Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Q:
Do you need to be aggressive or calm to achieve your goal?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Both. You have to be calm and dynamic. I won’t call it aggression. Sometimes you have to be dynamic – whenever needed.Q:
Could you please explain the significance of Easter?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Easter is the symbol of spring, it welcomes the spring. There is a new resurgence. Everything is a celebration in life.Take any excuse to celebrate. We don’t have to wait for an occasion. Life itself is a celebration.
Q:
When you were a child, did you ever get into a fight?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
I am still a child. My childhood will never finish, I will never let it finish.Q:
Guruji, I doubt you so much still I love you so much. What do I do? I feel I am going against my religion, what do I do?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Fine, sometimes I like chaat also. You know chaat? It has a little tamarind, its a little sweet and chilly and has all tastes - I don’t mind. You have a little doubt; I can make it bigger if you want. My job is not to clear your doubt but to give you more. You have to break through it; you have to work through your doubt. I can put a few more doubts into you.Q:
How important is money in pursuing goals, career and achievements? If we don’t have enough, will we achieve our goals?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
If you go with a ‘lack consciousness’, then any amount of money won’t be enough for you. You will have thoughts like: ‘What will happen in my old age? What is going to happen?’One day, however much you feed your body, it is going to go.
Money is a means. Earn money, don’t spend foolishly. People are ready to spend money on parties, weddings , garments…yet when it comes to giving to a good cause, I don’t know where that stinginess comes from.
You should put that sankalpa: ‘I will get what I need. I will never suffer from a shortage.’
Q:
Is everything done by the Divine and we simply have to go along? Or is everything done so that we feel the desire to act? I’m confused.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Highest knowledge comes only after confusion. What is confusion? Confusion is when a belief system breaks down. You’re in a shell and then suddenly things are not the way they are. Then a new horizon is seen. An old concept vanishes, giving room to a new possibility.Before Krishna gave the highest knowledge to Arjuna, he confused him thoroughly. In the fourth chapter of the Bhagvad Gita, Arjuna asks Krishna: ‘Why are you confusing me with so many things? Directly tell me the right thing.’ Confusion always precedes knowledge.
Q:
Guruji, whoever meets me ends up pulling my cheeks, what do I do?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Don’t be tense about it; you must be really cute for everyone to pull your cheeks.Q:
How can I believe in God when some people are so privileged, and others are so poor?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You think God is a person sitting there. (Sri Sri points upwards.) That is only in Michelangelo’s painting.God is not a person. God is a field of energy, like a magnetic field. The whole universe is pervaded by this field and made up of that substance. In meditation, we are in communion with this.
But this is not a dead field like a magnetic field. It has life, consciousness.
There are five attributes of God – God created this world, sustained it, dissolved it, he also blesses and veils it. Like air, although it is all around us, we only feel it when a fan is switched on. In the same way, we sometimes experience the blessing, but at other times God’s presence is veiled from us.
Spiritual practices unveil God.
Q:
Guruji, what is the significance of wearing saffron color?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Now we have given different symbolism to different colors. Saffron is like red hot, means you have become like fire. You have renounced everything; you are looking for yourself, that is saffron. But if it becomes too hot then it becomes white hot. Do you know about iron? It is red hot, then it becomes white hot.Q:
Are the souls of animals and human beings the same?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Yes, yes! What difference does it make? Do you want to become an animal again? You have gone through all that. A human DNA chain contains the DNA of all the species. From a human DNA, you can make a mosquito or an elephant. But from an elephant’s DNA, you cannot make a human being. Nature is mysterious, that’s why it is so interesting.