Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Sri Sri: Yes, long acceleration is always good, you know, but it takes a little time to train yourself. Muscle testing – I’ll tell you something about it tomorrow maybe. Ask me when you’re out of silence. I will show you something – how your muscles can tell you what you need, what you don’t need. They speak the truth. Do you know about it? How many of you know muscle testing here? Okay, okay, ah, you already learnt last time! Hmm, okay! Tomorrow or day after or one of these days I’ll tell you then you can test yourself – what suits you, what your body says. You know, every muscle in your body speaks the truth, amazing discovery! Wait for it tomorrow (Guruji whispers), tomorrow huh (with a twinkle in his eyes)?!

Sri Sri: Again these experiences are so common for a beginner. If you are just beginning to meditate, restlessness comes up or you feel very sleepy. When stresses get released from your system, such a passage may be common. Farry will tell you more on this. When it comes from a scientist mouth, it has more flavors to it. He is doing a lot of research in Oslo University on Kriya. They found how the chromosomes of your body change! He just told me some very exciting news. So when stress release happens, the chemical or structural form in which stress was stored gets released, you get all these experiences. Your endocrine system readjusts itself, because we have violated our body in so many ways so many times. We have not kept the balance; we have not honored our own body, so jerks may happen. How many of you have found some jerks? Emotions may come up and you feel completely confused. All this may happen. It’s not that it should happen. Sometimes it doesn’t happen and you say am I not releasing any stress? That person is getting stress released and I am so quiet. Don’t compare your experience with anybody whatsoever. We all are so different. Everybody’s nervous system is so different. And at different times, different experiences come to different people. So at any time we should never compare our experiences with others and feel sorry or happy about it.

Sri Sri: You’re asking about yourself or someone else? For God’s sake don’t do anything with your ego! Just let it be. If you find you have a big ego, don’t try to get it out of yourself. Let it be. You know, trying to meddle with your ego becomes a bigger problem. Then you say, “Look, I erased my ego!” “Nobody could do this!” Understand that? You know it’s so difficult to get rid of the ego. It’s like saying – ‘I’m the most humble person in the world! You can’t find anyone with more humility than me!’ Does it make any sense? So if you find there is any ego, let it be like that happily, huh? Don’t try to meddle or get rid of it. Just smile, yes! You know ego is stiffness. When you’re at home, you relax. When you feel ease, then ego is not there. The antidote for ego is just being natural. Or one day if you want to act crazy or foolish, it might help you a little bit, because your greatest fear is what others will think. Give everyone freedom to think whatever they want to think, right? Then you’ll find you’re so much at ease, at peace with yourself.

Sri Sri: Thank you.

Sri Sri: You know, people with schizophrenia, you think they are suffering, they are enjoying themselves! Ask me how many people I have encountered who have this problem. Sometimes they stop taking their medication because they stop having fun with that. See, there is no charm, no energy, no fun, so they stop medication. We have this experience. Many times parents or spouse came and left them in the Ashram. So we have dealt with them all. I tell you, they are really not suffering! They are in their own world. They are here in the world for you to serve them. And be patient, they increase your patience. They make you well grounded to your own reality. It’s an experience to be with them. Because their mind is between two worlds -this world and another world, their realities fused and confused. They can invoke a lot of compassion from within you. And that is what you can do about it. Yes, they can do some physical yoga, dance, enjoy music and take a good walk. These are things you can engage them in.

Sri Sri: Of course! You don’t have to wish, you are already! We are all one. I am you and you are me. See, the mind is like the space. The self is like the space inside and outside the body. The thoughts come and go, emotions come and go, but when you go inside there is only empty space. And our true nature is that. When we identify ourselves too much with thoughts, with feelings and emotions, that is when we feel we are stuck, we are small. But, the ‘Real, Magnanimous You’ are that space inside where you feel totally at peace. Those moments when you are totally in peace or fully in love, you feel an expansion, right? You feel boundless, you feel limitless, and that is our true nature. That is what the beauty is. We are all one in that, there is no two!I will give you an example. Suppose you keep here many different vessels with different sizes. They have different capacities: one can have two liters, one can have ten liters, and one can have five litres. But the space is the same. The capacity of each vessel may be different. So what! But it is the same space which is inside, outside and which is everywhere. Our ability to do different things, our energy to do different things is immaterial to what we are. And this ability, this energy doesn’t stay the same throughout life. See, when you were a baby your abilities were different, rather nothing. You could not help even yourself. Somebody had to care for you. And what happens when you get very old? Then also your abilities are different. So changing of our abilities, our thought is immaterial to the real you, to who you are. You are simply space, you are love, you are peace and this identification removes all other complexes in life. Otherwise you will always find somebody is more capable than you and somebody is less capable than you. You are better somewhere and you are not in some others. When you compare yourself with others in the world, either who are living or dead or may be being born in the future, there will always be a difference. This is part of the world, part of the Universe, okay?

Sri Sri: Suggestion taken! We will request our Publications department for some CDs without music, but your comparison was very good!

Sri Sri: Wait for the next year.

Sri Sri: Is it so difficult? You know you should have one policy, ‘We will not do anything which is too difficult!’ Be easy going, a happy go lucky person. Why do you have to struggle? If being unhappy is easy, just go for it. If being miserable is the easiest thing and being happy is so difficult, why do you have to struggle to be happy! Got it? Go for the easiest, and the easiest is to be unhappy? NO! The simplest, the easiest thing is to be relaxed and happy. If you say why it is so difficult, we have to fix this a little bit. And that thing which fixes this is knowledge. Got it? (After a break of a few breaths) And I tell you, it’s easy!