16 Dec 2011 - QA 2

Guruji, if the ultimate aim of Seva, Sadhna and Satsang is to be in the present moment, then why sometimes we have to suffer in the present and remind ourselves that this suffering is making us stronger? What are we getting prepared for?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Pain and pleasure exists on the planet.
The first experience of your coming into the world was painful. You were happily floating in your mother’s womb and suddenly all the liquid was gone and you had to pass through a narrow passage. It was difficult and you had a tough time. That is why as soon as a child is born it shrinks its whole body as though it did some huge work and then cries.
That is your first experience of pain.
Pain and pleasure, they keep happening like meditation in motion but suffering is optional. Pain sometimes is inevitable.
Suffering is when you try to avoid pain or when you have a concept that this pain should never have been there. Suffering is latching onto the past in the present moment.
So suffering is also in the present because your mind is latching on to a past moment.
Again, there are times it could be inevitable but with wisdom that time is shortened.

That is why Maharishi Patanjali said, ‘Heyam Dukham Anagatam’; Yoga is there to avoid the suffering which might come in the future. It is a precaution.
If you take good precaution with food and you’re eating habits are good, you don’t get diabetes, or blood pressure or heart problems and other problems.
Why you get these problems? It is because you neglect something, somewhere.
Similarly if you don’t attend to your relationships with people around you then you get into that type of problem.
Sometimes with no logic if you feel that you are suffering then know that it has carried on from the past which you do not know of. And if you do eternity process or go into deeper meditation then it will appear and then you will see, this was something due in the past and I am paying off the due now. That is it, finish and move on.