The Puzzle of Time

Atma Prakash utilized his time very well. The interactive sessions with the Baba every Thursday and his discussions with Mataji now and then were really enriching. They were ‘eye openers’ for him. He read widely on the related subjects. 

Mataji also took keen interest in his growth and studies. She often discussed ecological and environmental issues with him whenever he went to help her in the kitchen. He was very much impressed by her knowledge of various subjects and books. She was also trying to develop an integral spirituality, which she has termed ‘Eco-spirituality’. ‘It is a spirituality wherein ecology and spirituality are integrated’, she had told him.

Atma Prakash felt that days and weeks were flying real fast for him.

‘Guruji, the time seems to be moving very fast for me these days.’ He told the Baba one day.

‘The passage of time is a relative experience, my son. When we are happy time moves very fast for us. Months and days will appear like just hours and minutes. When we are sick, unhappy or troubled, time moves very slow. Hours and minutes will appear like months and days.’ The Baba told him.

‘Everything in life, in a way, will depend on our inner state. What we see, depends on where we stand. ‘A jaundiced man sees everything yellow’ is an old dictum. I had read somewhere a very interesting story about the manner in which Dr. Albert Einstein had explained his Theory of Relativity to a group of simple women’ the Baba added.

‘A group of simple women asked Albert Einstein what was this ‘Theory of Relativity’ that made him so famous, and about which there was so much discussion all over the world… 

‘In response, Einstein asked the youngest of them where her husband worked and how many days did he come home. She told him that her husband worked in a city far from home and he came home only on weekends for two days….

‘How do you feel when he is at home for two days with you on weekends?’ was his next question...

‘I feel it is just like two hours. Time flies very fast’… she said…

‘But, madam, suppose you are sitting on a hot stove for two hours, how will you feel?’ he asked her.

‘Two hours!… On a hot stove! Who can sit on a hot stove for two hours?’.. she asked back…

‘Well,.. madam, two days with your beloved husband feels like two hours.. Two hours on a hot stove will be unimaginably long…This is ‘Theory of Relativity’, madam’. He told her…

‘The ladies now understood the ‘Theory of Relativity’ very well… ‘It is so simple!’ one of them exclaimed…’

Excerpts from Integral Revolution’