27 Dec 2011 - QA 11

Beloved Guruji, I heard that by end of 2012 we will have mass enlightenment and that many people will become enlightened just like in Lord Krishna’s time, is that true?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Don’t think that enlightenment is like lightning. Something is going to strike your brain one day and then you go and become a blue star.
See in your own life how gradually the darkness has lifted.
See when sun shines, sun suddenly doesn’t pop up like that and become so bright. Even before the sun rises, the sky lightens up gently and lightly and then the redness comes and then the brightness comes and then it is very bright.
In the same way in your own life you see, look at yourself from the past before you came on this path and to the spiritual practices, what was your life? What was your mind, how were you, how you saw the world? Just go back to that state and see yourself and the world from those eyes and you will be shocked and surprised that you are not the same person.
Your thinking has changed, your feelings have changed, your behavior has changed, your perception has changed, and your expression has changed, hasn’t this happened?
Earlier when small things that you wanted didn’t happen, how miserable you were. And now even when big things don’t happen the way you want, which is rare of course, you still don’t get disturbed.
Before how you had to struggle for small things to happen and how now it happens spontaneously with an intention.
For how many people it has happened here? You intend and it happens and that is how enlightenment dawns on you. One day you find nothing makes a difference, you are happy. And you feel that, ‘I am not the body, I am just the spirit’, this knowledge gently comes. It can come suddenly also, it can come with some drama also but not necessary.
Notice how gently your attachment for small things has dropped. How you have moved away from your attachment for small things. If your cravings and aversions have reduced and your bickering has reduced, then you are on the path to enlightenment.
And any day, you can say, ‘nothing matters anymore and nothing bothers me. I am unconditionally happy, I love everyone unconditionally.’
If you could stand up and say this, it could happen any day.