Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Q:
How can we overcome fear of death?
Q:
I can give my hundred percent, when it is to do service in the ‘Art of Living’, but when it comes to studies, I cannot do.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
I know it is tough, but you have to do. The mind goes easily and naturally towards the things we like. If the things you like are juicy, there you don’t have to make efforts, it is natural. But when something which is not of your liking, is not juicy, it is dry and boring, but is good for you in the long run, then you have to put an effort and do it. There is no other option for it.Q:
Guruji, when you meet terrorists and naxalites, don’t you get frustrated with their attitude and lack of knowledge?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
: This is like asking a doctor- Don’t you feel sick of seeing the sick patients?!!Q:
Money and power are much needed things nowadays. How can spirituality help me get these?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You don’t have to practice wrong in order to be rich. In fact, that will be very short lived. Spirituality enhances your intuitive power and positive energy thereby enhancing hit rate of your decisions taken.Have you noticed that some people you meet, you feel like avoiding them, and some other people you meet, you feel like talking to them? Each one of us emits certain vibes. Vibes convey more than our words. If vibes change, everything changes. This way our interpersonal skills are also enhanced.
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:
How can I control my anger?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Anger comes out of your love for perfection. Create some space for imperfection around you. Make a list of all the things you consider to be wrong. Then have people around you doeverything on that list! When you get angry, just observe that sensation. Observe how your teethare clenching and how the mind becomes. Take a few long deep breaths and see if it changes.However, I have no experience, since I myself have never had this problem. So my advice maynot be authentic. You should ask others. There are many here who will tell you. After regularpractice of Sudarshan Kriya, anger tends to settle down.Q:
How can someone free the body from an overactive mind?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Sudarshan Kriya, meditation, some yoga and proper food will take care of this.Q:
I find a lot of things which are not OK. I don’t know how to go about correcting things which I find are not ok. Please guide.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
When you say, ‘It’s not ok, it’s not ok’, the seed of ‘not ok’ is not letting your mind to relax. When you are hanging on to the discomfort, how can you ever be comfortable? You have to accept things as they are. ‘It’s not ok, it’s not ok’ keeps you all outside. Those imperfections are there for a cause or purpose. It is going to be ok, it will take some time.Things are ok the way they are now,
They will be ok in the future
Whatever happened in the past was ok.
When you understand this, you relax and in that relaxation you can meditate. When you want to retire, its nivriti but when you want to come out (of rest) its pravritti. Then you can act. When you are tired but you are hanging on to ‘what is not ok’, then you cannot retire. When you have to chill out, what do you say? ‘Everything is perfect,’ otherwise you can’t chill, you can’t act! It is neither pravritti, nor nivriti.
Dhyan yoga is nivriti, Karma yoga is pravritti. Most people are hanging onto the ‘not ok’ and are unable to relax, to enjoy life, to chill, to be creative. They are holding onto the seed of ‘not ok’. That person, this situation, the government, the administration - everything is not ok. Then it comes to you – ‘I am not ok’. Subtly, it reflects on you that you are not OK. Then you don't like that feeling, and to cover that up, you make up many justifications and the mind is all confused.
If tamogun is too much, you don't know the pravritti or the nivriti. When there is Satva, then we know what to act, when to act, whether to act or not.
When Rajogun prevails then its half way through - you regret and act. Many of us act and then we regret. Mother scolds her child, regrets it and then becomes nice.
In Satva, you don't regret, you retire and relax, there is clarity.
In Rajogun, there is confusion and chaos.
In Tamogun, there is total inertia and lethargy.
There is no strict border between the three gunas. It is very fluid, one flows into another.
Q:
If everything is changing and transient, then what is the point in doing anything?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
What is the point in asking this question? What is the point of understanding? You do because you can’t but do something in this world. So, even that is the part of the change. ‘Everything is changing’ – this is for an understanding. You have to keep doing, and if you do things that brings you peace, and which will take you towards evolution, it is like swimming along the current. And if you do something against the evolution, it is like swimming against the current.Q:
The history of ancient India is filled with the accounts of enlightenment, yogis taking on supernatural states of awareness and capabilities. Yet, to help me understand, how does one interpret such stories? Are these methodologies with allegorical significance, or they point to the untapped potential hidden in each one of us?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Do you know about the first airplane? Who flew the first airplane? (‘Wright brothers’ came the answer). This is what we hear or read in the books. Absolutely wrong. 50 years before Right brothers, one man from Bangalore, Subray Shastry, he went into meditation, in silence and then he went to meet a yogi. The yogi took him to deeper meditation, and he started recognizing the engines, he downloaded all that! He wrote a book called ‘Vaimanik Shastra’ and then he flew the plane in 1800 with a parsi gentleman. Parsis are the migrants of Iran to India who follow Zoroastrian religion. The parsi gentleman funded him to make the first plane. They flew it on the chaupati beach in Mumbai (or Bombay). This appeared in the ‘London times’ newspaper also. These two were put in jail by Colonial power, and they took and confiscated all the diagrams that he had made. A documentary of this came on television recently, with the newspaper cutting from England and the diagrams that he had cognized. He had made five different diagrams and this is available even today in a book called ‘Bhardawaj Vaimanik Shastra’ – The science of plane by Rishi Bhardawaj. He explained what type of engine that a plane has which takes off straight like a helicopter, and one which goes running and then takes off.You can find all the details in the website http://www.bharathgyan.com/
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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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