Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
It's like you have food at home and sometimes you go to a restaurant also. You don’t go to a restaurant because you don’t have food at home. Everything is everywhere and you enjoy the flavors equally.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Everything has been decided for animals. But humans have been given the sense of discrimination. God gave the human beings freedom to chose, to chose between right and wrong. Right is something that gives you long term happiness, may be at the cost of short term sufferings. The wrong is something that gives you short term joy and long term sufferings.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Surrender with love. And that which happens with surrender is love.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
I want to assure you that we will be able to see 2013. Just remember all the chaos that happened in 1999. Some people started storing food for six months in their basements. Even then I said things would be as usual. Things will be as usual in 2012 also. Actually spirituality will become more fashionable in the coming years; people will become more spiritual. Everyone will understand more about the consciousness. Right here, there are so many layers of the universe and existence. More and more of it will come to light. People will understand; science will also discover.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Every question is not answered on the spot. Once a couple went to a Master and expressed their wish to ask two questions. The Master said, “You will get your answers if you do service for two years”. The more precious is the question, more effort is to be done to get the answer. I will give answer to your question, but I will also put a condition if you are putting a condition.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Sat is “that exists.” Chit is “that knows.” Ananda is “bliss.”Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
A devotee is higher than the God. This has been said to sing the glory of devotees. In reality, both Guru and disciple are God. To sing the glory of a devotee and to raise the level of a devotee, God himself bends. It is like a father carrying his son on his shoulder, higher than him.If Hanuman was not stronger than Sri Rama, then how would he have helped Sri Rama. It is like the one who is stronger than me can carry my suitcase.Sri Rama also needed help from Hanuman. Same way, God also wants your help. So, we should do work to uplift society. The one who does work of God, works for the good of society, is also taken care of by the God. Working for the God, for the good of society, is an indication of divinity blossoming in you. So, Hanumanji helped Sri Rama, but he never got into the state of ego or arrogance that he’s helping Sri Rama. He knew that such thoughts are only illusionary and he had got that luck to work for Sri Rama. So, he worked under Sri Rama all his life while doing all Sri Rama’s work.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Not several. One of the Rishis is known for his anger. But always good happened through his anger. That’s why I say, even the anger of a wise man does so much good, and love of an ignorant person causes more problems.See, an illiterate mother, an uneducated mother, she doesn’t like her children going to school because the young ones cry while going to school. Then she says, ‘No, no. Ok, don’t go to school.’ They say they don’t want to study, and she says, ‘Ok, don’t study.’ Her love for her children has spoiled their whole life. Isn’t it? So, even the love of an ignorant person does harm. And even anger of a saint always does good.
There are so many stories about one sage, his name was Durvasa. In India, if someone is very angry, they say ‘Oh, he is a Durvasa!’ means he is someone who gets angry at the drop of a hat. But he would come back to normal state immediately. This is to say, don’t feel bad about yourself if you have anger.
Even a Rishi had some anger. So, you don’t have to be too hard on yourself by blaming yourself. That is just to give you self confidence. To make you feel, you are ok, inspite of your little bit anger. That is only one rare case. That is to say that enlightenment is unconditional. It is what? It is unconditional. You can’t put any condition on that freedom. Just to tell you, there is no conditioning. So it’s possible to get angry also. And, sometimes anger can also do good.
To be continued in next post..
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Service can be anything. The world does not expect you to do what you cannot do. Doing what you can do without expecting anything in return is service. There are two ways. Either we expect joy out of what we do or we do it with an expression of joy. This is the difference between a job and service.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Ego is feeling uncomfortable in the presence of someone else. Self confidence is, feeling at home. Ya? Being natural is antidote to ego, and being natural is so complementary to confidence. It goes with confidence and is inseparable from confidence. When you are confident, you are natural. If you are natural, you are confident.