29 October 2015 - QA 1

We were studying about the Vaisheshika Darshana (one of the six orthodox schools of Hinduism from ancient India). Could you speak on how the ancient saints knew so much scientific knowledge without any instruments like a microscope?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

I think it is mind boggling.
This morning I was reading a book by a scientist who has written about the physics in the Vaisheshika Darshan. I just read a couple of sutras and thought, this is mind boggling.
The Rishis in the ancient days (which is some 10,000 years ago) have described the atom. They have described that how if one atom is destroyed, it destroys many other atoms. They have explained the connection and movement of atoms, and how the knowledge of one atom alone is so liberating.
This only indicates that there is another way to know things, which is not through the senses. There is what is called the sixth sense. Using the sixth sense, you can know many things about the past and the future.

In The Art of Living, we have developed a program for the kids to open up their sixth sense. Adults can also do this course, but for them it will take a longer time. For children, it only take a few hours or weeks to develop this. They will be able to read with their eyes closed. You know, some children even told me what I am going to say at satsang the following evening. So their ability to access the sixth sense is developing very fast. I’m sure this is what the ancient Rishi’s had; very strong intuitive abilities.

If you go to the Thanjavur temple which is in Tamil Nadu which was built 1000 years ago, you can see they have carved a picture of a British man with hat and a gun. A thousand years ago there were no British people in India, and there were no guns, but they had foreseen that the British would come and rule over this place. And so they made a carving of a British soldier with a hat and a gun. So, this is possible because of their intuitive ability or the sixth sense which all of us have used at some point of time. It has to be methodically accessed through Meditation.