Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Very good question! What is the purpose of life, why are we here? And you know you should give a pat on your back. If this question has come into your life that means your intellect is mature. There are millions of people who live their whole life without even asking this question, ‘what is the purpose of life? Why am I here?’ They simply eat, drink, watch television, make love or fight, and die. They have no idea; they don’t even stop for a minute and think what life is? Who am I? What do I want? What can I do and how can I be useful? None of these questions even cross anybody’s mind; if it has come into you that mean you have begun living. Your life has started the right journey and this journey is what you call spirituality - to find out exactly what is the purpose of life. What do I want? Who am I? Before you can ask what you want, first you should know who you are. What is life? There are two important aspects to this question, one is the science and another is spirituality. You know what THIS IS through science, and through spirituality you know ‘WHAT AM I?’

‘ME’ and ‘THIS’; ‘THIS’ you understand through science, ‘ME’ you understand through spirituality.

What is this ‘I’? To know the ‘I’ first you understand ‘THIS’. What is ‘THIS’?
Oh ‘This is world’, ‘This is body', and ‘how did this body come into existence?’
It came as a baby weighing only four or five kilos. Then the baby took all the material from this earth and becomes fifty kilos. So what is in this body, how this body has come up?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Mind, intellect, memory and ego are four functions of the mind or mind has these four aspects.

So what is mind? Are you listening? If your eyes are open and your ears are of course open, sound anyways goes into your ears but if your mind is elsewhere, can you listen to me? No! Isn’t it? So this mind is that through which you perceive, you feel, correct! That, which goes out through the five senses and experiences, is mind.
Okay! so if you experience through mind then what is intellect? As you experience you say, ‘oh, this is good, this is not good, I want this, I don’t want that’. You know intellect is the judging or discriminating aspect. As I am speaking now, your mind is saying, ‘well, I don’t like it’ or ‘I believe it’ or ‘I don’t believe it’, you are going into a dialogue, this is intellect; and then memory, that which stores all this information. So sometimes you feel, when you experience something, ‘oh! I have experienced this before’. When you enjoy apple pie, not for the first time, you say ‘oh I have enjoyed this before, I had this pie before’. So memory is recognizing the experiences and storing it in the memory and then ego.

Ego is – ‘I am something, I am intelligent, I am stupid, I like this, I don’t like that, I am rich, I am very poor, I am ugly or I am beautiful, I am something, I am’, that is ego. When you understand all this then you feel is this the thing? No! After understanding ego also, there is something left, what is this? That is the self.


Catch more in the next post..

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

“In many places, the first discrepancy and discrimination one sees is gender-based. Gender is the most visible; the most obvious today. So, gender and religion, followed by nationality or cultural differences, these all should be sidelined.

However, I am not saying that you have to force yourself to find a person who is from a particular category, when they may not be as talented. That is also wrong. Talent must come first, and diversity should be secondary. In the name of diversity, we bring in people who are not capable or qualified to do the job. The business suffers as a result. So the diversity value should not come as a rule imposed on someone but it should come from within oneself. It should come from the transformation of our outlook rather than an imposition of a rule or government regulations”.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

“We have already stated. In the past, the business world ran on economic pressure, because people had no other means. But today, the global market is so open and the choices are many and varied. People are more aware than it was a few years ago, so now they want to move around. If not here, they will find job advancement; it has turned the business view completely upside-down. Before, it was regionally oriented because you had to do a job and availability was limited”.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

“Correct!. We are not taught at school or at home how to manage negative emotions, like feeling unhappy, sad, jealous or angry. This knowledge has not been provided. But if you are taught how to manage your anger and your own emotions using your own breath, then it does a lot of good. Acquiring that knowledge is possible with the help of breathing and meditation.
I have been in Buddhist and Hindu traditions for centuries, in China, Japan and India, through breathing and meditation. But the difference between our techniques and these old techniques is that ours suit modern-day people who have less time. This technique is so handy, useful and accessible in today’s modern society”.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Yes, sure! Definitely. You truly understand and live what Buddha has said.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Okay now listen, this is your concept. Just imagine if you were on the other side and I would speak only Chinese, don’t speak any English, and there would be no translation, then what would you do? ‘Oh, please let me have translation’. Don’t keep the concept in mind, ‘oh translation is bothering me’. No it does not matter, let it be there. Listen to it like music.

You know people who cannot read Chinese, we find it so beautiful when we go to Hong-Kong, because all these Chinese letters look like decoration. All the sign boards look like decoration, some rangoli or some designs. The entire Hong-Kong is decorated with design boards everywhere. It does not bother but if you know the language, you will be reading all the boards and it will be bothering you more. When you don’t know, it looks so nice.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Yeah, you pray, you do meditation. Whatever you ask for, you are getting it, right! How many of you are getting whatever you desire? You wish and you are getting, your work is getting done. How many of your wishes are coming true? (many raise hands)

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

How to improve memory? I will tell you next year, let me see whether you remember the question!

You do have good memory; If you think you don’t have, little more pranayama, and there are some ayurvedic things for memory, you can take Brahmi and Shankapushpi, these herbs are good for memory.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Ya, that’s exactly what we are going to do now. Meditation. You will know then how we will deal with the thoughts.