Preguntas & Respuestas con Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Sri Sri: The problem in religions is when the diehards say, “Oh! I can’t say ‘Allah’ or ‘Shiva’ or ‘Jesus’.” Is your religion so weak that you will lose it just by saying “Om”? If you say “Allah”, it won’t take your religion away. I guarantee you no God will get angry with you. You accept technology and food from everywhere, isn’t it? But when it comes to wisdom and singing, people seem to cringe. We have to break those barriers.

Sri Sri: It is alright to make a mistake. Making a mistake is a part of life. Sometimes a mistake happens; it happens. Fine! Accept it and move ahead. The pain of making the same mistake again and again itself is good enough to take you out of the same mistake. The pain and pinch of suffering will make you come out of that. But never justify your mistake.

Sri Sri: Yes, yes! Definitely! In no time, without ticket and visa, and no immigration issues.

Sri Sri: You being in victim consciousness and having rage and anger, does it help you any way to carry on your life? Absolutely not! Waste of time, waste of your potential and life. So we must forgive, forget and move on. You hurt someone in the past and somebody hurts you, that account is closed now. Finished! There was some problem that has to come, and that has come and our own foolishness made it happen. Now it is finished and move on. This is the line of thinking that you must adopt and that makes us feel better.

Sri Sri: The word destiny means Vidhi, this is how it is. The word Karma has several different connotations. It can mean action or latent action. The impression of an action that might give rise to another action can also be called karma.

Sri Sri: Don’t think you should all be without anger all the time. You should use anger as a tool when it is necessary. I tried to do it but I was not too successful. Often sometimes I try to show anger but it doesn’t work because very soon I start laughing and everybody else would start laughing along, also people don’t believe me getting angry. But sometimes anger is good. You know, especially in a world when there is corruption, when there is injustice and when there are all sorts of people who do all sorts of wrong things, it is necessary that you raise your eyebrows or sometime show anger, it would be good. But see that you show anger and it doesn’t affect you or get into your heart and takes you away from your self. You know what is a healthy anger? When you draw a line on the surface of water, how long does it stay for? Only that much time anger should stay, then it is healthy anger. If your anger stays only for that much time, and when you have a control over it, then it is healthy and you are okay. You can get angry but anger should not get you. What happens usually, anger comes and gets you, and then we are in trouble. Knowledge and wisdom is the reverse of it. Got it! You can use the knife but the knife doesn’t use you. Look, that doesn’t happen in a day and that is where all these practices can be of help. Yeah, I’m not saying be like a vegetable all the time or like a mentally retarded person, smiling or not getting upset at all, you should get angry when things don’t go well, right! But don’t ever let that anger ferment in your mind and turn into hatred. It could be momentary!

Sri Sri: No, I never said you shouldn’t have doubts, you should have doubts, have as many doubts as you can, for truth can never be concealed by doubts . Yes, doubt can’t defeat the truth, so you doubt as much as you want, but finish it quickly otherwise you will be wasting so much of time. Have as much of doubt as you want and then get over it. I remember one incidence which happened in Sweden. There was a public meeting/ gathering and a journalist was sitting right behind. He came forward to me and said- “I want to ask you a question”. I said- “yes, go ahead.” He asked, “Are you enlightened?” I said, “No”. But he insisted, “No, please tell the truth. I know, you are always making fun, always kidding, please tell me the truth”. I again said, “No”. You see, my answer of NO should have finished the conversation there, but he won’t listen and kept insisting, “No, no, you are not telling the truth, tell me the truth, are you enlightened? I want to know the answer right away”. See when you say , ‘no’ –it finishes , there is no need for further proof or explanation, chapter over, but this person won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. I said, “So what takes you not to take a ‘no’ for answer? You should be happy with the answer now”. But he said, “No, I don’t believe it! I said, “You see, there is something inside you which is telling you something, some deeper inner feeling saying –this is not correct, right? So you have the answer then!” So often, you listen to your own inner voice but doubt it from the surface mind but deep inside your heart and mind are saying something, you feel something different- a gut feeling and that is what you always rely on and not on what someone else says, isn’t it so? If someone says, “I love you”, do you take them on face value? No, you look at their face, you look at them and even without looking at them, you feel something deep inside. So, what I am telling you is generally true. And every one has this faculty of intuition and what can overshadow this faculty is your greed. Greed can overshadow the faculty of your intuition, being over ambitious can overshadow your intuition. Do you understand what I am saying? Wisdom gets covered with greed, feverishness or with over ambition. So, doubt as much as you can!

Sri Sri: Ya, I think it’s little bit different understanding of Geeta. Actually the understanding of Geeta should be, ‘you work hard, you put your 100%, you look to achieve the goals, But at the same time you should have that faith, that confidence and relax’. You know to achieve anything, you need 3 types of confidence. First is confidence in yourself, then you have no anxiety. ‘It’s very easy for me to handle this issue. I can do this’. Second is confidence in the society around, people around. If you know that your team is good and they will achieve it! You know, if you have done well then you will definitely get well. But if you don’t have trust or faith in the system, if it’s very corrupt then you will not pass it. So, we have to have faith and trust in the system. Third is trust in a power which is compassionate, the higher power, the higher self, and this faith that it will always do the best. These 3 types of trust can take us out of anxiety. For this, I would say take out few minutes for yourself. Relax and Look back. How many times in the past you got stressed? You got some failures? You went through some failures and you achieved something. So, in the same way, now also you will achieve. That gives you that inner strength!

Sri Sri: The fact that you have realized this itself means you have come out of that. This is where Karma philsophy comes into picture. Something happened in the past, it was to happen and so it happened. Accept past and don’t brood over it, move on. Suppose you have committed some mistake, you have insulted somebody and that person holds on to it for so long even after you asking forgiveness from them – million times, what do you do if that person still doesn’t forgive you? Somebody has been wrong to you and you also have been wrong to someone. Don’t you seek forgiveness and move on. Similarly, worst crime you have done, and you don’t want someone to hold on till whole life. If the person forgives you, moves on, understands your position, how do you feel? See the other person the same way.