Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
When you watch TV, you get into meditation – There is no such thing that mind cannot meditate. Wherever your mind goes, whatever it likes, there meditation occurs. You need to move from “word’ (shabdha) meditation to “wordless”(nishabhda) meditation. We separate life and knowledge, but walk in life knowing that knowledge is life, life is knowledge. Just as our relationships are manmade, join that relationship/connection with knowledge.Q My nature is happiness but am overcome with periods of sadness – how do I overcome these periods?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Offer them to the Divine. Do your practices and meditate. Sometimes waves of worry/sadness take over. Just know that it’s a temporary phase, it’s a passing cloud and it’ll disappear.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Tapasya is that which you may not like to do but doing it is beneficial for you.Q What is prayer?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Prayer means a call from the depth of the heart. When children cry, how do they cry? Kids cry for their mother with their whole body. When every cell of the body and every corner of the heart need something, then only you cry. Calling in an exclusive style – from your heart is prayer. Also when we do something with all our heart, that is called prarthna (prayer).
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
The Guru does not think at all. The Guru also wants the disciple to stop thinking. What will you get by thinking? Whatever we think in the state of ignorance is always wrong.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Crores, koti means types. 33 crores means 33 types of Divine impulses. In our body also there are 33 types of divine impulses. There are 33 types of genes in our body. A particular type makes the eye, a particular type makes the nose, like that a particular type makes eardrums, hair, nails. All these are made up from a particular type of gene which are of 33 different types.Like this, there are 33 rays of Divinity. There is one light, one God, one Parmatma yet there are 33 aspects. Devas are the 33 different aspects of Divinity. Here crores is not referred to as a number. The Divine has no form but ancient saints have said you can adore Him in any form or name. All the thousand names belong to God only. This is very, very deep science or deep knowledge. It’s amazing. When you go deeper into this, then you feel the ‘wow’. People - who have written this, have discovered this - have simply stupendous knowledge. The Universe is not so simple. It’s very complex. Modern physics also say that the deeper and deeper you go, there are so many different type of particles. So the universe is diverse. The Divinity which manages, rules, and has made this diverse universe is devta.The English name, David, is a Sanskrit word. Dev + vid, dev means Divinity, vid means to know. David means one who knows Divinity. Divinity is not somewhere up in the heaven. It is present in the world, universe, everywhere. And it has to be realized when the mind is calm, serene and settled in our heart and when the emotion and intellect merge into a serene blend in silence then you are able to perceive the subtle reality of Universe and that is devta.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
To know this, you can make a list of what is not aim of your life.Being sad or making anybody sad is not aim of your life. Only eating, drinking and sleeping is not aim of your life. Though we need all this for living but that is not life.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Oh my god, you are taking away my reputation! Every time people see me they smile. Yet tears of love and gratitude are also very precious. When the heart opens it brings tears to the eyes.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Why not God? Why would you ask this question if there was no God. What will you say if a wave questions the existence of God? A wave exists because of the presence of ocean. Because of whose presence you are standing, you think, you listen, you understand, you breathe – that only is God. Who is God? God is not sitting somewhere up in the sky. God is the power due of which everything happens.(The person still holds on to his question)
Ok! Do one thing. Drop all your concepts of God. First, find out who you are? Who is asking this question? If you find out that, the purpose is solved.
I will tell you a story. Once a man went to Lord Buddha and asked, “I don’t believe in God, Why God?
Lord Buddha said, “Ok! You are right”. The man went back happily. A second man came and said, “I believe in God”, to which Lord Buddha again said, “Ok, You are right”. That man also went back happily. Then, a third man came who very humbly requested, “Please answer this question. Some people say that there is no God. When I listen to their logic, I get convinced. But when I listen to saints, I feel that God exists. Now, I am in confusion. I am not able to understand whether God exists or not. I have not experienced God. Please, you tell me.” Then Lord Buddha said to that person that he was at the right place and he should stay there. He continued to say that he didn’t have any preconceived notions of God in his mind, and they would together find out if God is there or not. Perturbed mind can never go close to God. Also no knowledge sprouts up in a perturbed mind, and whatever knowledge sprouts up in such a state of mind is also wrong. So, I say let’s be calm. You have come to the right place. Drop your concepts of God. Sit with your eyes closed and find out who you are. Are you this body? Are you this mind? Are you your thoughts? ‘I am something beyond my thoughts also’ – When you experience this, the truth will automatically dawn.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
By studying your own past. Look at how many times you have been judgmental. Every time you have been judgmental, you have been on the wrong foot. So just be aware of that. The moment you are aware that you are judgmental, you are already out of it. You can’t be judgmental in the present moment. You are judgmental in the past.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Anything done to uplift your spirit, to make you walk towards the truth, that brings up human values within, that connects you to the innermost and outermost is spiritual. Meditation, pranayama, yoga, service, singing, chanting, creating happiness around you are all part of spirituality.If you create misery, then that is not spirituality. If you can create joy, it is spiritual. But not momentary joy. Such joy, in the long term, creates misery that is not spiritual. Alcohol, drugs can create momentary joy but they are not at all spiritual. That is the spirit.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
If you know you are judgmental you are already out of it.