of Einstein’s discoveries fail to describe the mysteries of quantum mechanics, and there is a bewildering array of complex new theories attempting to bridge the gap.

And just as we become adjusted to the idea of our universe existing in an infinite amount of space like a candle in the night, we are now being told that it is not alone. An infinite number of other universes probably exist, though the conditions needed for human life are so finely balanced it is likely ours is the only one where life is to be found. At this rate, long before the sun burns out, we might expire from terminal mental exhaustion.

Prem Rawat doesn’t talk about the increasing complexity of the universe around us. Instead he tells us that, within our own heart, there is a place of complete peace and tranquility — a still seat of quietude in the very eye of the storm. Nor does he talk about the passage of time, about future and past. Instead he tells us about a place not too far away where time stands still: a place where we can rest in what has been called the eternal now. A place of silence and contentment that will always be available as long as a human being is there to desire it — on whichever planet that human being happens to be domiciled.

Illustration by Sara Shaffer.