6 Apr 2012 - QA 9

Guruji, after all these years, I am still struggling, why? Love you Guruji!
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: You love me and then you are struggling. Struggling for what?
You are struggling for money, then don’t sit and day dream, do hard work. If one business does not work, choose another business and do it.
You can only struggle with two things, a job or relationship.
If you are not getting married, you have been too choosy and so things are not working. And if you are already in a relationship and then you are struggling, then of course the knowledge point comes here, accept people as they are. So you try to accept them more and more, but your mind says no. Know that it is because of the knowledge that you are able to sustain and survive. Do you see what I am saying? Somehow you are making things work.
So don’t think nothing works for you. I don’t think that is a fact.
The third issue could be health. There is no fourth issue. And being in The Art of Living always helps you to somehow manage all the three.
Don’t sit and day dream and only think about miracles to happen. Miracles do happen, but if you crave for miracles then they will take a back seat. Nature wants you to be dynamic.
There are people who have asked me, ‘Guruji, please give me some numbers for my lottery ticket. I just want to win a lottery so that I don’t have to do anything. Just do sadhana all the time and some seva.’ No ways!
First of all, decide what it is that you want from life.
Struggling with what? With money?!
You know money is something that you will always find people short of money. Always!
You can see for example, the richest country, the only super power on this planet is USA and it is under heavy debt; trillions of dollars of debt. You take big companies; many of them are in debt. The richer a person gets, the more expenses he has to do. At the same time, there are poor people who are contributing towards charity, poor people who take time to do service, which is amazing. They feel so much abundance.

The other day in India, a gentleman comes to me. He has a small shop; a small little kiosk for himself, and he had inherited two plots of land. So he comes to me and offers me one plot of land. He says, ‘I want to give this plot to you’, he insisted. He came with his whole family, his wife, his mother and said, ‘I have two, I want to donate one and keep the other one.’
The plot is in a very expensive location of the city and he could make a big fortune from it. But look at the heart in that guy.
I said, ‘Okay, I will take it, but it will be in your name only. You should keep it for me and you build your shop here. Sell the other plot and with the money that you get, do business.’
I could not say I won’t take this to him because he will feel hurt, so I said, ‘Yes this is mine, but it will be in your name and you should have it.’
Look at the broad mind of that person.

Another day, a very poor lady comes, and she had just one gold chain that she inherited. I was going in the car and she comes running and gives me an envelope in my hand.
Usually people give me envelopes with letters in it of some problems. So I took the envelope, and in it I found a gold chain. Then I told some people to go and find this lady and give the chain back to her saying, Guruji sent you blessings.

Do you know, during our silver jubilee, there is a beautiful story that happened! I came down from the steps on the last day and a small boy comes running to me with tears in his eyes and he gives me an envelope. I take the envelope and it had Rs. 5000 in it. I looked at that boy and I said, ‘What do you do?’
He said he is a laborer.
The money in the envelope that he had given me had two months of his earnings, and he said, ‘Please take this.’
He said, ‘I can’t tell you how much my life has transformed. Please accept this.’
I took just Rs.100 from that and returned back Rs. 4900. I told him, you know this Rs.100 is so precious for me, this is enough. I will take this.
2 months of his salary; someone who is a laborer who does manual work, he comes and offers. Such a big heart is there in people.

What I am saying is you too should feel abundance. You don’t have to be very rich to feel the abundance. In fact many rich people don’t feel abundance at all, they feel lack. They are not generous. But poor people are very generous; they have that feeling, that art.
Don’t imagine a situation where you will become super rich one day and then you will start doing some seva, no, nothing like that. You can feel abundance at any point of time. And the moment you start feeling abundance, you will see things will get better, got it!

Similarly, don’t be feverish about a relationship, just relax and you will find your relationship with people will improve and become better. If you are like a leech, clinging on to somebody in a relationship and bugging them, even though you say all nice words, that person will run away from you because they can’t handle it.
One aspect is to give love, and another is to know how to handle love, receive love as well. It needs only a centered, enlightened person. Now don’t expect that type of behavior from everybody.
You have to be very much at ease with yourself. If you are at ease with yourself, everyone will be at ease with you.