Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Yes, many youths have benefited from the course. There are 43 universities in America where there are Yes Plus clubs, and students also get some credit in some universities if they do the course.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
The whole world is made up of the five elements. We honor all the five elements.There is a great tradition of honoring rivers. The river does not want you to offer flowers or fruits. This is not the way to worship. Also by putting sewage or garbage into rivers, how can you say that you are doing worship? Worship means honoring, and you can only fully honor once you stop dumping sewage, garbage, plastic into the rivers. A few years ago you could directly drink from a river. Today, no river is fit for drinking even from a hundred kilometers away from its source. Earlier even thousand kilometers away from its source, the river water was fit for drinking. In this country (India), people used only charcoal ashes, and not soap powder to clean vessels. They would use turmeric and many other herbal elements, which are bio-degradable. We are pouring so much industrial waste into the rivers. This is not honoring the jal tatva (water element).
Honoring the Earth element means we don't pollute the earth with plastic, poisonous fertilizers and chemicals. It means we are environment conscious.
Then there is the air element. We need to have clean energy. We have provided smokeless stoves in the villages of Maharashtra, which have been very successful. We need to honor air, and do whatever we can to have a clean air.
Then there is the space element. This is very abstract. You cannot catch space. When you save your mind from negativity, you are filling the space with joy. Then the air around becomes like that. You can create a space of mistrust, anger, greed, jealousy and selfishness. Or you could create a space of fun, joy, confidence, and coherence. You could create an accommodating space around you. If we always speak negatively about all mistakes, then there is nowhere on earth you can really survive. Everybody is imperfect. When we try to see perfection in others, then we forget to see our own imperfection. Protect the space, save the mind at any cost.
The five elements are part of the creation. You have to honor this beautiful creation and sustain it.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
That is a big job. In the Geeta it is said, even the most brilliant people are confused about what to do and what not to, and how to handle the mind. Protecting the mind is a very great task but we need knowledge to do it. Up to this moment, see all that has happened so far, it’s all gone! Finished.Wake up.
When you are full of energy, prana, you suddenly see it’s all gone. Now! All that has happened is ok. Think about what to do now. Sometimes 100 percent of what you do will be successful, sometimes not. A farmer knows that not every seed, that he sows, will sprout. He takes the seeds and throws them in the field, and does not worry that this seed will sprout, this won't.
From now on, it’s a new chapter. Every day is a new chapter. Bring up this awareness again and again that the whole world is filled with my atma (soul) – it’s all Me. It’s one Consciousness. This one consciousness works through one person in one way, through another person in another way. It is one ocean with many waves.
If this vision comes to you even for just five seconds then there will be such a major transformation in your body and mind. Then a realization will spring in you ‘Aho!’
All worries are washed off. Just for a second, recognize that it’s only me in my enemy. I myself have started the Game. Understand this, but don't turn it into a mood making. Have this understanding only in the nivriti, not in the pravritti mode. If we bring advaita (non-duality) in vyavahar (behavior), we only create more delusion. In pravritti, see duality. Taking up of the human form is impossible without pravritti. How much pravritti and nivriti one should have is a very sensitive matter. When there is more pravritti, then one becomes too negative and one is asked to be in nivriti.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
There is nothing new to follow the principal of non violence which is being applied since ancient time. One should follow and keep the principal of non violence in life. Sometimes if one has to slap someone for his good, but does it with a smile then it is not violence. See, one has to kick with a cane to make a buffalo move forward, where as a cow just moves with a sound. The gentle animals may not need the cane, but for animals like buffaloes and donkeys, cane is the only language they understand.If we do any work with anger, hatred, jealousy, feeling of revenge etc. in mind –then that is an act of violence.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Have patience, keep up the hope that it may happen. Know that whatever is good for us will be given.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You turn around and see.(The questioner turns around, and audience laughs)
Sri Sri continued: Not now! You turn around in your life, one year, two years, three years before, and see what were you then and what are you now? Do you see the difference? How much difference? You say a lot of difference in a month since you did Sudarshan Kriya, so there will be more in the future.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Whatever yoga you do should be done simply and naturally. You don’t have to give too much trouble to your body and make yourself uncomfortable. Just be normal and simple. To do hath yoga, one has to take a lot of precautions.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
For showing your love and gratitude for your country, you will have to do a lot of work in the society so that our villages develop and become self helping. To make a society which is void of corruption, violence, all have to put effort whole heartedly, OK.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
See if there is a family tradition being followed from a long time, then what is the harm in continuing that? One must keep up the family traditions.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
It is ok, does not matter – there is still lot more time for that to happen!