May 1, 2025

Dear reader,

What is it that endures? What is it that stands the test of time? That transcends time—that even, perhaps, outlasts time? What invisible threads link past to present to future, and how do we make note of them when they dip, however fleetingly, into our range of perception?

These are the questions piquing my interest as we step into the month of May. Baba’s month. It was during a satsang in the 1990s that Gurumayi first gave this name to May and October, the months of Baba Muktananda’s birthday and mahasamadhi, respectively. The response of Siddha Yogis to this name was immediate and enthusiastic; they loved it, and it has taken hold ever since.

It’s fascinating. May is as clearly defined an increment of time as they come. It is a standard part of the Gregorian calendar; it arrives at the same time every year (the fifth month, after April and before June); it is segmented into a certain number of days and weeks. Yet on the Siddha Yoga path, because we associate this month with Baba Muktananda—with Baba’s life, Baba’s legacy—it also has an aura of timelessness to it.

We feel this, for example, when we glimpse “Baba signs” in nature—an “M” in the trees, a feather the same shade of orange as Baba’s robes, Krishna clouds flashing blue in the sky, much like the Blue Pearl that Baba loved to teach about. We feel it in the stories that people tell of Baba. I, for instance, never met Baba, as I was born after he took mahasamadhi. But when I listen to the stories of Siddha Yogis who did know Baba during his lifetime, who received his darshan and teachings, time seems to collapse. I see it in the love in their eyes, in the softened tenor of their voices—Baba is here, right here, with us.

A flower blooms and fades; yet its beauty, the enchantment of its fragrance, linger in the minds of those who remember them. Water dries up from a riverbed, yet the memory of its movement remains etched in the earth, in grooves snaking through clay and sediment. The moon remains whole even amidst its phases. What is timelessness? Is it something we recognize or something we create? Is it something we amplify? Is it something we have the responsibility to protect? Is it all of these things at once?

We can contemplate this subject throughout the month. On May 11, people in many parts of the world will celebrate Mother’s Day. When I think of forces that defy the bounds of time, that persist in their strength and purity even as we change, as circumstances change, as the world around us changes, there are two that come to mind right away: the Guru’s love and a mother’s love. In fact, the two are not so dissimilar. You may wish to read (or reread) the story of how Gurumayi came to be known as “Gurumayi” on the Siddha Yoga path website.

On the full moon of May 12, we will celebrate Baba’s lunar birthday. Four days later, on May 16, we will celebrate Baba’s solar birthday. I have touched on how we experience eternity in Baba’s grace and infinitude in Baba’s love. In addition to this, and perhaps most crucially, we discover the eternal (we encounter the infinite!) in the teachings that Baba gave. The wisdom of the Siddha Yoga path—the teachings imparted by Baba, by Gurumayi—is timeless.

At the start of this letter, I asked what endures. Here’s an answer: knowledge. Knowledge endures. The Guru’s teachings endure, relevant as they are at all times and in all places.

There is, however, an important caveat. Our experience of the teachings being timeless, of their enduring power, is contingent upon our effort—our effort to understand the teachings, to practice them, to make them our own. The true legacy of the Guru’s teachings lives in the transformation that is wrought within the disciple. And that can only happen with our willing and active participation.

Consider the teachings that Gurumayi has given us daily since January as part of In the Presence of Time. We can anticipate that each day’s teaching will be beautiful, that it will be intriguing and poetic, that reading and repeating it to ourselves will give us solace and support. But what then? What more will we do with the teaching? That is the question of the hour.

Let’s look, for example, at the teaching Gurumayi has given for May 1: The goldenness of time. What steps might you take to make this teaching a more constant reality for you? What does it mean to act with the awareness that your time is like gold? What changes might you make in how you schedule your time, or in what you direct your attention to at any given time? (These questions are, of course, premised on one interpretation of the teaching. There could be many more ways to interpret it—and those interpretations can also be explored in a similar fashion.)

By the end of May, we will have received 138 teachings from Gurumayi about time. That’s 138 opportunities to gain new insights about time, to reconfigure our approach to time, to take steps to enact beneficial change in our lives. May is also the last month in which we will be receiving Gurumayi’s teachings from In the Presence of Time. Next month, we will have the virtues, the sadguna vaibhava, as a focus for our study.

Until then, let’s make the most of these next thirty-one days—as we celebrate Baba’s month, as we honor the divine Mother, as we continue our exploration of Gurumayi’s Message for 2025. Let us do as Gurumayi teaches in her Message for the year, and truly make our time worth our time.

Sincerely,

Eesha Sardesai