Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Q:
How to develop a sense of humor?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
By being relaxed. Have an attitude where nothing matters - only then humor arises. When things matter a lot, then your mind is tensed, you are goal-oriented. There is a part of you to which nothing matters. You are a combination of the nothing matters to everything matters. Have both! If everything matter, then there is no humor. If nothing matters then too, there is no humor. Don’t try to impress somebody. You will be fail miserably. When comedians try to make someone laugh - it appears unintelligent and foolish, childish humor. Those who are intelligent and mature, humor is natural to them.Q:
God is in the details, but we should also have a broad outlook. How do we combine the two?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
There is happiness in detail. When the heart is heavy, and the head is like a stone, there is no place for subtlety or details. When the heart is light, then you experience love, and happiness. There is no subtlety in sorrow.Being light is being dense, and being dense is also being light. When you go deep in meditation, you will experience both density, and subtlety. That is why so many processes are required to go deeper within you.
In surrender, we feel subtle. Love is subtle, and work is dense. After lunch, we experience heaviness. In the morning we feel fresh, and subtle.
Q:
Are you optimistic like Jimmy Wales?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
I am realistic. Optimism is just hope but when you see it is possible it is practical then I think I am realistic. It is going to happen. People cannot stand tension or stress for too long, somewhere one has to give up. You cannot hold a fist for so long at some point you have to relax and when you relax you see the whole sky is in your hands. This has already begun in the world. Take a look at France and Germany, and in Western Europe. There were so many conflicts in the previous era but now the borders are gone. It has become one currency yet it was unthinkable in the 19th Century. So in the same way I am sure the Middle East crisis could be solved through educating people with a multicultural, multi-religious and broader spectrum of knowledge.Q:
Is it true that I have to love myself before others love me?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
My dear, you are love when you relax. Let go of the feverishness and desire. You are love. You don’t have to sit and say to yourself, ‘I am love’. You don’t have to make an effort. It is a noun. Your name is love. During a course in Switzerland, I was talking on the yoga sutras of Patanjali. A couple of participants went to have acappuccino during the break time. Nearby they met people, who said that they used to follow some other path and they were exchanging notes. They said, ‘We wake up at 3:00 in the morning. Sit and repeat I love myself for about an hour!’ We sleep well and love ourselves!If someone tells you, ‘you don’t love yourself’ – it is not true. Even if you are inflicting misery upon yourself, even then you love yourself because misery brought attention to you. When you understand this you will snap out of this tendency.
Q:
Guruji, why don’t I have same experience in doing meditation here and at home?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Places do have an impact – that’s only in beginning. The stronger you become, you start influencing places instead of places affecting you.Q:
Sometimes I am confused whether it’s my mind or whether it’s my true self. How do I clarify which is which?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You know doubts always come when something is positive. Do you know about it? How many of you don’t know? Raise your hands. You know if someone tells you ‘I love you very much’. You say ‘Really’? But if someone tells you ‘I hate you’, you never say ‘really’, - correct? And similarly you doubt your capabilities; you never doubt your weaknesses. If someone asks you are you happy you say oh I’m not too sure. But you’re so sure about your depression. Correct? So that’s why our doubt is always about something that is positive. We doubt in the honesty of someone, we never doubt in the dishonesty of someone.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:
When I am so stressed, how can I get it out of my system?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
When you are so stressed, you begin thinking: ‘Oh, I want to get this stress out of the system.’ This hurry in getting it out becomes an even bigger stress. It doesn’t go. You know, when you are stressed, just embrace the stress and relax.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:
Please explain about the Chidambara rahasya.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Chidambaram is the place of Shiva symbolizing the akash tattva (the principle of space). Space is formless. In the sanctum sanctorium of this temple, there is a veil. Beyond the veil there is nothing, empty space. We can only know the secret of Shiv tattva by going within.There are three types of space that is described. Bhutakash – the physical body, Chittakash – thoughts and emotions and Chidakash – the vast, Supreme Consciousness. The life-force energy is awakened in the Chidakash. The secret of the Chidambara can only be experienced through self-effort on the spiritual path.
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