Aion, Eternity, Duration

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Confusing Words Series · 8 pages

The claim the file rests on is historical: that no philosopher in days of old ever took eternity to mean beginningless and endless duration, and that neither the Aions of the Greeks nor the Neroses convey that sense — the ancients having had no word for it at all. The word Aion, translated in the Bible as eternity, means a finite period, and also an angel and a being; the file adds that AIΩ is a permutation of the famous IAΩ, with A representing Spirit linked to Matter, Ω, by Mind, I.

The quick overview at the head sets out the distinctions in a form that can be read in a minute: eternity and the Seven Eternities differ; cosmic pralaya differs greatly from deep sleep; duration is infinite while time is a finite conception; duration contains time, but time has no duration; space and duration are one and the same, since one cannot imagine space as not being. A long footnote develops the imagery through Shesha, the great serpent-cycle swallowing its own tail as the emblem of time within eternity, on whom Vishnu sleeps during the pralayas between creations — with Locke's definition of time as duration set forth by measures set alongside it.

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