Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Sri Sri: You know the third eye is associated with alertness and awareness. When you are alert, awake, more into knowledge then naturally the energy has moved from the lowest chakra to the highest. The lower things no more interest you. You know when you are very alert and awake the sexual energy has transformed itself into a different quality of consciousness. The sexual energy is when the back portion of our brain, our head is activated. Alertness, perception and awareness happen when the front portion of the brain is activated; the pituitary and pineal glands are getting activated. In the brain also they are on the opposite sides of each other. So it is mythologically said when the third eye opens then the gross desires simply evaporate, not that it is bad but they simply don’t make much sense anymore. That is why the intellectuals and the highly spiritual oriented practitioners always put something on the forehead, some sandal wood paste because they are focusing; doing some yoga and meditation so they put some sandal wood to cool the forehead, to cool it a little bit.
When the frontal lobe of the brain becomes more active, more alert, then thinking, intellectual work, creativity, memory they are all enhanced because all of these things are in the frontal lobe of the brain and sensory pleasures are all at the back of the brain.

Sri Sri: Boredom! What do you do when you get bored of everything?! Let me think what you can do!
This is because you are thinking only about yourself. When you don’t know what pleasure you will get you get bored because this world cannot really give you satisfaction, it can only bore you but if you come from a place of giving and not getting then you won’t be bored. You will think what can I do, how can I be of great use. If you think on those lines and dedicate your life for a cause then boredom does not arise but if you are seeking joy in action then you will get bored. Boredom is simply what?!
You are seeking joy in action which you didn’t get. You are seeking for some joy in the world which you didn’t get and then you got bored. In the beginning it gave you some happiness, a particular object or situation but when you kept repeating it you got bored. So stop seeking joy in activity know that you are joy and then you won’t look for joy and get disappointed or get bored, yeah!

Sri Sri: The one you are in love with is fearful? Okay! That we don’t know how much you have scared him that he has become so fearful. First see whether the person you are in love with is also in love with you.
See, sometimes we think we love someone but we don’t even know how to properly express our love to another. It is very hard to express how much love you are feeling in your heart to someone else. How are you going the express? With words you will not be able to express. Something as deep as love does not come in the realm of expression. It is very difficult to express and sometimes when you try very hard and with a lot of effort to express this love people get scared. The other person should also know how to accept and receive your love isn’t it? That’s why it is important to know to how to express and how much of our love to express to each person, yeah!
Just imagine you have someone day and night calling you again and again and telling you, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you’, then what you will say, okay, yes, you love me, fine what next, right?!
So until we do not turn towards wisdom we are not able to properly express or receive love, for that also there is some eligibility. With wisdom one is so full of love that love exudes from every action. In life when we embrace the divinity then all our relationships blossom by themselves but if you try to fix your relationships one by one it does not work. From one side things will get better and from the other side it will get worse, so you be centered in yourself, be in devotion and everything else will be taken care of.

Sri Sri: It is intuition, don’t think there is an eye opening like this and something is popping up from your head. You get a bump or a hole in your forehead, no! You know you close your eyes still you feel some light; you may see or you may feel, it can be both ways. If someone says I am going to open your third eye and this and that, just don’t go into those things. I tell you, definitely not, it is simply hoax because I have seen so many people claiming to open the third eye and nothing happens really, people get a headache, an incurable headaches many times and you get into problems. You know many such cases come to us for repair, so if someone says I want to open your third eye tell them, thank you very much, I am happy with two eyes. The deeper you go in meditation your intuitive ability develops.

Sri Sri: Impressions in the soul binds it to the body. That is what is called Karma.

Sri Sri: Unhappiness is due to two things, one in lack of resources in some parts of the world; if they get water they will be happy, if they get food they will be happy. In the other part of the world it is lack of spirituality. In one place the body is starving so there is unhappiness, and in another place the soul is starving and so there is unhappiness. We at The ‘Art of Living’ have to do both jobs, provide food to the body and food to the soul and that’s what we are doing.

Sri Sri: Why are you asking this question? See there are two levels, like the molecular level on the basis of which everything is the same. E. g. if you see this stand is wood, this door is wood, everything is made from wood, but you cannot sit on the door and neither can you make a chair a door, even though everything is wood. Just like that on one level we say that everything is happening but on another level we are also required to act. You continue to act and as you continue doing you will see that, ‘I didn’t do anything, everything happened and is happening’, that is wisdom.
Once I went to prison to address the prisoners. I was called to speak to them after they had completed the course. So I asked them how many of you have committed any crime. No one raised their hand. Then I asked how many of you are innocent and have been put into prison, and everyone raised their hand. ‘We are innocent, we have not done anything and we have just been put into prison. We have not done anything but it just happened’. So even a thief is saying that he did not do anything but it just happened. A man has murdered another person but when I asked him he said I did not do it, I don’t know at that time what went into to me that the murder just happened. So a person who has committed some of the worst crimes also says that he did not do it. Just like that people who do wonderful work, if you ask them did you do this, they will say no I didn’t do anything, it all just happened, fell into place, I didn’t do anything.
This is a state of consciousness where you realize things are not happening because of your effort, it is happening due to some law, due to some power in the creation which is making everything happen.

Sri Sri: Now that you are asking this question it is both of our responsibility. Yes, do your 100% and relax and when you feel that you can do a little better or a little more that indicates that you have been responsible. When you feel you are doing everything that you can then the responsibility shifts away from you.

Sri Sri: Walk the path!