Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
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.
Q:
How can I get rid of my fear of failing? I can’t engage or start some project because of my fear of failure. How can I help myself? Thank you for all that you have done for me.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Accept: ‘Ok, I am going to fail. So what? I still want to do it.’ It's like a game you play, whether you win or lose, you play the game. Correct? If you are playing soccer, you just play, no matter if you win or lose, you just play. In the same way, don’t be afraid of failure. If you fail, never mind, still do it. Ok?You need to take some risks in life.
Q:
How can we make a change in the economic system when the capital and big corporations control the world today?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You think about it, let me also think about it. One thing is for sure, make people more human. When people become more human, business develops the human touch. When greed disappears from the field of economy and business, a better system will definitely evolve.Q:
I am a vegetarian, can I take non-vegetarian medicines?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
What you are asking me is about the gelatin capsule. It is ok. Vegetarian capsule is preferable. At times, if the medicine is non-vegetarian, it’s ok. Don’t make a big fuss about it. If it is not available, then it is ok.Q:
I pick up garbage for Seva and I see we produce a lot of garbage every day. We are throwing away society. What can we do in our everyday life to diminish the amount of garbage? We want to take care for the environment, for our planet, for our future generations.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Yes, less waste is better. If you see the forest, you will realize that all the animals leave the forest very clean. There is an ecological balance. There is never a disaster in the forest. They keep the forest clean. You don’t find dead bodies of animals everywhere in the forest. Right? Nature takes care of them so well.Similarly, we should also adopt more organic methods. All the organic dispose should be more organically composted. So, such garbage, which can be put in the compost, is not the problem. Our problem is plastic, which must go to recycling units.
Q:
Is eating vegetarian food said to have better karma than eating meat? I’ve also heard that all things have consciousness. What should we do?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
There are several angles to it. Karma means the latent impression in a substance and how your body matches.Suppose a lion hunts a deer and eats the deer, the lion does not get the karma. A cat eats a mouse, the cat does not get the karma of the mouse. All these animals are designed to prey and eat. However, if you see the human physiology, it is more akin to herbivores. There is a substance called ptyalin in our saliva which is present only in the cow, elephant, horse, goat – in all the herbivorous animals. This indicates that that the human saliva is made for herbivorous animals.
Secondly, the human intestine is so long – six feet. This is not present in lion, tiger or dog but it is present in all herbivores. Human beings don’t have canine teeth. All herbivorous animals don’t have canine teeth. Only the carnivorous animals do.
If you look at these aspects, physiologically our system is more akin to vegetarianism. So in that sense, we say, when you eat a vegetarian diet, you don’t get the karma of it. If you eat anything that is not aligning with your body – like if an elephant eats an egg or if you feed a cow with meat, then the cow will get the karma.
What is karma? Karma is the impression which is against the nature that can produce some change in the consciousness. It can be harmful to the consciousness.
Similarly, when we are exposed to radiation, which we are not supposed to, we get diseases. That means, we acquire those karma. Karma means the strongest impressions on the nervous system which is not all the time necessarily desirable.
If you have drugs, you have drug karma and the karma of the drug on the nervous system is so huge that after sometime, you can’t stop the drug. Then your body craves for it. Your body distorts. You go through so much of pain and suffering. It needs lot of de-programming to come out of drug addiction. It is the same for alcohol.
Food is not that strong. Yet our system is made for herbivorous, especially, if you want to go to a more subtle level in your mind and in your consciousness.
All top scientists, many achievers are vegetarians. It naturally happens. Your system wants only that. That means they are in tune with nature. That’s all. It’s not that those who are not vegetarian are not good. No, they are as good as you are. But their consciousness is much better if they tune themselves to nature.
Someone from the audience: We’re organizing a peace march in a high school. Will you come?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:i>: I’ll be there in spirit. The spirit is much bigger. Body is small. The body is like a tiny stone, tied to a huge balloon.
Q:
If someone is very stressed, how do we explain the benefits about the Art of Living program?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Just tell them, ‘Hey, I want you to do something, just sign here.’They need a little push and encouragement. When stressed, logic does not work, the mind will not work, and clarity will not be there. Decisions are never correct in that state. So they just need some help.
Q:
Should we meditate after Sudarshan Kriya?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Meditate after kriya. Don’t get up immediately after Sudarshan Kriya. Meditate for at least 10 -15 minutes. Learn Sahaj Samadhi meditation. Mantra meditation is good. Practice a guided meditation and just let go.Q:
Why is there disturbance in the world?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
There will be some pockets of disturbances in the world. There could be some gap or interval between conflicts. It is our responsibility to increase the gap between conflicts and bring peace.