Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Q:
Why are some people greedy and cruel? Can we change them or must we learn to accept?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Some people don’t know how beautiful they are. Inside every culprit there is a victim crying for help. If you heal the victim, that culprit will be healed. No one is born as a violent person. One becomes violent due to lack of proper education on non-violence.Q:
When one achieves higher levels of consciousness, what is the effect on the body and how does the use of the body change?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
There’s this proverb. ‘You chop wood and carry water before enlightenment and you chop wood and carry water after enlightenment.’ Our consciousness impacts our body and our body impacts our consciousness. It is a very dear relationship.Q:
What is innocence? What takes away innocence?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
For innocence you would have to know there is no other.Q:
What is the significance of the story of poison getting stuck in Shivji’s throat?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
It has a deep meaning. Poison spreads with speech. Mind gets agitated with speech. All riots happen because of harsh words and lack of right knowledge. Shivji is also called neelkanth – which signifies when Mahadev drinks poison, it doesn’t reach his whole body. When there is fight between right and wrong thoughts, a poison is generated. Shiva tattva has power to hold on to that poison. Even if you have to criticize, do it from your lips and not your heart. When you do it from your heart, it harms you. When it is from the level of lips, somebody is benefitted in the society. You cannot have flowery speech all the time. That would be cheating yourself and others also. You have to show mirror to people. But that should not be from the level of the heart. Even if Shiva gets angry, that is not from inside. Same peace is there inside. It is like kids getting angry with their mother. In no time they retain their smile. This is innocence. It is the grownups who hold on to fights for long time.Q:
What is significance of Shiva’s trishul?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Holding trishul signifies that Shiva is above three states – awake, dream and sleep. But who takes all these along with.Q:
How to take decisions in life?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
With a calm mind. When you take decisions in restlessness, you get into trouble.Q:
People who do wrong, move ahead. People who do right, suffer. Why is it so?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You think that the people who do something wrong progress in life. But haven’t you noticed the downfall these people face afterwards? There was a man named Madoff in America. People from all over the whole world were crazy to have a photograph with him. Now he is in jail. His own son revealed his scandal. So whoever attains success with unfair means will definitely fall down. There are many examples like this.If you are suffering that is not because you are good, but it may be due to a lack in skillfulness. We need four things in life- power, skill, devotion and liberation.(shakti, yukti, bhakti and mukti) You cannot be successful in society without power and skillfulness. And you cannot be successful in life without devotion and liberation. So you face problems because of a lack in skill.
Have you ever met the so called successful people? Some of them are so miserable that they cannot even sleep well at night and many of them have suicidal tendencies. People who do wrong may hide but they are very miserable inside. You can smile much better than them.
Q:
In Sri Lanka they are giving chemicals to farmers who can’t read. The farmers don’t know how toxic the chemicals are. They could get cancer if they even touched them. Developed nations are sending banned chemicals to these places. The farmers need to be educated.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
This is exactly what we are doing. We have 65,000 youth volunteers who are working in various areas of India and parts of Africa. Yes, the US and Europe have banned DDT powder. It is sent to Third World countries where they think this white powder is good because it kills the bugs. This education is needed.Like we preserve the seeds, we must preserve our mind by keeping the mind calm and pleasant. Activists are so worked up and so agitated. The mind is upset so their project does not take off. Some people are happy and peaceful and do nothing at all. This is not the way either. We need to preserve the mind through meditative practice and breathing and help our environment.
Every soul has five sheaths around it.
The first is the environment. The second is Prana or energy. Prana is life force. The third is mind force. The fourth is intuition. The fifth is bliss and we are naturally blissful.
So we are actively floating in the ocean of Prana. Prana is the life force, our body is like shells.
Q:
Does the Art of Living work with Native American tribes?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
We are working with the Native Americans in Canada but not in the US. We would very much like to do some work here. There is so much alcoholism in this community.Q:
90% of people don’t have clean drinking water, enough food or any hope. What can a simple person do about it?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
In some villages where there is dirty water, the water filters run on electricity. Some people came to see me two, three years ago about this issue. The water filters were expensive and half the villages don’t have access to electricity(in India). So the villagers couldn’t use them. They invented a water filter. It costs only $10 for one year. You can filter as much water as you want. Very dirty water runs through it, and it comes out clean. It just costs $10 to change every year. This is one breakthrough. 90% of all diseases are waterborne. When one has good drinking water, there is a shift. Just with one filter, you can run dirty water through it and get pure water.