Duration

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Duration is the term used by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky for what we could call "atemporality". This is one of the aspects of the Absolute.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content

Mme. Blavatsky was asked about the difference between duration and time:

Q. What is the difference between Time and Duration?


A. Duration is; it has neither beginning nor end. How can you call that which has neither beginning nor end, Time? Duration is beginningless and endless; Time is finite.
Q. Is, then, Duration the infinite, and Time the finite conception?

A. Time can be divided; Duration—in our philosophy, at least—cannot. Time is divisible in Duration—or, as you put it, the one is something within Time and Space, whereas the other is outside of both.[1]

It is important to notice that duration is not an infinite extension of time, that is, sempiternity, but it is altogether beyond time.

Notes

  1. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. X (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1988), 310.