Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
It is not the promise which is important. What is important is: what is best for ever body, for all human beings. Suppose you have promised your daughter to take her skiing but if the weather forecast says that there will be a snow storm, what will you do? Will you take her out because you promised or will you be intelligent and say, “The promise will not bring happiness now, so I take back my promise and not take you there now”.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Solve the problem. Problems are to be seen as challenges. Someone who is brave like challenges and you are brave, I tell you.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You think life is miserable because you are hanging onto desires of the past, impossibles of the past, you are not accepting the present, you are not moving ahead or you are hoping for something too much. Correct? Be practical. Life is a mixture of problems and pleasure. What does your mind do? It messes up the problems and blows it out of proportion and makes oneself miserable. So who isresponsible for your misery? Yourself. So when is the program? When is the program not to be miserable? (Laughter) Now, right now have you gotten over your misery right now? (A dim ‘yes’ from the audience) The ‘Yes!’ should be louder (A strong ‘Yes’ this time). That is it.You know, if the room is dark for 20 years, it doesn’t take another 20 years to bring light in. it just needs one connection, one switch on and the whole darkness goes away. Your life may have been miserable in the past, but wake up and see, so what? Problems come and go in everybody’s life. Look at your past, problems came and they have all vanished. Right? We forcefully make the problem stay, just wake up and see, where is the problem? The problem is not there. You can have some physical problem in the body sometimes, some pain here and there but is there anyone who has never suffered physical illness?Everybody has some physical problem at some point in their lives and when you violate laws of nature, pain comes, suffering comes. Pain is inevitable, suffering isoptional.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Well, the mantra for depression is - “What about me, what about me”. And Arjuna was thinking how he could do the work which he was supposed to do, and what people would think of him. It was again about himself only. It is not just thinking about oneself, but your other different attachments and lack of understanding can also lead to depression. But one sure technique to get depressed is- Just sitting, doing nothing and thinking, ‘what about me, what about me, what will happen to me?’ You are sure to get depressed this way!Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Don’t get into a dilemma. Be at ease, in your nature. Be the way you are.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Your desire for consistency itself will set you on the right path. As long as you keep going up, never mind if you come down once or twice. If you are worried that you should never go down or if you go down and start blaming, then you get angry and stressed. So just take it.(The person: But what can I do with the insecurity that I will fall down?)
Look back and see. If you have taken 10 steps forward, you can never go back all the 10 steps. Isn’t it? If you climb 10 steps, you may come down three, four or five steps but never all the ten steps. When you look at the positive changes in you, do you relate to the person you were before you started doing practices? (Reply: No).
That was a completely different person. So this gives you complete confidence that you have never come down completely all the ten steps. You are somewhere four, five or six steps down the line.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Why struggle to forgive? Hold onto it for this lifetime and the next lifetime. You do not need to do anything which is difficult. Forgiveness is easy. Inside every criminal there is someone crying for forgiveness. Someone who does injustice never had the opportunity to grow spiritually. Spiritual education is so essential to bring about the human qualities.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Be well rested and have your heart in the right place. You need both mental and physical rest. Thinking “Oh I have done so much!” will only bore you down. Just know that you will have enough time and energy to do what you were born to do in this life.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
First, we are to fight against the evil of ignorance. There are so many problems in the society today – corruption, exploitation of environment, starvation, powers opposing spirituality, and anti humanity powers. These all have to be defeated.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Some think God is money. Many think money is God and very few know that God himself is money. God is love and when you have richness of love in you, you will see how abundance flows in life. There is a saying in sanskrit: ‘Udyoginam purush sindh mupayi tilaxmi’God comes to you in the form of money - wealth is a consort of God. Consort of God, spirit of God comes to you as abundance when you put effort, to one who is working and not to one who is lazy. And one who has confidence and courage. So the one who has courage and confidence, and who puts in effort will get money. Don’t keep buying lottery tickets and sit at home. This is the biggest problem - you want money but you don’t want to do anything. So we have to put in effort. Money is just a means not an end in itself. You will need that but is it everything? No. You may have a lot of money but if you can’t eat, you can’t sleep well at night then that money is of no use. It loses it’s utility. So many people come here who have a lot of wealth and are depressed. They want to quit everything, their job, everything.The World Health Organization (WHO) says that in the next 20 years, 40–45 percent of the population will be depressed. What’s the point in having so much money and prosperity in the world when so many people are getting depressed? That’s why you need to have balance in life, balance of material and spiritual life. Isn’t it? Often people think spirituality means do nothing and sit quietly. No, it is not so. You should work. Even in the ashram there are 600 people who work -day and night. There is no Sunday and no Monday for them and they work round the clock. People come here all the time and they work. Kitchen people are working so hard. The kitchen never takes rest. You have any idea how much food they cook everyday when there is no big program? 600 – 700 Kg of rice is being cooked daily, 70 Kg of salt is put in, and 100 kg of vegetables are cut every day. So much of work they do. The housing department works tirelessly. And they are still smiling. And there are people who go and work in the fields. They are working in slums. There are teachers who are working worldwide. They work day and night. In Karnataka, itself, we have 78 slums and there are many different classes being run, educational classes, computer classes. Seva is a part of spirituality and definitely you can’t do charity with an empty bowl. You need money for service. But here nobody worries about money and charity happens, everything happens spontaneously. So these are some of the things we need to keep in our mind. You have money, you earn money, it’s good but you should keep aside some part for charity, whatever your capacity is 3 – 10%. Keep it aside.Along with it do your spiritual practices daily.
Once in a year, keep seven days completely for spirituality and then you don’t sit and calculate money. You come here and be 100 percent here, and take care of your health, do yoga, pranayama, meditation and learning. It is a very common experience when businessmen come here leaving their jobs for some time and do seva, meditation and the advance course, they start getting better contracts. Their wealth on the other side starts increasing. What they used to get putting in a lot of effort, starts to happen with very less effort. That is when sattva in you rises. Sattva is positive harmony within you and when that dwells up, your work outside also becomes smother and better.