Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
When the heart opens, tears flow. It’s quite natural .When heart opens and these are not bitter or salty tears, they are sweet tears. These aretears of love, of gratitude. So let it be. Don’t try to stop it or don’t try to enhance it, just let it be.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Listen to one thing now, you are right for the other person when you can adjust. Relationship means adjustment, it is giving. You give what you can to the other person and wait for them to give back to you. If you are demanding from the others, the relationship is not going to last long. Demand destroys the love. Demand and blame destroys relationships. So, you should only know how to praise others and uplift a situation instead of blaming, finding fault. Uplift the other, this should be your commitment . Then you are the right person for anybody, and everybody will love you when you don’t hurt them intentionally. This is the first point. Number one.Second, you are open to correction and changes, you have the patience to listen to criticism.Three things, I am counting. You have patience to take in criticism. Fourth, you know the other persons’ point of view, or where the shoe pinches, you know. You should see the other person beyond their words and their actions.You know, when someone is working for 8 to 10 hours, when they come back home, they are very tired. If he is a businessman and when the stock markets fall, he is so upset and he comes home to find solace. So you should see the circumstance, situations, how the spouse is and allow them the space to express their genuine feelings of frustrations, anger whatever.You know, there is only one option when a person is angry or is frustrated. The whole world expects them to keep the frustration to themselves, no one wants to share their frustration, but when they come home it is with their spouse. They explode and express and show all their frustration. At that time, the spouse should be there like a midwife - allow them to deliver. When someone is in labor pain, and if you say, ‘Don’t deliver, keep it, keep it, keep the babyinside.’ What can they do? How long can they keep it inside? Somewhere they have to explode. When they come with their stress, the spouse should allow them to express. Say, ‘Ok, download it. Download. Let go of all your stresses, ok whatever you want to blame, blame. You want to beat me or beat yourself, do it’.Then, you know, keep that type of space for them to un-stress and download. What you can say is ‘Let go of all that you have carried all the day, all the stress of the stock market or whatever else.’ If a person commits a mistake in the work place or injustice is done to him or her, they come back and they want some place to offload it. Offload is the right word I think, offload all that thing and one must keep that space for them to offload. Understand why there are upset, why they are unhappy - then your relationship will work. But if you expect them not to tell anything, be nice to you all the 24 hours, seven days a week and 365 days and find fault with them all the time.
Pricking them that ‘You are useless, you are hopeless, you are this, that...’ Poor lady or man! What will they do? They find that they have no support. Nobody is helping them to grow, helping them, uplifting them and then they get depressed. Right? So first, we will see. Greater is the person who has greater capacity to absorb, accommodate, adjust with anybody. If you can adjust with anybody, that much greater you are, you know and the degree can come less, less, less. If you know your acceptability is only 10 percent, then you are thoroughly miserable if it zero percent. There is no way you can grow in your life. Wisdom is to have this patience, grow from zero to one hundred percent.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Don’t worry. When you are established inthe Self while you are here(in this planet), only then no fear is left. Thatwas a way adopted by our ancestors for making people follow the right path and dogood karma. It was said you will suffer a lot after death if you do wrong deedsto set people on the right path. If you follow the wrong path, then wrong karmawill follow.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Devotion is the zenith of Love. ‘Saa tvasmin panama prema rupa’ - Embodimentof supreme love for the divine is devotion. You can’t posses God. In routinelove affairs, you love someone and you expect the same in return. You can’tclaim a right on God. Love for that infinite consciousness is devotion.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Whenever someone suffers, the people around him or her are the ones who suffer more than the person. The family of a mentally retarded child suffers much more than the child himself. That child is in a different paradigm of mind. Nature gives the strength to endure the suffering and walk through with strength. An animal is given only that heavy a tail, which it can wag. Just imagine a rat having the tail of an elephant. Nature is very intelligent. It only gives you that problem which you can handle.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Charity purifies wealth.Ghee/clarified butter purifies food.Knowledge purifies the intellect. Bhajan purifies the mind &Service purifies the action.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
We cannot live without karma. All is pre-decided for an animal but not for a human. Some things are pre-decided and some are not. If everything was pre-decided, why would we be doing bhajans here? It would be no different than being an animal then. Humans have responsibilities to fulfill and humans take on responsibility. An animal has neither any responsibility nor any demand. Humans have freedom as well as an intellect.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
There is no need to pay attention to that. It is just an experience. In Sudarshan Kriya or meditation you may hear something, see some images or visions but all these come and go. It is a form of stress release.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Well, I am not an expert to answer this. (Laughter) One thing I can tell you is that you should leave a certain margin in a relationship. The strength of a relationship lies in the ability to accommodate rough patches. How well you handle it gives you skills. Otherwise how do you get to know how accommodating, understanding and considerate you are? These virtues come up only when you have rough patches. See the situation as an opportunity on how to adapt, how to be accommodating, understanding and considerate. You should give a shot to excel in exhibiting your character rather then changing the other person.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
There are 1,82,000 nadis/ energy channels in our body. When we breathe, these are activated and that is why we are alive. When we breathe through the left nostril, certain nadis are functioning and others function when we breathe through the right nostril. So when we alternate the breath through the nostrils, certain changes happen in the body and in our system. Our system gets purified. Fresh energy moves in the system and the stress is eliminated. The left nostril activates the functioning of the right brain and vice versa. So when we alternate our breathing, all the brain waves get synchronized. Biochemical changes happen in the body. The Endocrine glands function better and any imbalance in body is rooted out. There are many benefits of pranayama.