Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Q:
What is really essential as human beings?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
What is really essential for human beings' is love, and it is your very nature. You only need to relax a little. If you are tensed you are unable to realize your true nature. When you are at rest then you realize the purpose of human life.Q:
I am perpetually in wonder, how you perpetually look so fresh and so charming!
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Good. Keep wondering. Wonder in anyone’s eyes is a charm in itself. Children look so beautiful, you know why? Because they have a wonder in their eyes. Wonderment. So I am happy you are keeping that wonder in your eyes and making yourself much more beautiful, much more charming. Everyone should wonder about something or other. Wonder indicates liveliness. When you lose all wonder in your life, you become very inert, dull and lifeless. Sign of life is wonderment and thats why nature has created so many things to wonder about and make life wonderful!Q:
You always say we should surrender our sorrow to you but I feel guilty to give all my worries & problems to you.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You know whatever waste is given to Dharti ma (Mother earth) is returned back to us as manure and flowers! So, if Mother Earth takes your rubbish, am I any less? (Roaring laughter and applause). We carry the power of transforming all your sorrows to happiness and joy. No matter how much darkness there is, it does not affect the Light. When you come to the ashram, don’t you already feel good? (a resounding YES!).Devotee: We know you are the Light Guruji!
Q:
What is atma (soul)?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Who is asking this? Because you have life, you are asking. Since you have a mind you are asking this question and since you have a body, the mind asks.One way is neti neti ( I am not the body, I am not the mind). The other way is ‘I am all’ (I am the mind, I am the body, I am the life force). Atma (soul) is the ocean, the life force is the wave.
Who made this beautiful body? The atma has to create, sustain and destroy. Just like how the water becomes vapor, then forms a cloud. The cloud then gives rain. The power to move from the form to the formless is there in every cell.
Q:
How is self-dependence different from dispassion?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
How are these two terms related? (laughter). Total self-dependence is not possible. There is mutual dependence. You depend on a tailor for your clothes. A farmer is responsible for growing crops so you depend on him. If you fall ill you are taken to a doctor so you depend on a doctor also. You depend on your teachers for education. There is some extent of dependency in everything. Life is like this. But we also have to take a step ahead. Until we become useful to others, restlessness and sorrow continue to be there.What is dependency? One day your maid doesn’t turn up and you don’t clean up your house - then that is dependency. Whatever you can do, continue to do.
It is important that your self-dependency doesn’t turn out to be self-pride. “I won’t take anybody’s help ever and be all by myself”.
You are a responsible citizen, you have the responsibility of your family but your responsibility is only what you can do. What you cannot do is not your responsibility. If you are not a doctor then your responsibility is to call a doctor if needed and not to treat.
Whatever we can do and whatever we can do easily, that is our responsibility.
When the mind and intellect are expanded, you take on bigger responsibilities and when you take on more responsibility, more power comes to you. Nature grants you that.
Have you heard the story of ‘Prabhupaad’? At the age of 75, his Guru asked him to spread the name of Lord Krishna. At that age, he went to the US. He stayed on a ship for over a month. He lived in such difficult situations, in very cold surroundings, in somebody’s basement but that conviction was so strong in him that 1,000 people started to do Kirtan/Satsang (devotional singing) and chanting the Lord’s name. When one’s sankalpa/ intention is so strong, age doesn’t matter. Otherwise 25-30 year old youth say, ‘The system is not good, nothing happens.’ Ok, then keep sitting at home. Have that conviction I can rise above any situation and I will rise above any circumstances.
Q:
Yesterday, you said there is no significant purpose for the universe but it is also said that every individual is born for some purpose. Isn’t it contradictory?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Truth is contradictory. Every little thing has a purpose, at the same time, it has no purpose because this whole thing is a game. If you consider the world as a game, then there is no purpose. A game has no purpose, it is an expression of joy. Dance doesn’t have a goal because dance in itself is an expression of happiness.What is the purpose of you laughing? Does laughter have any purpose? You are happy, so you laugh. You don’t have to wait for a joke to laugh. You know, children don’tunderstand jokes but they laugh, babies do laugh. If you think jokes are the only reason for one to laugh then babies would never laugh till they understand your jokes. You have an illusion that you have to listen to a joke to laugh. Laughter has nopurpose because it is an expression of being, an expression of joy.Love has nopurpose because it is your very nature. The sun has no purpose to send its rays. If you ask me, why does sun shine, what does it achieve? I’ll say, ‘Oh my God, you are such a businessman, you need a purpose for everything!’ The sun shines because it is its nature. It can’t but shine. So, in this context, I said, ‘Whenever you think, ‘what is the purpose?’ you are caught up in the cause and effect phenomenon. No doubt, the cause and effect phenomenon is there, it is a law of nature but truth is beyond the cause and effect phenomenon. Divinity is much bigger, more vaster, Divinity is beyond that. It is much bigger and vaster, so in this sense I said, there is no purpose.Sun shines because it is its nature, wind blows because it is its nature. What is the purpose of the tsunami? Was it just to kill people? If it’s purpose was to kill people only then it must have hit only those areas in which people lived. But it hit those areas also where there were no people. Nature is beyond cause and effect or conclusion, theory, understanding or misunderstanding. It is the existence which is total, beyond purpose. So you can say, virtually there is no purpose. If at all you have to pin down to a purpose then the purpose of nature is to take you to the Source, is to remind you of the Source, connect you to your Source.
Q:
Guruji, there are so many spiritual leaders, do we need to visit all and read their teachings?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Respect and honor everybody. Follow one path. Suppose you meet four gurus and you take four mantras and techniques, which one will you use? It is like trying to reach your destination on four different boats at the same time! You will reach nowhere. If you had a guru before and you have come here now, know that he sent you here. Even saying 'all gurus' is wrong. There is only one guru principle. And all the Masters want only your happiness. When you want to dig a well, if you dig two feet deep in ten places, you will not find water. You need to go deep in just one place. There is no need to go everywhere, it’s not necessary. When you have faith in one path and move ahead then for sure you will reach your destination.Q:
Lord Krishna has spoken about surrender to the only One. What is surrender and how do we surrender?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Firstly, surrender to only one. Everything is, anyways, only one. Understand that everything is only one and then surrender. When we try to surrender to too many, surrender does not happen. You can travel in only one boat at a time. You cannot travel is many boats at the same time. That is why Lord Krishna said, ‘I am only One and surrender to me.’Q:
Inspite of the fact that ten thousand people became enlightened in the time of Buddha, why is it that Buddhist meditation techniques are not so popular?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Who said it is not popular? It is very popular. What Buddha said not just stayed only in India. It went far and wide to Vietnam, Korea, Japan, China and Indonesia, it spread all over the East. From Afghanistan to China to Bahamians Buddhas. Recently, till ten years ago the Bahamians Buddhists statues were there. So people had carved huge statues of Buddha on a mountain, it must have been very popular there.Now today it is very popular in the West. In America so many people are appreciating Buddhism. In India, Buddhism got absorbed in Hinduism because it is the same thing. So Buddha became the ninth avatar or aspect of the same philosophy. Buddhist teaching is the same as Upanishad teaching, there is not too much difference. It’s quite popular.
Q:
When we insult others, is it true that their karma decreases? What should we do if someone blames us for no reason?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
If someone blames us without reason, what can we do? Try explaining to them, and then forget about it.