Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Don’t let it affect you. When you say somebody is insensitive, you are branding yourself as very sensitive. The moment you give a license to yourself to be very sensitive, you start to justify yourself when you get upset. The world is big and there are all sorts of people in the world. We have to live with all and work with them.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Sometimes you think you have too many thoughts. If you want your mind to be still then you need to do abhyasa (practice) and vairagya (dispassion).Through practice and dispassion you can meditate. An over ambitious mind kills the spirit. Listening to knowledge for 15 to 20 minutes a day and doing the practice will ensure to you get into meditation.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Why do you think that one cannot be happy and married? Why cannot you be happy and married as well? There are many bachelors who are not happy, and also there many married people who are happy. Happiness is an attitude which you chose. It all depends just on you. There are people with no jobs but are happy. There are people with jobs and are unhappy. Be wise and be happy. Do whatever – married, unmarried, employed, unemployed…But independent of what you are doing, you need to be happy.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Sing, observe nature, and observe your thoughts. Look at nature as though you are looking at it for the first time – look at the trees, and look at the birds.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
See, the moment you knew it was obsession, you already got over it. OK? So, it is OK to draw attention for a while but you don’t have to draw attention all the time. You be happy, be centered, keep doing service, sadhna, satsang. Don’t sit and do analysis –“Was it devotion or was it hallucination?”- Analysis makes it even worse. Just be natural, move on, and take it as it comes-OK? Got it? See, we always get what we need. This basic principal we must keep in mind and keep moving.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Three dimensions will bring peace. There should be spirituality in politics, corporate social responsibility in business and secularism in religion.This is deeply ingrained in our minds.Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela are examples of secularism in religion and spirituality in politics.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Your desire to have no desire to ask questions is a desire in itself. This is a problem. Jo jaisa hai theek hai - this is sanmati. (Whatever is there, however it is, it is alright. This is called sanmati or right mindedness.) Whether or not you have a question, it’s alright. Whether you get an answer or you don’t, it’s alright. ‘Everything is alright’ is the path of nivriti. Often we say, ‘This is not ok, that is not ok’ and then we retreat in ourselves. In that state you can’t rest. Because when you find something is not ok, your whole tendency is to act towards it. And you are trying to rest while restraining from action with an attitude of action. This causes tension and lack of deep rest.We need to have two attitudes in life - pravriti and nivriti.
It is important to go within when you are tired of working in the world. Nature has made it that way: 12-hour day and 12-hour night. At some places like in the North and South Poles, the night is of around four hours and the day is around 18 to 20 hours. But then in winters, it gets reversed and day is only of four to five hours. So nature maintains that balance. 12 hours day and 12 hours night is the law of nature. Night itself means retiring from any kind of effort. Day symbolizes pravriti and night symbolizes nivriti.
Viveka (discrimination) is to understand what pravriti is and what nivriti is. We think nivriti is getting retired from your job at the age of 60 and being on a holiday. No, the Vedas say, ‘Again and again, adopt the path of nivriti.’ To go within and rest after getting tired of doing work is nivriti.
There are two types of rest. One is inert rest that we get in sleep. It does give some rest but the mind doesn’t get complete rest. Another is conscious rest: you are resting but inside you are aware and alert, that is meditation. Resting with awareness and conscious sleep is meditation.
Meditative rest is far superior for that alone brings real rest to the system. When we want to go into meditation, then the attitude that needs to be adopted is ‘everything is ok'. There is no lack and 'I don’t want anything at this moment’. When you think ‘everything is ok’, your mind calms down and you go within.
Now when you go within, you get lot of happiness, satisfaction, joy and peace, then you have to come to the path of pravriti. So pravriti is when you find things are not ok or perfect and nivriti is when you repose in the Self and find all is well and perfect. This knowledge comes to you with spiritual practices.
The human species is designed in such a way that no one can ever be in only nivriti or only pravriti. Both will continue to coexist in life. When we come to pravriti, we find this is not ok, that is not ok and nothing is ok. Only then do we get to work. And we correct things. (Points out very minute imperfections in the surroundings) Small and little things catch your attention and you feel like correcting everything. This is pravriti. But if someone gets stuck only in this attitude then, even with eyes closed one thinks of imperfections only and can’t go into nivriti. This makes one mad and full of stress. This is called asuri vriti.
Lord Sri Krishna has said this in the Gita. A person with tamoguna tendencies doesn’t know when to follow which of the two paths. He doesn’t have discrimination in him. While working, he thinks everything is going well. This is an example of using nivriti in pravriti. He thinks corruption is also ok, it is anyway present. He doesn’t work and adopts an attitude of indifference. He thinks what does he have to do with tasks getting accomplished or not. And then he uses the concept of pravriti in nivriti. The whole night he thinks and worries. Thinking alone doesn’t accomplish any task. When you think something is not ok and do not do anything about, it disturbs your health. When both the attitudes are taken together then your tasks get accomplished skillfully, successfully and without any stress.
It is also said in the Gita that the intelligent one knows what the right attitude is for retirement, nivriti. When you want to go inward, meditate or contemplate, the attitude you need to adopt is ‘not a grain of grass moves without God’s will’. Everything is ok and perfect. Then the mind settles down and you get deep rest and sink deep into meditation. Once you get out of meditation you become sharp and alert, and detect even small imperfections. When you find imperfections, you can correct them. Your mind will pick minute things and work to bring about perfection in every small thing. The ability in the human mind to shift from ‘everything is ok’ to ‘everything is not ok’ and vice versa is a skill in itself that one has to master. And that is what spiritual practices do to you. You are able to switch off to an attitude of ‘everything is ok’ so that you get deep rest and attain meditation. And you can never be in meditation all the time because you have to switch from inaction to action. Activity and rest are two sides of the human personality and you need both for human evolution.
You are also not to think ‘nothing is ok’. In nivriti you think, ‘God is looking after everything.’ This way by not letting the mind get stuck in either of the two, you bring back the mind to its source. This is an art. The whole life you will have to walk on this. How to meditate? Even amidst difficulties, you switch off your mind. This way you will find half of your task anyway gets accomplished and whatever rest is pending can always be done with the attitude of pravriti. So both are required.
Nature has brought in such a balance. In summer, days are longer and in the winter nights are longer. So somewhere nature maintains that balance. In one place it is cold and elsewhere, it is hot. So heat and cold, day and night, all are brought in some balance in nature. And it is telling you, in so many ways, that you have to balance between activity and rest in life.
Often people worry about their next births. The good work is not given for next birth. Work needs to be finished in this life time only. Just be happy. Be happy in pravriti.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
‘Yes!+’ and ‘Yes We Can’ programs are good for that. We have ‘Yes We Can’ program in Europe. 140 youths from all over Europe participated. You should see how they came, and how they are after the program, how much self-esteem they gained.You know, in companies the big difficulty is the middle people, someone in between the supervisors. They want to gain the favor of the top management, so they complain about people below them. Then people below them complain about the boss and everything becomes messier. Many companies broke down because of that; because of lack of skillful, honest communication. There is no honest and skillful communication. You have to tell your boss your honest opinion and he will appreciate you because of that. First, he may not like it, but later on he will appreciate you. If you tell him lies and one day he discovers that you misled him, then he will be unhappy with you also. So, a skillful presentation of facts, honest, even if it is bitter, and put in nice manners, is needed. These skills come when you become a yogi, skillful in action. Yoga means skill in action. When does this come? It comes when you unite with your Self in meditation.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Through meditation.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
(Jokingly) You want me to add more confusion to the words and give you one more definition! If I have a choice I would take away all the definitions and leave you in confusion because from that confusion something flowers up in you. My understanding is not going to help you. It has to come from within you. When you wake up and see, you will be surprised. I would like you to experience that WOW. Don’t make it a concept. If you don’t know what enlightenment is, thank God and say ‘ I don’t know what enlightenment is. Let me wait for it.’ It is the concepts that keep us away from experiencing the reality. That’s what I feel.