Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Q: Many people have started preaching their own practices like Sudarshan Kriya. What to do about it?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Many people have started their own things. These kind of wrong practices don’t work in the long run. Don’t worry about all of them. People try, get headache and then they come here.The spiritual practices like Sudarshan Kriya are not only at physical level. It is the divine grace which works.
One can do 21 days teacher training, and spread this knowledge everywhere after becoming a teacher.
Q: Is memory a blessing or curse?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Forgetting bad things is a blessing. Forgetting good things can be a curse.Q: What is the best thing to do after one recognizes one's mistake?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Recognizing your mistake and going forward is good. There is no point in hiding or justifying. Save the mind. When the mind is established, you can’t do mistakes even if you want. With the knowledge of the self, all negative emotions like fear, anger and sorrow disappear.Q: What would be your best memory of happiness?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Happiness is when you want nothing, and you want to give. Where the wanting and desires end, and the sharing begins, happiness is exactly there. Memory is not happiness. When you are happy, you forget everything. It is when happiness is gone that you dwell in its memory. In the world, people are either dreaming of happiness or remembering happiness. That is either being in the past or the future. But happiness is that which is in the present. And it is your very nature.Q: What is sin and virtue?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Sin is that which inflicts pain on yourself and also on others. Virtuous action is that which brings peace and happiness to you and also to others.Q: Dear guruji, This might sound like a silly question, but I don’t understand money at all. Can you explain it to me? How important is it? Thank you for having me here.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
It is said in the Vedic literature, Dharma is righteousness. Then comes artha, which means- the means, money. And then Kama, desire. And then liberation, moksha. So, Dharmasya moolam artha. That is, righteousness is based on prosperity. If everybody is prosperous, nobody will steal anything. The root of dharma or righteousness is prosperity, is money. So, it is all linked. Money is important, but money is only the means. It is not everything.Never link money with happiness. Even the poorest people are happy, if you see. In fact they are more happy. But money can create a false notion of security to you: You think if you have money, you have everything. The idea of money is for comfort. Isn’t it? Why do you want money? For comfort. But money can give you only one type of comfort.
There are three types of comfort: Physical comfort, emotional and mental comfort, and spiritual comfort - the inner comfort. Whereas money provides only one type of comfort, it doesn’t give emotional and spiritual comfort. It is essential. Like, we all eat to live. But if we live only to eat (laughs), then something is very wrong with us. Basically wrong.
Scriptures and ancient people beautifully describe how to make best use of money. You make five equal portions of the money. You use one portion for yourself, you save twenty percent, you use another twenty percent for your family, and immediate needs, and you make use of one portion for the society .One is called Aapad dhan. It is for emergency, for any need in the future. And there is another school of thought which says you spend 10 percent on charity, you save 30 percent, and you use 60 percent the way you want.
I would say, you don’t need to spend even 10 percent on charity. Keep aside at least 2% or 3% of your income. If you don’t do charity at all, your money will be spent on court cases and on hospitals. You keep aside 2 – 10 percent for the world. Then the greed will not happen in our mind. Greed kills the person and then kills his business also.
But ambition is ok. You should have ambition. You should aspire to create more wealth. Creating more wealth is not a bad thing at all. So, that balanced attitude for money must be there. Money should not be everything in life. It should be to sustain, and to give you physical comfort. And it’s only spirituality that is absolute comfort. When you are connected with the divinity, mental and spiritual comfort is there, you don’t even think about money. Things come automatically.Next year, this ashram will have completed 20 years. Before we had this ashram in North America, we used to hire places here and there. So many people used to come, and we needed our own kitchen for vegetarian food. It was difficult to have advanced courses in hotels here and there.Then I said that the next time I come, we should have a place where we can keep the atmosphere pure, where only meditation happens and where the vibrations of the place become more saatvik, more congenial and more in harmony with nature. Then some of our devotees went around and looked at places, but we didn’t have that much money.
First we put up some tents, and all the tents flew away. It rained. They had a kitchen here and wooden things. Everyone started doing a little bit here and there, and the place became beautiful. So, the whole place come up in some time.This is what is called siddhi. Siddhi means you get what is needed. In India, there is a proverb which says you really wished for nuts and it came to you when you lost all the teeth (laughs). You were praying for nuts, ‘Oh, I need nuts, I need nuts, I need nuts.’ And then when you got nuts, all the teeth were gone! That’s no use. You are praying for husband or wife, and they appeared when you are 75! It makes no sense!
We never ever worry for how things will be done! This is what is siddhi. When the spiritual power is there, spiritual energy is there, everything happens effortlessly. Move with faith and confidence. At the same time, don’t live too much in the air. Be a little practical also. Till you get to that level of spiritual inner dependence, you have to have the reasoning. Reasonably, you should be aware of how you should manage funds.
So, it’s like dance. How dance will happen? When one foot is on the ground, and one is up. If both legs are buried in the mud, can you dance? And if both feet are in the air, then also you cannot dance. You’ll fall. So, dance happens when there is one foot on the ground, and one up in the air. This is what is whole knowledge – practical yet ethereal, spiritual in approach. But I have seen some people who are too ethereal. They don’t do any work but they simply sit, ‘I want 20 million dollars, I want 100 million dollars.’ They don’t even think about small numbers. (laughs) They Pray for it every day. Nothing is going to happen that way also.Know that balance.
Q: Dear guruji, Last night you said that, ‘If you don’t do all that you can do, then your consciousness will prick you. I know I am capable of a lot, but sometimes it feels like such hard work. I always do my best, and always serve. How do I keep service from feeling like a burden?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
No, do only as much as you can. Sometimes you take commitment. At that moment, it appears too much. But that will be over. Finish that commitment. And don’t think about it. You know, It becomes a burden if you think, ‘Oh, how much I worked’. You recuperate everyday. So, you should never count how much service you did. It will be very small as compared to what we have consumed!Q: Dear Guruji, I noticed that I am unconsciously always comparing myself with others. Tell me how to stop it please?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
If you are unconsciously stopping it, it will unconsciously stop also. Why do you consciously want to stop? Let it be. Got it? Your trying to stop it consciously becomes a problem. You get stuck. So just relax. Just relax and continue more meditation, more Advanced and Silence programmes. These will de-programme you from that thing.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: Are you frustrated with what has been happening on Wall Street?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Wall Street has lost the trust of people, as have the government and the church. We need to bring spirituality, the type of spirituality that Mahatma Gandhi spoke about, into politics. We need to spiritualize politics, socialize business and secularize religion. Religious leaders need to worry more about people than their institutions. They should care for people more. At the same time politicians should think about the values that leaders like Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and George Washington had. This country had Lincoln. He was a great visionary. There have been leaders who have given their whole lives in service to the people rather than out of a desire to achieve something. There is the Lincoln Memorial here, but it was not Lincoln who asked for it to be built. He stood for justice, equality and truth. That is real spirituality. I consider the founders of this nation and also the founders of India, South America and South Africa as people who had zeal. They were innately spiritual in their nature. This indicates how spirituality relates to politics. The backbone of business is trust. If lost, it cannot survive too long. So businesses should practice corporate social responsibility. We should care for one another. Otherwise, when we lose love for people, when we have no friends, we think money brings us happiness. It doesn’t.