Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Q:
The history of ancient India is filled with the accounts of enlightenment, yogis taking on supernatural states of awareness and capabilities. Yet, to help me understand, how does one interpret such stories? Are these methodologies with allegorical significance, or they point to the untapped potential hidden in each one of us?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Do you know about the first airplane? Who flew the first airplane? (‘Wright brothers’ came the answer). This is what we hear or read in the books. Absolutely wrong. 50 years before Right brothers, one man from Bangalore, Subray Shastry, he went into meditation, in silence and then he went to meet a yogi. The yogi took him to deeper meditation, and he started recognizing the engines, he downloaded all that! He wrote a book called ‘Vaimanik Shastra’ and then he flew the plane in 1800 with a parsi gentleman. Parsis are the migrants of Iran to India who follow Zoroastrian religion. The parsi gentleman funded him to make the first plane. They flew it on the chaupati beach in Mumbai (or Bombay). This appeared in the ‘London times’ newspaper also. These two were put in jail by Colonial power, and they took and confiscated all the diagrams that he had made. A documentary of this came on television recently, with the newspaper cutting from England and the diagrams that he had cognized. He had made five different diagrams and this is available even today in a book called ‘Bhardawaj Vaimanik Shastra’ – The science of plane by Rishi Bhardawaj. He explained what type of engine that a plane has which takes off straight like a helicopter, and one which goes running and then takes off.You can find all the details in the website http://www.bharathgyan.com/
More from the same conversation in the next post..
Q:
Can you please tell how does one get rid of doubt?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You know, doubt is always about something that is positive. You always doubt the honesty of a person, and never doubt the dishonesty of a person. When someone tells you, "I love you", you ask really? When someone tells you, “I hate you”, you never ask them really. Isn’t it? You are not sure about your happiness. When someone asks about our happiness, we say, "Well, I am not sure." But we are so sure of our depression. We never doubt our weakness, we always doubt our capabilities. If you observe, all good things like love, happiness, honesty, and sincerity are being doubted. So, any doubt must be good.Q:
How to control desire?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Be in the now. Desire is wanting to be happy tomorrow. Be happy and joyful now. Like children, if you ask them what they want, they will say nothing. Because they are happy with 'now'.Q:
Whenever I see you, tears start to roll down the eyes. I feel as if I know you since ages. Is it true?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
: You are doubting your own experience. Then it is surely true. We doubt the positive, and not the negative. We doubt somebody’s honesty. Nobody has ever doubted dishonesty of a person. Same way, if somebody asks you if you are happy, you say, “I don’t know whether I am happy or not”. But we are so sure of our depression. We doubt in the existence of God. We never doubt in the existence of this changeable and mortal world. Evolved scientists understand that there is a question mark on the apparently looking reality.Q:
Why does a desire arise? Where does it come from? What is the purpose?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
All desires have got one goal, and that is happiness. If a desire brings unhappiness, it has not reached its goal. The goal of desires is to bring happiness. So, that is the purpose.Where does it come from? It comes when you are not aware of your Being, your Self. Desire is your wanting to stay in the moment. Desire is to experience joy. Joy is only in the moment. And when you are in the moment, there is no desire. When you are joyful, when you are satisfied, there is no burning desire at that time.
Q:
How to transform negative energies into positive energies?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
That is what we all have to do, and that is what we are doing. Let us get more and more youth together and change this atmosphere in society.Q:
What is the difference between Lord Shankar and Lord Krishna? Some worship Shiva while others worship Krishna?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
There are different forms and names, but they all are same.Q:
For doing any work, I think Guruji is asking me to do it. It works, but it has hampered my normal living.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You should have a balance - what your inner voice says, what your gut feeling is, and then use your inner strength rest of the time. The one hampering you-that’s called ‘yoga maya’. Sometimes ‘yoga maya’ comes in mind and says things which are not correct also. That’s why we shouldn’t lose our intellectual discrimination ability while ordering and understanding to inner dimensional consciousness. This state happened to Sri Ramkrishna Paramhansa also, and to many enlightened people in the world that the inner vision comes, a voice comes. So, go with a balance. Go slow with both intellect and feelings. Got it? Your feelings are as important as your intellect. Many people survive only on intellect and some survive only on feelings. The best thing in life is to have a balance between emotions and intellect, between heart and the mind.Q:
Dearest guruji, this is the first time I am seeing so much of your blessed glory. Can you tell me how to learn to love myself and respect myself so that I can become a good mother. I inflict harm on my body because I don’t feel worthy. What should I do? Your answer would be most appreciated. Jai Gurudev.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
First of all, don’t think you don’t love yourself. Who says this? Even a person who commits suicide loves himself too much, that’s why he commits suicide. Such a person doesn’t want pain, can’t tolerate pain. So, when people who can’t bear some little pain or suffering, and want only happiness, they commit suicide. They love themselves too much. They don’t love others. If the person who is committing suicide loves his mother or daughter or wife or husband or his near and dear one, how would he/she commit suicide? If one care for others, he/she would never commit suicide.They should know if they hang themselves, they will bring problem to his/her fellow beings making them miserable and sad. So, one commits suicide because of loving oneself too much.So, never doubt your love for yourself. Who says you don’t love yourself? It’s impossible, because you are love.It’s only misplaced. Somewhere you don’t get it right. And you are in the right place. As of now, not a single mother is born on this planet who is bad. As a mother, don’t think that you are a bad mother. Impossible! So, just relax and move on with your work.Don’t analyze too much about what happened because there is always imperfection in any action we do. This is an important thing to know. No action, whatever, on this planet earth is perfect. Every action has a dot of imperfection in it. But we should keep acting. Even the worst act has got a good dot in it, whereas the best action has got one flaw in it. It’s either 98 percent good and 2 percent bad or 2 percent good and 98 percent bad. This is what happens in all the actions. So don’t focus so much on the flaws in an action. Keep acting, as long as it is 98 percent good. Ya?Q:
Children don’t care about their parents when they grow up. So many old age homes are there. Where do we fail as parents and what is your advice to parents so that this situation could be controlled?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
That is why I am saying these three types of trust are very important – Trust in oneself, in goodness of others and in the Divine. A little bit of religion, moral and spiritual values, and the way you treat your parents and ask them to treat their grandparents can make an impact on them. So, you tell your children to take care of their grandparents. They will start doing that way.
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Founded in 1981 by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar,The Art of Living is an educational and humanitarian movement engaged in stress-management and service initiatives.
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