Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Do it, take it. Bless them to behave better. When you want to bless someone because their behavior hurts you, it doesn’t work. When you want to bless them because their behavior hurts them, that would work. That is compassion. Say: May you behave better, so that you can be happier.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
‘Devtaa’ means ‘divya shakti or Divine Energy. Each cell of your body has 33 different aspects of Divine energies. The same cell becomes an eye, the skin, the bone, the sensory perception of the smell in the nose and so on. A Devtaa is not sitting in Himalayas but in your body itself.Ishwar (God) is present in each and every part of your body.
The formless, omnipresent Divinity who is of the nature of existence, knowledge, bliss (Satchidananda) is called the Ishwara.
All forms belong to Him who is formless.
All names belong to Him, who is without name.
Indian tradition recognises the One Divinity in Creation and recognises everything in creation as part of One Divinity. The Indian tradition has welcomed and accepted Buddha, Mahavira and Guru Nanak. Sufi saints, Christians and Parsi saints were also accepted. This is because we see one in all and all are one. Then there is no need to say: ‘Your God is better than my God’. This kind of thinking can become the basis for conflict.
We need to have a broad vision (Vishaal Drishthikon). This is what spirituality gives us.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Patience and perseverence. Keep these two things in your mind – don’t expect someone to accept you immediately. Give a little bit of your ideas to people. Then leave them for a few days so that they have time to digest the ideas. Then again you share some ideas. So, bit by bit you can tell them. Then perhaps, you will change your point of view! This happens many times. Life is very complex, the intellect is very intellect – we should not be stuck with something. Our mind should be flexible, not rigid.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Meditate and even before going to bed meditate and listen to some nice chanting, that will help.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Many animal species have disappeared. Now you don’t see sparrows, snakes and scorpions. There is no dearth for souls. There are plenty of them.Have you seen advertisements on a billboard? Sometimes only few letters get lit. For example, an advertisement for Lux soap or Colgate toothpaste.
The bulbs are there all the time. Sometimes some bulbs are lit, others are not. In the same way, the souls are there. Some manifest, some don’t.
(Many youth from the ongoing Yes+ programme shared their experiences. Sri Sri told them:
“Save your mind at all costs. We talk about saving the environment, saving the world but not the mind. Tell yourself: I am in charge of my life, my mind. Nobody can make me unhappy.”
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
No, no, no, absolutely not. Don’t worry. If you feel like you are getting affected by somebody’s depression or somebody’s negative energy, just say Om NamahShivaya a few times. It’s gone. It can happen. When people are so depressed and are not in proper shape and you meet them you may feel that. How many of you feel that, when you meet very depressed people something happens to your own body, right? Om NamahShivaya, Jai gurudev - it just disappears.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
When Lord Krishna sat in Samadhi that is when he recited the Gita. After the war, once Arjuna asks him that I have forgotten the beautiful knowledge that you gave me, at that time there was a lot of crowd and so much commotion on the war field and I didn’t listen to you properly. Please tell me again what you said. Then Krishna replied," No, I can’t tell you now, at that time I was in samadhi , so I made you sit and whatever came to me I told you at that time, now I cannot again tell you again". So whatever Lord Krishna said was not a person saying this knowledge but the universe speaking. These messages came from the Shiva tattva, the atma tattva. He said, ’I am the sun, I am the rain, truth and untruth, everything is me.’ This is very deep knowledge. If you see everything is made from one tattva, from atoms. What is your mother made of, father made of? Everyone’s body is made from the same thing, from food grains. Food grains are consumed and the body is developed, whoever eats, they all grow and the body is made from that. So everyone is made from one substance, one power and one energy. So, he is saying the whole world is made from that one consciousness, one energy, one substance. Now if you see the fan, mike and light are all working with one current, with electricity, isn’t it? But it seems like the mike is different, the light is different and the fan is something else. They all look different but they are all made up of the same thing. In the same way, if the sun was not there then the earth cannot exist. If the earth was not there, how could there be plants or trees or human beings? So what is our source? First from the physical aspect our source is the earth; more subtle than that it is the sun. What is the source of the sun? The universal energy - and so Lord Krishna says that universal energy is ME. That is the atma that is you and that is me and everything is made of this universal energy and this is what today’s scientist also say. Those who study quantum physics this is what they say - that the whole world is made up of one energy. Earlier it was said that there were different protons, electrons functioning and making things work but now they say it is all one energy, everything is a wave functions. What we consider physical things are not there in reality, it is all just energy and this is what Lord Krishna has said many years ago in the Bhagavad Gita. ‘Avajananti mam mudham manusim tanumasritam, Param bhavam ajananto mama bhuta- mahesvaram’, these people do not see my true nature as that one universal energy, consciousness and they are thinking I am a human being. I am in a human body but the consciousness inside me is that supreme consciousness. I am not a human being. I am a power.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Divide is created by the minds of people; it is not religion that is responsible. Even within one religion how much people fight. Forget about religion, in the family don’t brothers fight, right or not? Same family, children of the same mother and father. If there are four brothers or six brothers, that’s it, there are court cases against each other. People fight because they lack spirituality and they have not learnt meditation.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Just for fun!Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Ask everyone around you once they are all out of silence they will say it is happening. How many people feel it is happening, raise your hands? See in everybody’s life it is happening. Where there is love and faith miracles will always happen.