Preguntas & Respuestas con Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Sri Sri: Yes, you do Kriya, that is good enough and afterwards if you are being initiated, do the Gayatri Japa.
Gayatri Japa means – Let my intellect be inspired by the Divine.
It is our intellect which blocks the vast Divinity from expressing itself fully in life.
So, the prayer is, ‘May the Divine inspire my intellect. May the Supreme Energy manifest in my life and in my intellect.’
And in Upanayanam, they usually put a thread on you and the thread is to signify that you have a responsibility towards the knowledge, towards your parents and towards society. So it signifies carrying your responsibilities on the shoulders.
A young boy, before he goes to study, they make him realize that, 'You have the responsibility.’ And then the child studies and comes back.
When you have finished all your responsibilities, in Sanyasa, then they remove the thread and throw it.
If you are a recluse, then you don’t have the thread. This is a system that has been followed from a long time.

Sri Sri: No, don’t fight. The body needs medicines, just take them, relax and be happy. If you have taken a step into spirituality, what you need to remember is – in any condition let me be happy, wherever I am, however I am, I want to be happy. I will be happy, I will keep smiling, and even if I have to go through a tough time, I will go through it with a smile – this one thought, this one determination you should have.

Sri Sri: We have designed a course for that. It is called KYC – Know Your Child and KYT – Know Your Teen. It is just for two hours per day, for two days. You will get many beautiful ideas in this course. It has become so popular all over because it is very effective.
Our relationship with our children changes and the way they respond to you also changes.

Sri Sri: Give them some time, let them take a break and recharge them self to show you their care back again. People do need a little bit of recharging again and again.
You have drawn all that love and attention from them and it needs a little more time to get recharged. Just know they are recharging their batteries. If you demand from someone to show you their love, it is not going to work. On the contrary, it will be counterproductive. So never demand and never question, ‘Why don’t you love me?’ Don’t say that.
In fact, you should say the other way around, ‘Why do you love me so much? I don’t deserve it. Why do you love me so much? You love me too much, I can’t take it anymore.’ Tell them this and you will see everything changes. You know, it is such a burden for someone to prove their love for you.
Suppose someone tells you the same thing, ‘I don’t think you love me, come on show me.’
Then you will think, ‘Oh my God, how should I prove that I really love him.’ It is such a burden and nobody wants to carry such a burden on their head all the time.
Everyday you come home and prove that you really love your spouse at home. No! Take it for granted and move on. Don’t try to make someone accountable to prove their love for you.

Sri Sri: Yes, parallel universes are talked about. There are 14 worlds and they are parallel, one inside the other. Right here there could be many universes. The Pitra Loka is not somewhere else, it is right here. That is why our senses only analyze a few things – tanmatras.
There is a little bit of all the five elements present in our senses and because of their presence we are able to see and experience this. Like our tanmatra of light is different from the tanmatra of an owl. So if it is very dark outside, you can’t see, but an owl can see.
Tanmatras of bats is even different. Where you cannot see anything, bats can see. Its ability to perceive is different. You will need a torch to move around in your room when everything is dark, but a cat doesn’t need it, it will find its way. So, our all our five sensory perceptions are based on something called tanmatras – our frequency.
We are tuned to a particular frequency, but the universe is of infinite frequencies.

Sri Sri: Well, in Buddha’s time there were many concepts of God. Many people had read all the Upanishad.
You should remember all of Buddha’s followers were high intellectuals in contrast to the followers of Jesus; they were all fishermen; simpletons. But Buddha’s followers were well read high intellectuals, so they all knew about God; they knew about Brahman, they knew about Atma, they knew about everything. And when you start talking and discussing, it will only remain on that level.
Again, since there were so many schools of thought, if he would approve of any one school of thought then the other schools of thought will say, ‘No that is not that way,’ and then they would all go away from him. So Buddha was very clever, he said, ‘Let me not talk about all these different schools of thought. People will all come and really enjoy and find the truth for themselves’, because they were all stuck there as they all studied in big universities. There were big universities at that time, thousands of people were studying, and they studied all the different schools of thought, scriptures, medicine and everything. India was at its peak at that time.
So Buddha said, ‘I am not going to get into this argument. I just want to give them a simple technique.’ Like what we do. We don’t talk about a belief system, religion or anything. We simply say, ‘Just do Sudarshan Kriya’, and everybody does it – Muslims, Jewish people, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, everyone does it and they find the true experience of being hallow and empty.
So that is why Buddha said, ‘No, I am not going to speak about God.’ That was the right thing to do at that time.

Whereas Jesus was different, in his time there was only one school of thought there, in the village where he was teaching, and they all believed in God. Judaism was the only school of thought and they all depended on only that one book. So he spoke on the same lines of God, and then he introduced them to the knowledge without negating it.
Do you see what I am saying?
Moreover, his followers were very simple people. They did not even have that deep study of different scriptures. So it was easy, they all were charmed by the simple message of God is Love, and they followed.

Lord Buddha did exactly what he had to do and it was absolutely fine. That is why later on also, when Adi Shankara and other saints came, they found that there really is no difference between what Buddha said and what the Upanishads say. So India never became a Buddhist country because what Buddha said was already present.
Buddha never started a religion by himself; he lived as a Hindu monk. He became a Hindu monk and died also as a Hindu monk only. But afterwards Buddhism became a separated religion. He was just a reformer of the Hindu Sanatana, the ancient way of life. It was not even called a religion but just a way of life. He was part of the ancient way of life, and then it became a religion afterwards when it left India.
The influence of Lord Buddha was so much afterwards that people started forgetting all the Upanishads and everything, then Adi Shankara from the tradition, he came and he re-established Yoga and Vedanta. Adi Shankara said only thing, it is just one flip over and that is all that happened. Buddha said everything is emptiness. ‘I went deep in meditation and I searched but I could not find any Soul or any Self.’ This was his last sentence.
Adi Shankara said it in a different way, referring to Self as an object or as a substance. So Adi Shankara turned it around and he said, ‘Who could not find the Self, that is the Self, and this Self is all bliss, it is space.’
And then he just brought this whole knowledge, this philosophy back. Till this point, everything else said in Buddhism is the same – I am not the body, I am not the mind, I am not this, I am not this – and then when you go to the center core, Buddha said, ‘There is nothing’, and Adi Shankara said, ‘There is everything. This is the spirit, this is consciousness, and the consciousness is in one place, and every place.’
So in short, just like Jesus, Adi Shankara also lived only for 32 years and in those 32 years, he traveled the length and breadth of what is India today, several times.
In those days there were no vehicles, no cell phones, nothing. So it is said, any direction Adi Shankara would walk there would be victory there, there would be celebration, because 500 years after Buddha, people became very pessimistic. It is said that people were not taking interest in anything in life. They said, ‘Life is anyways sorrow, life is misery, so we don’t have to do anything.’
So, the military was not there, the Kings were all discouraged, the celebration aspect simply vanished. People were only talking about Anitya – Everything is impermanent so just become hallow and empty. This was the only slogan that was being said throughout. But Adi Shankara said, ‘Come on, it is impermanent, but there is something permanent as well, so let everyone celebrate, sing, dance.’
Then he started Bhaja Govindam, and then music, dance, culture and all these things were re-introduced by Adi Shankara.

Sri Sri: You know, though the education system is not perfect, we are compelled to go with the flow, because only then your child will get a job. They will get an academic recognition. Even in medical science, there are many textbooks that were written long ago but are being taught today. Today’s modern medicine has made many things irrelevant, but we still go on studying the old textbooks.
Yesterday, I heard that there are some 43 genes that cause heart problems, but our medical science only knows five or six. They think of only those parameters. They don’t know the other parameters.

So, science is being updated every day. New researchers are coming up and old paradigms have become obsolete. There is a paradigm shift, but children are still studying the same syllabus in schools and colleges. It takes quite a while for them to update the syllabus.
For example, in history there was an Aryan invasion theory, which said that Aryans came from central Asia and invaded India. Today, they have proved that to be wrong and a complete falsehood. But still, the textbook carries the same story. It may take another decade for them to change all this. But there is no option. If someone says, ‘No, I will not study this, I will do it on my own’, they will not get a degree. They will not get a job. They will not even be considered as an educated person, though they may be more knowledgeable. If you are just studying for your own hobby, for your own joy, for gaining knowledge and wisdom, you don’t need any academics. But when you are seeking it as a profession, seeking a job, you will have to go with the flow.

In the past, several wise men have tried this. Many people have been experimenting this, but the success of this project is a big question mark. We don’t know how many children who have studied there have gotten a job and have become successful in their careers. They may have, but it is a big question mark.
Home schooling is good in America; more and more people are doing home schooling. I am not saying no, but you may have to find out about it. If you have a family business, then degrees don’t matter at all, because your children will anyways manage the family business. Then they can do anything they want.

Sri Sri: You should work for making a living. But for joy, you should do some service. Engage yourself in any social service. You will find that it brings you contentment and happiness. I knew this question was coming, so I said that there is joy in giving. Find the joy in giving rather than taking.

Sri Sri: Difficult?! My goodness! This is the smoothest, effortless and easiest. Other jobs are very difficult. I go for the easiest things in the world. It is so comfortable and so easy, you can smile your way through, dance your way through. It is the other things in the world that you have to do that is difficult. When you have to fulfill a desire of yours, it is so difficult. But in the spiritual path, dropping the desire is so easy. You drop it and then you forget about it.