How do you stand with time? Have you ever been on a time-man­age­ment course? Have you ever assessed what you spend your time on? It is said that fif­teen minutes of quar­rel­ling a day, great or small, keeps fam­il­ies alive – a daily prac­tice. Have you ever reckoned how much of your time has already gone, and how much may yet remain?

While young, one never thinks of passing away, but later, in old age, more and more memor­ies of youth rise to the sur­face. For a good while the wagon of your life climbs uphill, and for that you must hold on tight. Then, past the sum­mit, things start down­hill, and that hap­pens all by itself. Exceed­ingly few people divide their time wisely, and few know while still young what they would like to achieve in life, and when.

The other day I asked a young man which life is more valu­able, the short or the long. He answered wisely that the qual­ity of a life depends not on the num­ber of years lived but on how the time is used, on how intensely it is exper­i­enced.

The Buddha uses a still finer meas­ure: ‘More valu­able is the life of one who under­stands immor­tal­ity, though he lives but a single day, than the life of a man who lives a hun­dred years yet has not come to exper­i­ence etern­ity. The former I call a true teach­er, one who knows the secret of the death and rebirth of all beings, who is con­tent and enlightened.’ (Dhammapada)

True, in many cases one plans in vain, and things come about not as, not when and not in the form one pic­tured, yet at times you do have the chance to plan cer­tain of your steps. Charles IV, King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emper­or, was coun­ted a for­tu­nate man in this respect too, able to plan count­less details of his life. He is said to have built Karl­stejn Castle to guard and receive the Holy Grail, and a thou­sand sights in Prague, that won­der­ful cap­it­al, are linked with his name. In Sanskrit the name Prague can also be read as cross­ing (pra – across, bey­ond, towards, gam – goes, pro­ceeds), which means not only cross­ing the river but also passing from worldly exist­ence to the far shore of etern­ity. Linked to this cross­ing is the world-fam­ous Charles Bridge, whose para­pets are lined with thirty won­der­ful and deeply sig­ni­fic­ant statues and sculp­tur­al groups. The king timed the build­ing of the bridge mar­vel­lously. For the lay­ing of the found­a­tion stone he chose an excep­tion­al moment, one that occurs only once in a given cal­en­dar sys­tem. The cere­mony took place in the year of our Lord 1357, on the ninth day of July, at thirty-one minutes past five in the after­noon. This date and time form a splen­did num­ber pyr­am­id, with nine at its apex: 1357, the 9th day of the 7th month, 5 hours 31 minutes, that is 1 - 3 - 5 - 7 - 9 - 7 - 5 - 3 - 1. Such a favour­able moment is fit for begin­ning any task, mys­tic­ally encoded as it is.

That moment has passed, and it did not fall with­in your life­time – never mind! But notice the holi­ness of time, the oppor­tun­ity that never returns, and always sense, behind the vis­ible, what can only be sur­mised. That is near­er to the full real­ity than what meets the eye. You can no longer share in the excep­tion­al moment when the found­a­tion stone of Charles Bridge was laid, yet often you do not even notice the priv­ileged moments lined up in your own life. Do not exper­i­ence your life as a loss, do not see it as your time run­ning out and your oppor­tun­it­ies missed. See instead that your life is com­ing to ful­fil­ment, that time is car­ry­ing you closer to your spir­itu­al goals. Time is a dimen­sion that does not rob us of our life but gives us the oppor­tun­ity to real­ise our goals. And what does not come off now, you can take up again next time. Build your own time pyr­am­id, seize the per­fect moment. Now or never. If you can­not seize the moment of full­ness now, per­haps this oppor­tun­ity will not come anoth­er time either.