Q. 239: Gurudev, sometimes, I don’t feel the connection to knowledge or to you or to myself. How do I feel more connected with you or to myself?

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Certain things you should take for granted. You should feel that you are connected. Are you connected to air? Do you say, again and again, is there air around me? Am I breathing or not? Is there air around me? My dear, there is!

Is there a sun in the universe? There is! I don’t see the sun. If there was no sun, the earth would not exist. If it is not visible now, it is visible another six hours later or eight hours later - it will come to the horizon. In Norway, you’ll not see the sun for two months. That doesn’t mean it has disappeared from the surface of the planet.

Similarly, your connection, your love is always there. Sometimes you feel it. When a cool wind blows on a hot summer’s day, it gives you a certain elevation. It gives you a contrast. You were not connected, suddenly you feel connected. So this feeling of being connected often happens in contrast. Especially when you didn’t feel connected, suddenly you feel the connection, you feel that contrast.

For knowledge, you have to have the opposite. When you don’t feel the connection, know that you are already connected. Don’t look for it. You see what I am saying? Okay. Move away from all the principles of the Art of Living. Drop your pranayama, meditation, singing, everything for one week, 10 days. Then you will see. You will feel the thirst. All this knowledge will pop up in your life time and again.

Wisdom once learnt remains with you like a solid rock. You can’t get away from wisdom. Still try to get out of it for sometime and see. Then you’ll notice the connection. Sometimes astrologically, cosmologically, the sense of lack of enthusiasm, interest or spirituality or sort of dullness creeps in life. Vedic astrology speaks about a particular time in one's life where this could happen. But it is only for a short period of time. Especially they say, when Jupiter is at its lowest energy, the spiritual energy in the world goes down and people become more gross. You don’t feel uplifted, elevated. But it’s only a short period of 11 months or even shorter.

The Christian tradition speaks about the dark night of the soul where a spiritual seeker suddenly finds that all that he has been doing is useless or has not taken them any further. This type of a feeling had dawned in Mother Teresa also.

In Patanjali Yoga Sutras, it is explained how to overcome such obstacles in the path of Yoga. These are the nine obstacles you can get – doubts will come. Self doubt, doubt about the teacher, doubt about the knowledge, the path and then some or the other ailments come. You’ll be fine. When you want to do some practice you’ll get cold, cough, fever, this and that. Some physical discomfort, disease or mental dullness can come over you. These sorts of nine different types of obstacles to get perfection are also part of the knowledge, part of the path. But no obstacles can stay forever. They all come for a short time and they go, they disappear.

So don’t keep looking whether I am connected or not connected. When you feel a sort of vacuum, lack of love, lack of enthusiasm or the initial high or joy you felt suddenly disappearing somewhere, just smile and be centered. You will see this wind just blows and then the sun rises back again. The sun is always there. It will be visible just in the matter of time. In the same way, your connection with yourself, with the teacher, with the universe is all intact. It will just blossom once again.

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