Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Q:
Where is that point?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Are you breathing? You are aware of that? Find out then…Q:
Can you speak about the significance of the solar eclipse?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You know, everything affects everything else in the world. A small homeopathic tablet affects a human body of 80 or 90kg. Even a few seconds of exposure to x-rays on your body is enough to make a picture. Unseen rays can make an impact on your life and breath, on the body.When the sun, moon and earth come in one line, then it has an impact on the cosmic energy, the gravitation and fluids especially. The moon has an impact on water. More than 70 percent of our body is made up of water. A cosmic phenomenon has an impact on the body as well.
Our ancient seers have studied this phenomenon very deeply. They describe how rays of a particular planet are connected to particular grains on the earth. Bengal gram (chickpea) and Mars have similar vibrations. Moong dal (split bean) and Mercury have similar vibrations. Sesame seeds and Saturn have similar vibrations.
Every planet has an influence on the grains, animals and particular parts of the human body. One cell multiplies into hair, nails, liver, kidneys, tissues…all are different parts of the body. One of the Rishis (saints) have said the body has 330 million types of gene patterns. In the system, it is inbuilt.
You are connected with nature.
In the Artic region, the sun doesn’t rise for six months! People get depressed with no sunrise. Similarly, people go crazy when there is no sunset for months on end. At 1’o’ clock in the night, the sun shines brightly like it is the afternoon. In Sweden, when I asked them, “What time the sun rise?”, they said, “January 20th” .
No sun for 2 months! It definitely has an impact on the mind and the body.
Where there is more sun, rice grows, where there is little sun, rice doesn’t grow. Rice is always connected to the sun. Objects in the universe appear to be different but they all are linked.
In our body, the eyes are connected to the sun. The nose is represented by Jupiter, forehead to Mercury, cheeks to Venus, and teeth to Saturn. Emotions are also similarly connected. Every part of the body is a part of the cosmos as well. It is an amazing science, there is amazing knowledge. The deeper you go into it, the more it unfolds.
Q:
How do deal with someone who hurts me and makes the same mistake again and again?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
To forgive does not mean that you allow yourself to be made a fool again and again. Deal with the situation with compassion.Q:
Why do you want to help everybody?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Will you ask the sun, why do you shine? If you ask a tree why do you flower, what will it say? It is simply its nature. I only do what is in my nature. Helping others, manushyatva(humanity) is our swabhav (nature). We have to move from a lack consciousness (abhav) and the influences of external factors (prabhav) to our swabhav (nature).Q:
I am full of doubts and inhibitions right from the beginning. How can I be free from this?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Somewhere in the middle sankocha (inhibition) has come. It will go. Don’t think that it is there from the beginning. Doubts have arisen perhaps when you were eight or nine years old. Continue your practice and you will see that your inhibitions will drop.Q:
Shanti(peace), sukha(joy), santosh(satisfaction), priti(love), vishwas(faith) - I have everything. What should I do now?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Then what is it that you want! Go work now! Go to the villages, become teachers and start spreading this knowledge.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:hen says: I want to share something interesting with you all.
Our ancestors have deeply studied our environment. They have included all the animals - dog , donkey, elephant etc - in Divinity. Each animal is associated with a devta (angel). Each animal has a certain vibration – a specific energy field. This field of energy corresponds to the angel who rides the animal. For example, the Devi (Divine Mother) is depicted as riding a tiger. The energy field of the Devi is felt in the vibrations emanating from the tiger.
Human beings have a specific energy field too. The field of energy is called bio – energy. The cosmic energy is absorbed by the various species and transformed into this bio- energy field. The ecological balance is lost when any one species and its corresponding energy field is affected or depleted.
When the frog population is affected, rains are less. The chanting of the Vedic mantras creates the vibrations that are necessary to create harmony and restore the balance.
A girl shares her experience of a miraculous change in her.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: There is no dearth for miracles, it is there in abundance. Only you have to have the confidence and the faith.
The teacher’s training participants from the Middle Eastern countries including Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Morroco, Pakistan and Palestine gathered on stage to sing a song. All those gathered for the satsang clapped along keeping time with the rhythm of the Arabic song.
One man, introducing himself to be a Muslim Indian, asks Sri Sri, “It is so beautiful to see an Arabic song being sung amidst so many Hindus and everyone clapping together. How can we make this happen everywhere?”
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: You all have to work for it. We are a one world family – spread this message to every corner. The sense of belongingness should develop.
Narrow-mindedness or a limited perception is what creates terrorism. We have to broaden our vision. We have to take meditation and wisdom everywhere. Terrorism is in the mind. Through meditation, the mind can be transformed. Only meditation can bring this change.
Q:
My friends expect me to drive them with my car, but then they drink. They look at me differently. I don’t understand why.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
It’s very difficult to understand people’s minds. So, you better give up. They themselves don’t understand their mind, so how can you understand their mind? Do you understand your own mind?The most unreliable thing in your life is your own mind. One minute, it likes something, another minute it likes something else. So, your mind goes all over the place. So, you cannot rely on your own mind. Once you know this, you will laugh, you will smile. Never mind: why should I control someone else’s mind when my mind itself is not under my control? Isn’t it?
Our mind is a multi-channeled television. You know, there are so many channels: the horror channel, history channel, discovery channel, news channel and then there is a cartoon channel. All is happening!
A poet from Karnataka (a state in South India) wrote a very nice couplet about the mind. He said: The mind is like a forest, with so many animals in it. There are nightingales that sing very sweetly and there are crows, and there are tigers, lions and there are mosquitoes. The same way, your mind is a forest.
It’s amazing, just to watch what our mind says. Nobody’s mind is in their control, we shouldn’t expect everyone to behave like an enlightened person. Unfortunately, that is what we do. We want everyone to be perfect.
The world always considers you, sees you, much better than what you are. And even the people don’t see you the way you are, or the way you are not. Never mind, why do you have to bother about it?
Q:
What is the most important gift you are blessing me and the world with?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
If you go to the pharmacist and ask him: ‘Give me the best medicine’, what will he say? ‘I have the best medicine, but for what disease?’ Isn’t it?Similarly, this knowledge gives you everything that you need. You have a headache, you have the best medicine. You have a leg ache, you have the best medicine. You have an ear ache, a heart ache, the best medicine is available to you.
When you are determined to be useful to people, useful in anyway, you don’t have to ask: just be useful. Do whatever is needed whenever, and you will be useful for that purpose.
I would always say that this knowledge in the Art of Living is like an ocean. If someone wants to just walk by it, take fresh air, they are welcome. Someone wants to swim in the ocean, they are welcome. Some others will take salt out of the ocean, yes. Some others want to dig deep and take oil, you are most welcome. Someone goes for fishing; take a few fishes, fine. Some others go and find all that precious stones, gems, it’s your choice.
All is available here and what you make out of it, how you use it, is entirely up to you.
Q:
I am beginning to realize who I am. Seemingly, I am the same as I always was, but with less tension and more clarity. Does self knowledge come at the specific time in a person’s life, and is there any special significance to this?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Yes, self knowledge comes by its time. Sunlight will not enter the room just because you have opened the windows. Yet when there is sunlight, it won’t come in if the curtains are closed. For sunlight to come into this room, two things are needed.1) Your effort to keep the curtains opened.
2) It should be the time for sunlight to come.
Q:
How to deal with the fact that one didn’t get any support from the family. My mother was against her children. I try to find a way in life for twenty years and it doesn’t seem to be possible.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You know, your mother and father have been a doorway for you to enter onto this planet. So, you have come through the doorway. Thank the doorway, honor the doorway, but don’t go on putting all the blame on them. Don’t blame them. They had only that much knowledge, that much love. They gave that much. If you have more knowledge, more love, you give it to others. Why say: Why didn’t my mother love me? She had her own problems, she must be blocked with so much worry and tension. She was not as privileged as you are. You know, you are much more privileged, because you got this knowledge. You had a chance to know what true love is. Not everybody has this opportunity. Isn’t it? So, just have compassion for her. Suppose, if she also had same knowledge just like you, and has been so sensitive towards her children, she would have expressed it. If she lacks sensitivity, she couldn’t express love, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have it. So, have compassion for her.You know, there are four attitudes:
· friendliness for people who are happy,
· compassion for those who are miserable,
· happiness for those who are doing good work
· indifference with those who are doing bad work, bad things in life.
With this attitude our mind is saved. The most important thing is to save your mind at all cost. Remember that. We hear all the slogans, save the environment, save water, food, earth, trees. Nobody talks about saving your mind.
Your mind is being bombarded by so many things around, so many stimuli, so many things from every side. And gets into a mess and keeps reeling.
Just wake up and see what is in life? It is nothing. What do you do? You take a paid job, you earn money all day, come home, spend money on weekends. That’s it. And have fights, love, then fight again, and then you die. Life is finished. And you don’t even get bored, because it is so boring. You don’t even realize it is so boring, because you haven’t seen anything better. If there is anything better and that is all you see, that is what you will do. There is nothing better in life to do, no goal, nothing.
You feel such pity, ‘Oh my God, what a waste of human life.’ This human body has been given to us, we have attained this body to know, to realize something stupendous, something much bigger, something deeper, something vast. If we are not introduced to the vast space within us, if we don’t know about it - what kind of a life is it then? It is a baseless life. There is no support, no base. Isn’t it?
Spirituality is what gives you depth, which gives depth to life, which makes life vast, which gives you direction, which can eliminate all the sorrow and suffering and bring you fulfillment and joy. Isn’t it?
You know, we must realize how fortunate we all are. We are very fortunate. What we have to be concerned about is about people being happy and that they get the knowledge and the depth in their lives.
Aggression is not our nature. We don’t do anything aggressively. We gently keep enlightening people as we walk along our own path. There are so many people who are longing for this knowledge.