Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Q:
What is your biggest wish? What can I do to get closer to your heart?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You are already close to my heart. I want more children to be educated in spirituality, to create a violence- free and stress- free society. We need to globalize wisdom. There are one thousand of us here. If we each sponsor a child, we would do a great service. Do service. Donate 2% of your income. It would be of immense benefit to you and them.Q:
I don’t understand why we are here, why are we here for such a short time? Why do we have to grow old and weak? How do I stop wanting and needing others’ approval and love?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
This is a good question - why am I here, what do I do? Keep asking. When you keep asking these questions, either you go crazy or you become wise. I wish you become the latter, become much wiser, ok? Don’t tell me crazy people are very wise. It’s the other way round - wise people are sometime crazy too.Q:
What is crisis and how to handle anxiety?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Crisis is the mother of many inventions. A crisis makes us very creative. However the crisis should not go on too long, that is not good.What can help anxiety is breathing techniques like pranayama which channelizes the life force energy in our body. We all float in a sea of prana (life-force energy). There is prana even in a stone.
Q:
How does one deal with separation anxiety?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Ujjayi breath. You are in the ocean of breath.Q:
If one rotten apple spoils others in the basket then how can we handful of people can make this world a healthy and safe place to live in? There are little more bad people than good ones in the world.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
This is not the case in reality. There are more good people in the world than there are bad ones. There is more love in the world than hatred. There is more happiness than misery. But it seems the other way around. Don’t blame the society. You have a responsibility and you carry on fulfilling that. Continue spreading satsang (company of truth). Same was done by Mahatama Gandhi. Before independence in India, people were so depressed thinking they would be enslaved forever. So what did Mahatama Gandhi do? He started to have satsangs across various places in the country. People got courage from that. Same way we need to spread that a wave of satsang and awareness, not that of hatred.Q:
How can we strengthen the faith?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Your very thought to strengthen thefaith strengthens it. Move ahead assuming that your faith is very strong. Whenyour intellect is purified, faith automatically gets strong. We should have apure diet in order to purify the intellect. So, pay attention on your food. Ifyou eat food thinking all sort of negative things in the world, that alsoaffects the intellect. Many times people get time to converse only duringmeals, and they discuss about topics like diseases while preparing and eatingthe food. This is very wrong, and we need to get rid of this habit. You becomewhat you eat. The type of food you take governs your mind. And again your mindhas a direct impact on your body. That is why you should eat food with a happystate of mind. If we are very excited, we cannot swallow food with ease. Alsoif we are restless, we end up eating more food. So, it is important to havefood with awareness.Q:
Dear Guruji, I have never been a spiritual or a true religious person. How can I learn to let go and believe?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You don’t have to label yourself- I am spiritual, religious person etc. No need for it.Just be natural, beautiful, good human being. That’s it!
If someone is not a beautiful human being and says, ‘I am a spiritual person or a religious person’, what is the use of that? What good he or she is for? Isn’t it? The purpose of spirituality is to make you a beautiful human being, the purpose of religion is to make you a righteous person, connected to the universe, to the universal spirit. And that’s what spirituality is and that’s what a simple, natural, normal human being is! Got it? Right, so it is better not to label yourself.
If you think you are a believer or a non believer, then even a non believer is a wrong label. Someone who says, ‘I am a non believer, I tell you, this is not true. You simply can’t honestly be a non believer; there is no honesty in it. Somewhere in some corner of your consciousness, you believe something; you know something, for your consciousness is very ancient. You don’t know your consciousness, it is so old, so ancient, there are so many layers, so many impressions on our mind, on our consciousness- it is such an amazing phenomenon!
Q:
Guruji, how do I differentiate between being flexible and manipulative? Is there an intention behind it?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Yes, intention and your selfish desire is what can make you manipulative. But, if you are content, you are free and you have a goal to achieve, then it is adaptation, not manipulation.Q:
I cannot think of moving away from the‘Art of Living’. Is it attachment or restlessness of soul?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Once you have learnt a language and started to converse in it, you cannot forget that language. Same way once you have acquired knowledge, there is no question of losing it. It gets solidified in you.Ancient people of India were so intelligent that they kept Laxmi(goddess of wealth) on lotus, and Saraswati(goddess of knowledge) on stone. Lotus does not remain stable on the surface of water and it moves as the water moves. But a stone is solid and stable. Once you get knowledge, it becomes part of you, not only for this lifetime but also for lifetimes to come.
Q:
Guruji, spiritually is religious conversion. Sometimes my mind says that religious conversion is because at least people are getting food, education, and healthcare. What do you say?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
No, you can have health-care, education, food everything without conversion too. Religion you are in is over you. You know, if someone likes a particular religion out of full interest, that is a different issue but alluring them with food, medical and all education should not be done.
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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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