Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Q:
How can someone with a family life achieve spiritual growth?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Family life is not contrary to spiritual practices. If you go deep into spiritual practices, then your relationships with people, with your children become better.Q:
Is a Christian God more powerful and caring than a Hindu God?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
God is only one. If people say that, ‘My God is better than your God’, then they are wrong. Just turn your face away.Q:
What to do with good friends whose paths have just changed? There has been no growth since the last five years. Slowly, there is nothing to talk about but they are good friends.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You need to educate them.Q:
I live in a family whose members are very anxious, insensitive, egoistic, and under-confident. I understand that accepting them as they are is the way you say, but living 24 hours in a surrounding like this takes a toll on me. I have done a lot of things over the years to address this, and I feel I am losing my life, enthusiasm, creativity, and love - again and again. Can you please guide me in this regard?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Know that I am with you. Whenever you feel low or unhappy – even to the slightest extent - know I am with you. Come on, nobody can be with someone for 24 hours. You sleep for at least six to eight hours. Then, two hours are for yourself - you bathe, you feed, you stay with yourself. If you have a room by yourself, (it's good to have a room), sometimes stay by yourself. Take a walk.Usually, we generalize, and eternalize problems. We think: 'I am always wrong. I always have a problem.' How can you always have a problem? Then, there is no problem as you are so used to it. Some people create problems for others because it's the only time they don't have any problems (laughter). Some people, who have no problems, create problems for others. Wake up, and see. It is wise not to eternalize, and generalize the problem.
Q:
Dearest Guruji, you spoke of the ant and the elephant in the video today. I would like to know how to be in Divine Love. Am I like the ant? What is the way of Divine Love? Is it to be an ant, or an elephant?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
When you realize you are an ant, you become an elephant. If you think you are like the elephant, you become the ant! (Laughter)Q:
A hundred years of a disease-free body, and stress-free mind seems like a theory. How is it possible in this age to live a hundred years, in a disease-free, and stress-free state?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Have an intention. 100 years does not mean exact 99 years and 12 months, or 99 years 11 months 29 days. Rishis (a renunciate) used to say a 100 years. When people bless, they usually say ‘Live 1,000 years’. It does not mean that they want you to live 1,000 years. When you get tired of this life, you say you have stayed too long on this planet. But when you are connected to the Divine, the natural wish that comes is ‘Let me live to the maximum of human life. Let me work till the last breath. Let me live healthily.’ These are natural wishes.Q:
If everything is impermanent, and life is moving at such a speed, how can everything be impermanent? How can the impermanent, and the absolute coexist?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You cannot know impermanence unless there is something permanent. Change is there when there is non-change. To notice changes, there should be a reference point, and that is non-change.Q:
I spent a lot of my life chasing questions. How to be calmer and decisive, instead of being tensed?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Make a drastic shift in your life from wanting everything from everybody to giving to everyone. Know you are here only to give instead of take. The strength for you is ‘I want nothing from anybody and if I can be useful to 10, 20 people in life that´s good enough, and my needs will be taken care of by nature. This body belongs to planet earth. It is made of the materials of the planet earth, and will go back to this earth.’ When you can’t lift your hands, nature will make arrangements to feed you. You will be taken care of, if you can’t see. It will put that compassion into someone to come, and feed you. So you must know that this body belongs to planet earth and it will take care of you.How can I be useful to the planet? Just having these thoughts gives better direction. The lack will disappear. How to draw abundance towards you is not to be greedy, self-centered.
Q:
I am afraid of people and very tight when I speak to them. I often ask what they think of me. How can I be more open and communicative?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Get onto the DSN course (laughter) and if that does not work, get onto the TTC (more laughter). Till you do that, now for an immediate remedy. Don’t be the football of other´s opinions.Q:
What would you say to all those who suffer from depression in the world today?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Firstly, I would say that everything changes, and secondly that you need to see the hand of the Divine in everything that happens. Thirdly, look at the situation of those around you and you can certainly find someone who is in a far worse position than you. If you can help those who are worse off than you, your depression will be lifted. The fourth thing is to learn breathing exercises. This can ward off the depression before it even starts, just as vaccinations remove the danger of disease before they strike.n