Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Q:
Can you please speak on success and failure?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Failure is a step towards success. Success is a measure of a part of your ability. You have expressed little bit of your potential and that is success.Q:
I find a lot of things which are not OK. I don’t know how to go about correcting things which I find are not ok. Please guide.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
When you say, ‘It’s not ok, it’s not ok’, the seed of ‘not ok’ is not letting your mind to relax. When you are hanging on to the discomfort, how can you ever be comfortable? You have to accept things as they are. ‘It’s not ok, it’s not ok’ keeps you all outside. Those imperfections are there for a cause or purpose. It is going to be ok, it will take some time.Things are ok the way they are now,
They will be ok in the future
Whatever happened in the past was ok.
When you understand this, you relax and in that relaxation you can meditate. When you want to retire, its nivriti but when you want to come out (of rest) its pravritti. Then you can act. When you are tired but you are hanging on to ‘what is not ok’, then you cannot retire. When you have to chill out, what do you say? ‘Everything is perfect,’ otherwise you can’t chill, you can’t act! It is neither pravritti, nor nivriti.
Dhyan yoga is nivriti, Karma yoga is pravritti. Most people are hanging onto the ‘not ok’ and are unable to relax, to enjoy life, to chill, to be creative. They are holding onto the seed of ‘not ok’. That person, this situation, the government, the administration - everything is not ok. Then it comes to you – ‘I am not ok’. Subtly, it reflects on you that you are not OK. Then you don't like that feeling, and to cover that up, you make up many justifications and the mind is all confused.
If tamogun is too much, you don't know the pravritti or the nivriti. When there is Satva, then we know what to act, when to act, whether to act or not.
When Rajogun prevails then its half way through - you regret and act. Many of us act and then we regret. Mother scolds her child, regrets it and then becomes nice.
In Satva, you don't regret, you retire and relax, there is clarity.
In Rajogun, there is confusion and chaos.
In Tamogun, there is total inertia and lethargy.
There is no strict border between the three gunas. It is very fluid, one flows into another.
Q:
Is homosexuality wrong and to be changed or is it life’svariety?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
It is a tendency. Many times it changes.So don’t label it. It is there now. It may not be there later. You are acombination of your mother & your father. We have genes of your mother aswell as father. Sometimes male tendencies dominate, and sometimes female.Preferences may be stronger for some. Don’t feel guilty or blame yourself. Riseabove it. You are not only flesh. Youare light around the wig of flesh. Shift from gender to genderless spirit, itgives you such ease.Q:
Why is it so difficult to let go and surrender the past, what should I do?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Don’t do anything. Just live in the past. It’s not easy to live in the past. Accept it. Encounter it. You are in the right place. Surrendering the past is not trying to run away from it. Alright, move on. Embrace the past with both arms. It is ok to have had the experiences. Don’t be afraid of it. You can handle it. It won’t go if you are tying to avoid it or being averse to it. Somebody is making a book that describes the five levels of surrender. How do you define surrender? Surrender has been misused so many times. First type of surrender comes into play when there is failure. When you are defeated, or you are miserable, you let go. Letting go, when life is a burden or mainly associated with defeat, is one type of surrender. Another type of surrender, which happens out of love, like a mother’s love for a child. Nothing else is important to her. If it is a choice between her own pleasure and that of the child, she will choose the child’s pleasure. In a love relationship between husband and wife, they feel completely at ease, fearless, with no concerns. A mother is so attached to the child; She willingly gives up small inconveniences or pleasures because she loves the child so dearly. Third type of surender mostly happens with knowledge. There is nothing anyways. It happens when you surrender to God. Fourth type is knowing that it is an illusion. Thinking that you have to give up something which you do not have is an illusion. This is the surrender of wisdom, it is just a sense of ease, knowing it all belongs to the one. This very state of surrender leads to the same place - the small mind opening to the big Self.Q:
How can we overcome fear of death?
Q:
Where do you go when you meditate?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
I do not go anywhere, I just be everywhere.Q:
What is more important, ones upbringing or one’s cast? People who believe in cast system and religion are against intercast marriages. So what matters most-the values of that human or the cast and religion of that human?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
One should see the humanity the most.Q:
On one hand, desires need to be dropped, but is it okay to have a desire for liberation? Whenwill that get dropped?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Yes, it is okay to have a desire for liberation.Q:
Is mediation concentrating on some point?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Absolutely not!Q:
When God is everything then who does wrong actions? Why it is that someone is a saint and someone a thief?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
The way you act, God awards the fruit of the action accordingly. If you steal, God will come to you as a policeman. Your actions, good or bad, decide your experience of joy and sorrow. Joy and sorrow are the outcomes of your discretion; it depends on your discretion in performing actions. It is ok if you drink one glass of milk. But what happens if you drink three kilos of milk? Without the use of discretion, nectar can turn to be poison.
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