Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Q:
Thank you for coming here today and I appreciate it very much and I know all of us do. I want to speak a little bit about imagination. Someone said that if one person is unhappy I couldn’t become totally happy. I think it was a poet from Britain - Shirley.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Imagination is mother of creativity. You want to be creative first you need to imagine, this is number one. Second, you don’t have to see that I will never be happy unless everyone in the world becomes happy. If a doctor says I can’t be healthy unless everyone becomes healthy, then who will make the others healthy? Suppose if the doctor himself falls sick what will happen to the patient? So in order to make people happy you should be happy. If you are happy you can make others happy. It is not the other way around. You can’t say I can’t be happy because everybody else is unhappy. It’s like doctors are saying I can’t be healthy because everyone else is sick in the hospital. Got it? So if others are sick, never mind, you be happy and make others happy; spread your happiness. You can only spread what you have. If you are happy you can spread happiness. If you yourself are upset, angry, dejected, unhappy, how can you help others? Yes! So how do you find your inner happiness? By going deep inside; meditating. For few minutes cutting off from your environment and realizing your center, that is so stable and strong; beautiful! Getting to your own center you get to the souse of happiness. Then you come out and spread that happiness with everybody. This is what spirituality is all about; attending to that spirit which is the source of happiness, beauty, peace, love and joy. And then come out and spread that to people all around you.Q:
I know I am searching for something but I don’t know what am I searching for?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
I have a simple suggestion for you. Just take out two hours for four days and attend one of the Art of Living Basic programs and do Sudarshan Kriya. Once you do Sudarshan Kriya you will see that there is a deeper spirit within you. You will be able to experience it and it is a fantastic experience. How many of you have already done Sudarshan Kriya raise your hands? Am I correct? How many of you agree with me, it’s a great experience? How many of you think others should definitely have this experience? (Many raise their hands). So everyone should experience this, it’s such a beautiful experience of your spirit. And if you know this you can handle your mind so well. So take that time off, two hours, four days and there are very good highly qualified teachers here. They will take you through that inner journey and you would not get this experience in you life. Am I correct? Okay! Wonderful! Continue spreading peace, love and joy and I am with you. And I invite all of you to come to India whenever it’s convenient to you. I am sure in the month of February where you would like to have more sun here. So you are most welcome to come to India in February, March, January; and we all belong to each other.Q:
I think about you all through the day, every second, is this a defect in me or is it okay?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Well, it’s not possible to think all through the day. If the thought comes now and then, here and there, then they come and they go. Treat them like any other thought that comes and goes, doesn’t matter. We are all united in a very subtle level beyond the thoughts. Thoughts coming and going is natural. You can’t do anything about it.Q:
Gurudev, I was thinking since you spoke about Pakistan, so don’t you think Art of Living is a better option than educational reforms in Pakistan because any educational reform in my opinion is going to cover people of age group, let us say, five to twenty five; any one older than that might be reluctant to go to school or attend educational seminars or things like that, but Art of Living is such that it covers the whole range of population?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
That is what we are doing. We are educating people in all levels.Q:
We are using a very small percentage of our brain now, how to increase that?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You at the right place! And you will get exactly the right thing to increase the percentage.Q:
Every thought that comes to the mind is either related with acquiring security or running away from security, so how to come out of this?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Is it so? Every thought! (Answer – 'Almost every thought') Now you came from every thought to almost every thought, again analyze. (Answer – 'Not sure') Not sure! So ‘not sure’ question does not get a ‘sure’ answer! If you think you know your mind then you really don’t know and if you know you don’t know your mind then you really don’t know. So what you need to do is observe your mind, ‘Oh wow look at this mind saying so many things’, right. So in-between when your mind remains quiet, those quiet moments, even for a few seconds, few minutes, morning or evening or afternoon, anytime, you recharge your whole system, got it. Just being afraid of yourself or your situation in life is not going to make you any better or give you any security. See you have been dependant when you were a baby right. Did you earn your own bread when you were 5 months old baby? Then nature put the thought in somebody’s mind to feed you. When you were a baby you were so dependant, right! You could not walk, 5 months old baby, where does it walk. So everything, you were dependant when you were born. And whomsoever you think my father, my mother, somebody will do, it is that one intelligence, that Divinity through those people it provided everything for you, right! Got it or not? Then you grew older, and you grew older and older and then much older and then again somebody has to help you out. So in-between these few years you think you are independent, it is just an illusion. Even then you are dependent on some unseen force or power which rules everything, which rules your breath, which rules your circulation, which rules almost every moment of your life. But in-between this age, in-between being too old or too young we think we are in control,that too only in your waking state of consciousness.You are not in control in your dream or your sleep also. If suddenly your breath stops coming in and going out of you while you sleeping, what to do! There is some power which propels the breath to keep moving in and out, yes! And that power, that consciousness has all intelligence of the world. And when the cell phone came you start realizing there is a power in the space. See you take a cell phone, press some letters, some buttons and that’s it, that electromagnetic wave goes to America and types out the same message in that person’s phone box. Isn’t this a big miracle, we take it for granted. We don’t see that whatever was typed, that was absorbed as energy and that intelligence went through the space and is exactly being produced the same at the same spot. That means the space between this and the tower and the tower and the other tower is filled with knowledge. Are you getting what I am saying? This space around here is filled with all that knowledge in the world. When I used to say this some 25 years ago, people would not understand. I was wondering how I am going to make them understand this. I said the space in-between is spirit. There is knowledge filled in every particle of space and I found it very difficult to explain this. But this cell phone has explained this very nicely. First what came was the fax machine. I said,'See', whatever is written on this piece of paper we put is in the machine and it reaches the other place. So when the fax machine first came I said 'hah!, now I can explain' and after that with cellphones, it is so easy to see that you don’t have to explain so much. The empty space is filled with intelligence, filled with knowledge, filled with love and compassion. The space is breathing, that is what the reality is. The space is what constitutes your inner self. So how is prayer beneficial? There is compassion in the consciousness all around you, you recognize it, and you feel it and it uplifts your consciousness, your mind. It mixes with your consciousness.Q:
Guruji, this space which is filled with consciousness, is that the Devi Tattva or the Shiva Tattva?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Both are one.Q:
Guruji, does anything called luck or bad luck exists? How to overcome bad luck?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
of course! When things happen the way you want everything to happen you say yes its good luck and when everything goes wrong you say it bad luck. How to overcome bad luck is to increase your intuition and how to increase your intuition if you ask me, MEDITATION!Q:
Guruji when I think about death, I feel dispassionate. How can one remain a karma yogi in that situation?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Look, whatever you do with dispassion (vairaagya) that has a lot of power. We work not for ourselves, but for others. Okay. When we work for others we get a certain type of satisfaction. We wish to acquire what we have not been able to get - this is called ‘Yoga’, and what we have got, we want to preserve/maintain – this is called ‘kshemam'(protection). If our mind is empty, and we are in bliss then both these begin to manifest in life effortlessly, what we have not been able to get/achieve, that comes and what we have, remains preserved. Okay, how many people have experienced this, whatever you wanted you got? And how many of you have felt that you don’t have to put much effort from your side. This is the sign of a Yogi. A Yogi does not have to make any effort to fulfil his desire but one has to perform his duties. You know all that you want, your desires, intentions are being fulfilled right, before the desire or intention arises. So that is why Yogi gets the best of enjoyments because a Yogi’s state of consciousness is such that before the desire arises the fruit is already there. He doesn’t have to struggle too hard. So for one’s requirements whatever it is, you don’t have to struggle too hard. That doesn’t mean you have to be lazy, oh Guruji says Yogis don’t need to do any work, why should I do any seva, let me just lie down all day long, let everything just happen to me. You have to do your work, not to fulfill your own desires but because you have to do certain things. You should just do it.Q:
Guruji sometime I doubt whether I am on the right path of spirituality?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
If you doubt sometimes, it is okay. If it is always there, then there is a problem. If you feel comfortable here stay on. Anyway, my job is not to take away your doubts but to increase them.
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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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