Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Q:
Please speak about forgiveness toward ourselves and others.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Don’t do it, if it is hard. Go the easy way. If it is hard to forgive, never ever forgive. If it is easy to hold a grudge against somebody, keep it with you all your life. In that case you should be happy with it. Can you be happy with a grudge against somebody? If somebody made a mistake, it is their problem and not yours. You just go the easy way.The struggle is that we want to forgive but we can’t. We should look at every culprit as a victim. If the person was unjust to you, clearly he was not happy. Otherwise, he would not have done it. He was not as refined and cultured as you. Whose mistake is that? If that person was enlightened, or had knowledge he would not have done it. So be compassionate.
Q:
What is your advice for people on planet Earth? How can we live such that after 50-100 years we would still have fresh air to breathe?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Care for nature, like native communities worship nature. Honor the environment. In a place in India if you cut one tree, you have to promise you will plant five of the same kind within the next forty days. There is a whole ritual in which one who is cutting the tree speaks to it, telling it that after cutting it will be useful to us. We must care for nature, not exploit it.Q:
How were you able to establish three centers in Pakistan?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
The people of Pakistan are very good. They just do the Sudarshan Kriya. We have teachers there. When you are stuck in concepts, you are in the box. It is when you get an experience that you can come out of the box.Q:
Guruji, I was doing service today and I must admit that I did service only to draw your attention.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Never mind! You know, don’t feel guilty that you did service to get attention. At least you did service! And as you will move on, you will improve. Many times people also ask questions just to draw attention, I know that! But don’t make the habit to have just attention, do both.Q:
How should the breath be –long deep one or restful slow ones?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You should take long as well as restful breaths sometimes. When you take long and deep ones, it gives you prana, and slow and restful ones will give you rest and meditation.Q:
I have to struggle all the time for every work, and I don’t get the satisfactory results either. What should I do?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Why do you have to put these ideas in your mind- ‘I have to struggle for everything, and I don’t get satisfactory results’? You only put this sort of affirmation on yourself –got it? It may be like that at sometime in the past, but it may not be like that in the future.Q:
What should I do so that I get enlightenment? I want enlightenment, I want to see God.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You want enlightenment? You want to see God? Do service and just relax!Q:
For doing any work, I think Guruji is asking me to do it. It works, but it has hampered my normal living.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You should have a balance - what your inner voice says, what your gut feeling is, and then use your inner strength rest of the time. The one hampering you-that’s called ‘yoga maya’. Sometimes ‘yoga maya’ comes in mind and says things which are not correct also. That’s why we shouldn’t lose our intellectual discrimination ability while ordering and understanding to inner dimensional consciousness. This state happened to Sri Ramkrishna Paramhansa also, and to many enlightened people in the world that the inner vision comes, a voice comes. So, go with a balance. Go slow with both intellect and feelings. Got it? Your feelings are as important as your intellect. Many people survive only on intellect and some survive only on feelings. The best thing in life is to have a balance between emotions and intellect, between heart and the mind.Q:
Sometimes I feel good and sometimes bad. How to balance?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Keep silence for a few days and then essential right things will come out.Q:
You say, choice is ours and blessings are yours. For two-three years, I have not been able to decide my career. I take up jobs and then leave. Can you choose one for me?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Any career you choose, after sometime you may feel oh, this is not the right one. People who have become doctors say, ‘we should have become engineers’, those who are engineers may feel they should have been lawyers and make easy money! So every profession has its dark side. That’s why I say you move on in any profession of your choice and do it. And I chose one career for you? No way! I refuse to. You chose the profession; I give the blessing. My blessings are there.
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Founded in 1981 by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar,The Art of Living is an educational and humanitarian movement engaged in stress-management and service initiatives.
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