Q: Guruji, does choosing a Guru means one can’t follow the teachings of other masters? Can one have more than one Guru?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Oh! It’s so hard to manage one Guru, how can you…! (laughs) It’s not easy. Respect everybody but follow one path. Honor everyone and you will see, all the masters have said the same thing. There is only one truth, so, they have said the same thing, but the methods are different as per the needs of the time.
You don’t have conflict when you are on this path. Whichever path you were there, they have blessed you and that’s how you have come here. You have served those paths, those teachers, those masters and their blessing has brought you here, with this conviction you move forward. Ok?
It’s just that if you keep trying everything, you get so confused! So, I would say, see one in all and all in one as a principle.
Honor everyone and follow one path.
Q: What to do if your Guru or Mentor is displeased with you?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: You make fast progress! Guru is displeased with your progress. So, now you gear up and progress more. Run fast!
Q: Guruji, is there any connection with the mood and the timing of the day? Why do we feel different at different times, like one feels low in night time.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Ya, ya! Time and mind are connected. You should know this. Time and mind are synonymous. There are eight substances: Vaisheshika, Kanada…all these people have said, ‘Desha, Kala,
Manah.’ Desha is space, Kala is time and, Manah - the mind. They are all tatvas, principles. And all these principles are connected. Desha and kala are connected. Space and time are connected. One day on this planet Earth is already many days on another…in the moon. In moon, it is different. So, if you are on Jupiter, one human year is only one month. In Jupiter if you have to experience one year, that is 12 years of earthly time.
Jupiter takes 12 years to go around the sun. Similarly if you are on the planet Saturn, 30 years is one year!
Similarly, pitras, people who have died, our human one year is one day for them. So our six months is only one night and six months is one day. So, for a soul which has departed our whole year is one day. There are different times and different space in different dimensions. So, time and space are connected. It’s called the time-space curve. The same with the third dimension that is mind! The mindless, transcendental consciousness is called Mahakala, the Shiva, the fourth state of consciousness.
It’s called Mahakala, means great time, and the no-mind. The no mind is great time.
So, morning from 4.30 to 6.30, just before sunrise, before dawn, it’s called the most creative time.
Brahma muhurta! And then, every two hours it’s called a lagna; which means, one unit of time. And this unit of time corresponds to the state of mind. And again this is connected with the moon’s position, the sun’s position. There are so many aspects! Ten different aspects influence the mind. So, not only the time or hour of the day affects the mind, also the quality of the days affects the mind. Every two and a half days, the mind changes! The mood of the mind! So, if you are upset, it can continue for two and a half days at maximum; it doesn’t have to be two and a half day. It rises to a peak and drops. But after two and a half days, you cannot have the same emotion with the same intensity.
Impossible! It changes. Switches! It is a great, great science, how mind, mood and time are connected.
Jyotish shastra has a lot of insight into this. You know the astrologers, usually, all these weekly column astrologers say, ‘Oh, good for relationships, good for making money, this and that!’ They write those things (laughs!). They generalize those things, ‘If you are born on this time then this is good for you and you do this.’ Of course, it’s too generic and it’s just a money-making thing that they do. But it is not hoax; there is an iota of truth in it. The underlying base has truth. The principle that the mind and time are connected is correct.
Mind means moods, thoughts, opinions, ideas, all these things that we collect. And, no mind is meditation. Dawn and dusk are considered very good for mediation. So, whenever you meditate, or whenever the bad time is there, you meditate. When you meditate you go off the influence of the mind and go into the self. The self is Shiva tatva. Shiva tatva means, always benevolent, caring, loving, uplifing. That consciousness deep within you which is caring, loving, uplifting and benevolent, will nullify the negative influences of the mind and the time.
So, in India it is a very common belief, whenever there is bad time just say, Om Namah Shivaye, and it’s gone. All that bad time is gone. ‘Manah’, when read from the other side, it becomes Namah. Manah is when consciousness goes outside in the world, and Namah is when the consciousness goes inward. Shivaye, towards the Shiva principle, the fourth state of consciousness, the subtlest aspect of the existence, the Shiva tatva! So, Namah, when the mind goes towards the basic substratum of creation, then it can change all that into more benevolent experienc
