Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Q:
Dear Sri Sri, please guide me on how I can serve humanity. Lots and lots of love.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Yes, come join the band wagon. Come join and think about what we can all do together. See alone when we do it, individually, it is a small effort. There is not much result. In fact, we burn out, we get tired. But as a group we can do a lot. Ok?Q:
Thank you very much for all I have received from you till today. Even I know you are available on an emergency basis, twenty four hours. I am ashamed toask you a help. When someone of your family passed and relationship between you and this person was not clear, what can you do to help the process to help that person live peacefully and also to be peaceful yourself? Thank you Guruji.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Whenever you have to console a bereaved family, keep silent! Too many words does not make any sense there or have any meaning. Someone is in grief, you just be with them, with peace in your heart. They will absorb the peace, they will bask in your peace. They will absorb your peace - they will feel comfortable, happy.So when you are peaceful, you radiate it. They will absorb the peace and they would feel that inner calm, inner peace. So don't have to say, ‘Oh poor thing!This thing has happened with you. Oh, it shouldn't have happened.’ Talking all that type of pity or sympathy is not going to help either you or them. So justbe with them and say, ‘God will give you strength’. Just give that to overcome this situation. This is the only thing that you should do. ‘God will give youstrength’ or the person who departed, take their name and say, ‘That person will give you strength to go over this tough time, this difficult time.’ These one or two words are good enough. Don't talk too much but just be with them. Few minutes- you being with them will help them. OK?Q:
Dear Guruji, I feel that my coming to you now has become an ego issue. I come to you to see what you will say to me or to get attention from you and not because I feel deep love and gratitude. I would like to feel the true deep love and gratitude like I have been before. I want to serve out of love and not out of feeling that this is what I am expected to do.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You know, feelings are like clouds. They are like the waves on the surface of the ocean. They arise, they come and they go. They change. We shouldn’t be bent too much by our feelings.Do you see what I am saying? Life moves with commitment, not just feelings. And love is a gift. You can't force anyone to feel love. Your wanting to feel love becomes a hindrance to feel love. Just relax. I have spoken about this in the Bhakti sutras. When you want love, that want itself is turning or delayinglove from manifesting.So all that you need to do is to let go and relax. You will see your nature is love. Love is always there. It will manifest when it should. Like the sun is always there but it comes at its own time. Yes?The sun doesn’t come up all the time though it is there twenty four hours. But it is in different places. In the same way, all the beautiful feelings in yourlife are there with you all the time. You can’t forcefully manifest them. They will manifest at different times in life. And that’s why be more relaxed and take them as they come. Yes?Q:
Which Veda has medical knowledge?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
It is called the Ayurveda. It is the subordinate Veda of the main four Vedas. So both, the Atharvaveda and Rigveda - the first and last Vedas have aconnection to Ayurveda. So all the Ayurveda stories are so very, very beautiful. It’s said that one thousand Rishis were sitting and meditating. And a Rishi named Bharadwaja told them, ‘You keep awake. We are going into deep trance, meditation and we are going to say just what we see. But there should be somebody to note down, write everything down’. They told once person, ‘You don't meditate. You sit, watch and note down everything’.And that is how Maharshi Bharadwaja noted down, wrote down in a forest when thousands of the Rishis meditated together and they were downloading it and thenthey were saying it. Bharadwaja went from one to another, to each person and started noting them down and that is how the Ayurveda books were written. So even today, after so many thousands of years, it holds good. It is a Materia Medica - which herb is for which part of the body and what functions, what arethe combinations, what one should do and what oneshould not. Everything about health is written.When the British ruled India and the man who was in charge of India, the British gentleman, wrote to Queen Victoria of England saying, ‘You know, people should come and learn plastic surgery over here. How people can fix your nose, your skin, your legs,’ he said. It’s amazing that when knowledge was zero or nothing in England, it was so advanced in India. Lord Macaulay said in the parliament, that if you want to rule this country (India), first you must destroy the spirituality. Much has been written about Lord Macaulay's statement. He said, ‘I traveled the length and breadth of India and I did not see one beggar,one poor man. And people know science and medical things so well. 88000 medical institutions were there only in the south of India.’He said, if you want to rule this country, you must stop this. So they systematically closed down the medical institutions, Sanskrit colleges so that people could no longer read the books. You know, when all your books are in Sanskrit and they shut down all the Sanskrit schools by rule, your next generation getsno access to the knowledge and that is what exactly happened in India. There is a whole presentation about Lord Macaulay's vision that they could rule India only by doing this. Anyway, that is all history.What I am saying is that Ayurveda is still very potent knowledge- it’s a science even today. Hmmm? But many books are missing. Many were burnt down. India had a very crazy king at one point of time, he was called Aurangzeb. He came to power by putting his own father in jail who was the king then. And then he burnt big libraries in India like Nalanda. History says that the books in Nalanda library burned for six months. He called all the scholars and he told them, ‘What is in your library?’ They said, ‘A lot of knowledge.’ He was very fanatic. He took the Quran and asked, ‘Do you agree that this book has all the knowledge that is there in the library?’ They said, ‘Yes’. He said, ‘Then what is the use of having a library and so many books? Burn them down.Then one of them said, ‘No. There is other knowledge that is not in this book.’ Then Aurangzeb said, ‘Then they shouldn't exist. Anything which is not in this book shouldn't exist anywhere, it is not correct. It is not God’s! Burn them down. Thousands of years ago, philosophy of the Buddhists, Hindus, Jains,Sikh were available; medical, archeology, astronomy, metallurgy, engineering, science - all these books - were available. They were all burnt down. So whatever people could take overnight and memorize it, those things remained and it continued. So these are all past histories.Q:
Dearest Guruji, I had a question in my mind when we were speaking about energy centers today, in the knowledge tape. I feel constant energy in my secondchakra but I don’t have any desires to do sex because I know it leaves me tired and dull. On the other hand my creative energy has not manifested itself. I would like to use my creativity and write, sing, dance, etc. How will it come to this point? Please show me a way. Give me ability to make my creative energy alive.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Ya! Continue your meditation. If a particular chakra has been used a lot then automatically energy goes there quite a bit. But it will keep moving,definitely moving. You focus more on navel center and then dance, sing. Singing and dancing, that is all part of our practices. You know, it uplifts you in more than one way.Q:
Can a relationship enhance or suppress your spiritual growth?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Yes, both can happen. If your partner is also on the path and understands you, it can enhance you both. If one is in doubt, the partner will help you to get over the doubt. If one is not doing the practice, the other one will pull them to do the practice and give them encouragement. Make them move on the spiritual path, so that much help comes from that. I have seen many couples - when one is going astray from the path, the other will pull them back onto the path. Because of the sake of the wife or husband, they continue being on the path, on the knowledge, on the spiritual path. This I have seen happening in many, many families. Though, on the contrary, if both go in different directions and if one of them is not really on the path, it can be a hindrance for the other. It can be, though not necessarily.Q:
I don’t understand why we are here, why are we here for such a short time? Why do we have to grow old and weak? How do I stop wanting and needing others’ approval and love?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
This is a good question - why am I here, what do I do? Keep asking. When you keep asking these questions, either you go crazy or you become wise. I wish you become the latter, become much wiser, ok? Don’t tell me crazy people are very wise. It’s the other way round - wise people are sometime crazy too.Q:
How much freedom is to be given or restrictions are to beput on teenagers?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You have forgotten because you havecrossed that stage and you don’t remember what turmoil they are goingthrough. There are so many hormonalchanges taking place in their body. Shake hands with them and gently guide themthrough this.Teenage feverishness is only for few years. Not onlyphysical but mental and emotional turbulence is so high in them. After the ageof three, children begin to experience all these emotions like jealousy,possessiveness and these continue till teenage. Some people don’t come out ofteenage at all. Mental turbulence is huge for them.
Teenage is a tough time. It needs great patience to dealwith teenage children. So with greatpatience, like a friend and philosopher, give them some space and at the sametime put your foot down and say ‘No’. Don’t be too loose at that time.
Q:
I don’t know what is good for me and what is bad?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Drop that which gives you short termhappiness and long term suffering. Just keep this in the back of your mind.Q:
Guruji, do you have any unfulfilled desires?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
(After a little pause) Yes, I want to see millions of people smiling and all these conflicts in the world to end. There should be no war. WAR itself means ‘Worst Act of Reason’. People who are involved in war give reasons to justify their actions but it is actually the worst act of reason. There is so much domestic violence in the world today. All this must stop. This can happen when people become more compassionate and understanding.