Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Inspiration is that which comes from within.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Live naturally. All Art of Living points are from life’s experience. There is no effort in it. Do some meditation, yoga you will see how life has transformed effortlessly and automatically.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Parmatma is the sun, devta is its ray. Without the sun, there is no ray and without the ray, there is no sun. A ray has all seven colors, these all different devtas. God is the combination of all the seven colors. God is certainly not made of one color. When all colors combine, white is obtained and that is Parmatma. You can understand this like different organs - eyes, ears, nose, all combine to form you. Your eyes are different from ears, your nose is different from tongue but all is part of you. The totality of the whole creation, with all the energies is given a name and it is called Parmatma, Parampita (supreme father). In ancient terminology, God is called Parmatma, Parampita.Why only Parampit , He is also Parammata (Supreme mother).Why should God be called father only? God is also the mother. God is father, mother and God is also the Self. All Gods, goddesses are like rays of the sun, one sunlight and all the rays together is God but these are all different aspects of God. All are different aspects of the one Divine like in one human being, one cell somewhere becomes the eyes, somewhere the ears, somewhere the nose, and all this has happened from one fertilized cell, embryo. So, God is the sum total of all Divine elements and in the Vedic times, ancient rishis identified all these elements and called then devtas. They designated 33 types of Divine energy and called them devta and they tell how these are connected with the cosmos, like the eyes are connected with the sun. They established connection between the micro cosmos and macro cosmos. …It is very amazing analysis, amazing science of unity of the universe. It is not too many Gods, it is aspects of God. Though you are one, you have different functions. When you sleep you are different, when you smile you are different, when you eat, you are different. Crore means category, 33 crores means 33 categories of devas. Crore is also a number, 10 million but here it is not referred to as a number. 33 crore means 330 million and so people started taking that way.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Should we do something bigger than Silver Jubilee? (A big yes from the audience) Yes, why not? Next year in 2011, the Art of Living will complete 30 years, 3 decades . Let’s see. We will plan something. You also plan. Let us make a pool of ideas.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
One thing we need to remember is that the whole story will be finished here! All of us will be gone! We will all go under ground. Life will come to an end, right? If we look back and see so many people we once knew are now gone. Those who were with us, they are all finished. More will go. Everybody will go and one day we will also be gone. This is the permanent truth, the definite truth in life.I was just thinking today is my mother’s 10th death anniversary. Already 10 years have passed! Time goes, things change, when we see life from a broader angle what is emotional hurt then? Somebody said something and it hurt us and we cried; somebody said a good thing and we laughed. What’s the big deal about it? Sometimes you’ve said something and it hurt someone, but that was not your intention. Hasn’t this happened to you? How many of you have experienced this? You have scolded your daughter/son many times haven’t you? What if they hold on to that all their life and say I will not forget that you hurt me. What would you say to them? “Come on let it go, I didn’t mean it”. Isn’t it? Or “I was stressed I was upset, I was not in a good mood so I said something”. Don’t you expect people to let go of the hurt that you have caused them?
You want people to let go of the hurt you caused them. In the same way don’t you have to let go of the pain they have caused you? If someone has hurt you earlier, it is due to selfishness and because they don’t know how vast life is, how beautiful life is. They are selfish because they are afraid. They are selfish or self-centered because they don’t have knowledge in their lives. Nobody taught them how to love people, how to be silent, how to be in this beautiful knowledge. It is not their fault. Is it their fault? If you have not learnt how to read and write, is it your fault? Society teaches you. Your teachers, parents take you to school, make you learn and then you learn. In the same way there was no system for them to learn about life from a broader angle. So you can only be compassionate towards them. They have not had a chance to learn, there was no guide, no teacher. They were not exposed to spirituality. They were not exposed to mannerisms. So they were small-minded selfish people. That was their up-bringing. So what will you hold on to? “Oh you hurt me!” Come on let go! Life is moving. When you die, you will be asked two things: How much love have you given and how much knowledge have you acquired in your life? It shouldn’t matter what others have done to you but from your side you should be compassionate. If people are good towards you, be happy. If they do wrong, have compassion. Life can only swing between happiness and compassion. There is no third option. In our life we have lost people who have been very dear to us. What do we do? That is how life has been designed. We move on. We will also die one day. So let’s move on with commitment. When we are sad, we pray for strength and when we are happy we pray for the strength to serve.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Serve, serve and serve to break from attachment. When you find something beautiful, you get attached. You want to posses it. When we try to posses, then it becomes ugly. Beauty is that which you cannot renounce/reject or capture. That’s why it is called beautiful.Serve, instead of wanting to posses. Whatever is beautiful we want to posses it, and then jealousy comes, pain comes. When you find something beautiful, just serve.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
In silence, in service.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
This could also be a dream. Are you sure this is not a dream? (laughter). Whenever something nice happens, it appears to be a dream.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
It’s a matter of culture. It creates an atmosphere with a sense of joy. There is nothing wrong in celebration, fire crackers etc. Traditional practices help and bring a sense of belongingness to family and children.In the houses of Maoists, there are no pictures or lamps. When children grow up (in such an environment), they grow up with a lot of emptiness.
In Russia, there was no religion for 40 years. There was a destruction of cathedrals and they built a swimming pool on that. Now, after that catastrophe, they re-built the church. If people don’t practice religion, they start feeling the vacuum. And finally religion helps them understand this.
For spirituality – there is no need of religious practices.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Don’t love them. Just accept them. First accept and then see the culprit not as a culprit but a victim. Due to circumstances they did so. If they would have had wisdom they wouldn’t have done it.Just a few days ago, a lady came to the ashram. She has three children and her husband was killed by Maoists. Later she became an Art of Living teacher and when she went back, she taught the Maoists Sudarshan Kriya and pranayama. Maoists were so amazed. They asked her: ‘You are not angry with us, we killed your husband?’ She said, ‘No, you didn’t have knowledge of what you were doing. I want you to be in knowledge’. They all did Sudarshan Kriya, pranayama and left the path of violence. They were crying in front of her like babies. The way she described brought tears in everybody’s eyes. All those 2000 people present had tears in eyes.
This is the power of wisdom. It unites people of all roles and attitudes.