Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Let the mind go wherever it wants to go.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Your mind gets focused with love. Greed and fear also focus your mind. I prefer love over other two.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:
If you are bombarded by so many thoughts in solitude also, you are in ignorance. If you are calm even amidst a crowd then you are in knowledge.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
I want to tell you that most of the questions have been answered in the books – Celebrating Silence or Celebrating Love.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
No, you have made that as the purpose of your life. You have made being happy your purpose. Correct? You’ve already have a purpose.Can you be happy if your family is not happy? Can you really be happy if your environment is not happy and people around you are not happy? You know when you expand your vision and awareness, you see that you are a part of everybody. If people around you are suffering you cannot simply shut your eyes and say, ‘I’ll be really happy’. The subtler you go, the more refined you are. The more sensitive you become, you feel for everyone in the world. Not just people, for trees, animals and plants as well. You begin to care for the environment.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Waking up to the reality. Knowing of this ’I’ can lead to a state of devotion, of love. It is spontaneous. There is no need of surrender because it is already there. It does not have to mean a painful part of the ego. It is knowing that everything belongs to the divine, the thorn as well as the roses belong to the divine. What happens when you surrender? A permanent peace dawns in you, a smile that no one can take away from you. You wonder that there was such an illusion. You smile and realize that there is nothing to give away. Suppose you fill a pot from the lake, and you are carrying that pot of water. Then you pour it back into the lake. What can you tell the person when he/she thinks that he/she is giving water to the lake? It brings back a feeling of connectedness, and annihilates the sense of separation which causes pain and suffering. Sense of connectedness always brings peace and joy. So with this self knowledge, practice of meditation, singing, becoming one with the sound of satsang, you become one and merge into one consciousness. Satsang is everyone sharing together the consciousness and energy, everyone is sharing the sound. In Satsang, the mind gets united, all minds get united with the cosmic energy. It brings more benefit in singing when your awareness is focused, and you have one pointed attention.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Never mind! If you have recognized that you have fallen, you will rise higher. That is good enough. You have recognized that your ego has been the hindrance. But now don’t fight your ego. Just keep it in your pocket. Let it be there. Don’t try to do anything with it. Say, “I like it” and let it be there. If you don’t like it, give it to me, but then, I would like you to keep it with you. You know our effort in trying to erase our ego becomes another big problem. You have enough other problems to solve anyway.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
The goal is to bring a smile on your face that doesn’t wither away.A smile that no one can take away.
A peace that simply expands and spreads to others.
A love that never diminishes or distorts.
That’s the power that you grow into.
It’s better that you don’t worry about the goal. You be in the moment, you will see you are on a conveyor belt or escalator. The steps take you where you have to go. You have to do nothing.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
What you get after doing work is rest. Doing nothing and keep lying down is not rest. You feel restless in this state.