Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Q:
How can one attain Siddhis (power)? How does it affect a person to strive for Siddhis?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
A Sadhak or seeker will get many Siddhis on the path. However if you misuse them or start running behind them, you will be lost. Only when you are established, you can receive the true knowledge. One who knows never loses his equanimity.The tradition of the Masters (parampara) is very important. If anyone moves away from the parampara, it may seem good for some time, but then it brings lot of misery. A sadhak should toe the line of the parampara. The sign of a devotee and seeker is to pick up the best and not try to find all the negative things about others. But if someone cheats, misuses the powers, they undergo the consequences. This should not deter from the path. You move on the path of knowledge.
Q:
Krishna is ‘bhavana bhahit’. What does that mean?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You have used some phrase, you tell its meaning.God is hungry for feelings. He doesn’t need your sweets or flowers. So if you sit with feelings, that is enough. See Krishna everywhere. Lord Krishna says in the Gita, “Wherever you see in any form, I am there. I am knowledge in a knowledgeable person, wherever there is knowledge I am there, I am strength in the strong, beauty in the beautiful, all is me”. Read the Gita deeply and best is to meditate. Be a yogi, yogi is the best.Q:
How is self-dependence different from dispassion?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
How are these two terms related? (laughter). Total self-dependence is not possible. There is mutual dependence. You depend on a tailor for your clothes. A farmer is responsible for growing crops so you depend on him. If you fall ill you are taken to a doctor so you depend on a doctor also. You depend on your teachers for education. There is some extent of dependency in everything. Life is like this. But we also have to take a step ahead. Until we become useful to others, restlessness and sorrow continue to be there.What is dependency? One day your maid doesn’t turn up and you don’t clean up your house - then that is dependency. Whatever you can do, continue to do.
It is important that your self-dependency doesn’t turn out to be self-pride. “I won’t take anybody’s help ever and be all by myself”.
You are a responsible citizen, you have the responsibility of your family but your responsibility is only what you can do. What you cannot do is not your responsibility. If you are not a doctor then your responsibility is to call a doctor if needed and not to treat.
Whatever we can do and whatever we can do easily, that is our responsibility.
When the mind and intellect are expanded, you take on bigger responsibilities and when you take on more responsibility, more power comes to you. Nature grants you that.
Have you heard the story of ‘Prabhupaad’? At the age of 75, his Guru asked him to spread the name of Lord Krishna. At that age, he went to the US. He stayed on a ship for over a month. He lived in such difficult situations, in very cold surroundings, in somebody’s basement but that conviction was so strong in him that 1,000 people started to do Kirtan/Satsang (devotional singing) and chanting the Lord’s name. When one’s sankalpa/ intention is so strong, age doesn’t matter. Otherwise 25-30 year old youth say, ‘The system is not good, nothing happens.’ Ok, then keep sitting at home. Have that conviction I can rise above any situation and I will rise above any circumstances.
Q:
How do you feel to have the energetic field and wisdom?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Good! It is a very difficult question. You know wherever I go I feel I carry my own energetic field.Q:
How do we know that self realization has happened or not?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
What is the proof that you have pain in your leg? How do you come to know that you have pain in the leg? Once self realization happens then such questions will not arise. Asking others if you are self realized or not is ignorance. We don’t need any proof once self realization has happened. Like your pain is itself the proof, similarly self realization is itself the proof. But also don’t have fancies and imaginations of how self realization is going to be. Be simple, natural. You are, what you are, therefore relax. Self realization doesn’t happen by doing something but by relaxing and you can relax only after you have done something.Once you do pranayama, asanas, rajoguna nivrit hota hai (one rises above the rajoguna) and then satvaguna arises. When that happens, we can meditate and are awakened. Satvaguna will not arise till you sleep properly.
One can rise above tamoguna through rajoguna and to rise above rajoguna, one needs to relax and be active.
In the Bhagwad Geeta it is said, yuktahara-viharasya yoga bhavati siddhitah.
Samadhi is neither for those who oversleep nor for those who work with extreme wakefulness throughout the day. A balance has to be maintained.
* On Ananta Chaturdashi day, Ananta Padmanabha Swamy (Lord Vishnu) is worshipped.
Q:
My wife was not cooperative and we had a fight. I stepped outside briefly, but by the time I got back, she hung herself and committed suicide. Now I feel guilty, that I could have stopped her somehow. How can I overcome this grief?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Whatever happened, don't sit and brood over it. Each moment is the start of a new life.Whatever happened, had to happen, don't sit and think I could have done this or that, it is of no use.
Leave your burden, clear the mind, and move on.
Q:
What is the place of spirituality in life?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
If you want to watch television what would you choose - to see or hear first? Both simultaneously. Similarly, the spiritual path brings energy, enthusiasm, creativity and calmness in your life. They are absolutely essential. That is like body and mind, both go together.Life is a combination of ethereal and spiritual. Something not tangible and something very tangible, the body.
Q:
If we use valor to handle a situation, elders feel we have forgotten our manners. How to handle the situation?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Don’t justify your anger as valor. If you’re arrogant, and behave rudely, your behavior cannot be justified.Valor is an inner phenomenon. It gives immense patience, perseverance and inner strength.
It does not mean screaming, and shouting. Screaming, and shouting means you are weak.
If you’re really strong, you will just smile.
You move with confidence. You will be unfazed. That is valor.
This is one side of the story. The other side is that whatever you do, someone will criticize you. You will be blamed if you act, and even if you don’t act. If you speak, or don’t speak.
You can’t keep pleasing everyone.
If your focus is on finding shortcomings, either in yourself or in others, you cannot raise higher.
Recognize that if someone gives a comment, reflect on it. If there is some truth, accept it.
If not, then thank them and move on.
Don’t ask them why. Just say: ‘I appreciate your perception’ and move on.
Q:
What is sattva and what is it’s contribution in our lives?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Sattva means that which brings harmony, that which makes you happy, that which makes you enthusiastic, that which brings knowledge in you. This is all sattva.Rajas makes you go too much up and too much down. Either you get too excited and you feel I can’t even handle this excitement or it is so down. This is rajas.
Tamas is when you feel so lazy and so negative that you don’t want anything. You dislike everybody. That is tamogun. So When you feel tamogun get up and start working, then rajogun
will come. Then when you are too much into action, I would say just sit back and
relax then you will get into satva. So, before meditation do some exercise. When
you do all this the restlessness or rajas in you calms down. Then you are able
to meditate. Didn’t it happen to you today? (Audience:Yes). How many enjoyed the
meditation. Raise your hands (Lots of people raised their hands). You meditated
nearly 20 minutes.
Q:
I am beginning to experience the futility of existence. Why am I here? There is confusion, what should I do?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Good Luck! It is good luck when the small identity dissolves and the bigger is attained. Everybody seeks pleasure for the mind (mann), but having a pleasant consciousness is something else! Every single part of the body is soaked in pleasantness. There is a difference between entertainment and enjoyment. Entertainment brings you short term happiness. Meditation penetrates the whole body in the form of vibrations.We assume that our likes and thought patterns, desires and frustrations are our identity. When that dissolves, one begins to wonder “who am I?”. This is OK, it is the first step. However, you need to establish yourself in Sadhana(spiritual practices) and the knowledge. Satsang is very important. All the scriptures also explain the importance of Satsang, otherwise the mind tends to wander and get lost in other things.
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