Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Q:
Why is it that people who are not on the same path don’t understand us and take it against us? I don’t understand.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Let them talk. So what? Take it. It doesn’t matter. We don’t insist that everyone talk only good. By their talking, you don’t become negative.So, don’t be football of others’ opinion. Let anybody say anything. It doesn’t matter. When you are clear in your heart, and what you do is right, what you want to do is right, you just do it. What do you say? (Clapping from the audience.)
Q:
How to overcome low self-esteem?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Go and work in villages and slums, you will get your self-esteem back. Go and work for a week, ten days or even on a weekend. Teach some lessons to the children there and see how your self-esteem will come up.Q:
What is the importance of a name?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Well, you need something by which people can call you! One name is the name our parents gave to us at the time of birth. We are deeply connected to this name. To be completely free, the last attachment that we let go is that of our name. Connect and attach yourself to the name (the mantra that you receive from the Master). The mantra establishes you in the witness consciousness. Of the mantras, the highest is the 'ajapa jap', the mantra which resonates effortlessly and spontaneously in our consciousness. It is not a doing but a happening. That is So Ham. It resonates eternally. When we experience this with awareness, it becomes meditation.Q:
We crave for the pleasure of the senses, personal gain and power. Do cravings drop one at a time or all together?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Sometimes cravings dissolve one at a time, sometimes all together. As soon as anurag(devotion) is born in life, everything else is dropped. When there is love and devotion you will see that all the negativity is removed on its own. When the satva is increased in life, attachments and aversions due to rajoguna, tamguna are themselves removed. For some, it happens slowly and gradually and some undergo misery and then drop it. They drop it because of misery.Q:
Is there life after death?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Yes.Q:
Guruji, I did the Eternity Process and I saw many things from past lives. I experienced a lot of devotion and I even saw you. How much of it is true? Am I just making stuff up?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You don’t have to doubt it. As I said, these experiences are a mixture. One is from your consciousness and your deep experiences. Sometimes it could also be through your fantasy. So, sometimes fantasy gets into it. Then the experience comes up. You know, it’s usually mixture of it. Even if 20 percent of fantasy is mixed with 80 percent of reality, you don’t need to think or do anything. It’s an experience. Take it as it has come and move on.You are much more than all the experiences. You are much more than all the identities and the roles that you play. That is the Self-knowledge. That is the real spiritual knowledge. This is the Upanishadik knowledge.Q:
How to get joy in life?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Forget about getting joy, it will come to you. You should just relax.Q:
To whom do I surrender?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
To the Divine who resides within everybody, to that Divine I surrender.Q:
For fifteen years I’ve been with the same job and my boss doesn’t respect me at all. Should Iquit and start my own business? Please give me some direction.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Choice is yours, blessings are mine.Q:
Which is better: satvic guna (calmness, meditation) or triguna ateet (beyond the three gunas {roughly translated as energies})?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
If you do not have satvic guna, you cannot be triguna ateet.You have to move from tamogun (inertia), to rajogun (that energy which is not used productively in activity and which becomes restlessness) and from rajogun to satogun.
From satogun, you will know mukti (freedom).
However, don’t get attached to satogun. You use soap to wash the dirt off your body. Do you allow the soap to remain on your body?
There’s a saying which says, drown your good deeds in a well. Otherwise, you become attached to them, and doing good deeds will make you arrogant.
When you are not attached to even mukti, then you will be triguna ateet.
There is a quote in Sanskrit:
‘Samam pashyanti sarvatra
up mam pashyati sarvatah’
Krishna says, ‘See equality in everything. The one who sees me in everything and sees everything in me, I won't be apart from him and he won't be different from me.’
* a type of breathing technique
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