Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Q:
Why are dreams there if they don’t turn to be true?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Because those are dreams.Q:
Why do I fight with my wife though I love her?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
When someone asked Mullah Naseeruddin why he fought with his wife so much, he replied, “Because I love her so much. I fight with someone and love someone else? That is not done! I do everything with one person.” Fights are also a part of life.When you focus on each other too much, then fights happen. If you both have a common goal, to serve, to uplift the society, then fights don’t happen and love blossoms and there is plenty of work for every couple.
In the Indian marriage tradition, there is a ceremony called the saptapadi, the seven steps, which the couple has to take together. One of these steps (signifying vows) is that the couple work together for the upliftment of society.
Q:
When clothes get smaller, we recognize physical growth. How do we recognize spiritual growth?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Very easily. It depends on how you go ahead in every situation, especially bad situations. Do you deal with the situation with courage, and peace? If so, then, that is sign of your spiritual development. The more you smile, and the more you are happy, the more you are spiritually developed.Sometimes, in spite of doing a lot of sadhana, you get angry, and then you tend to think that you have not developed spiritually.
Don’t blame yourself. Even though you get angry, it is not the same as before. Earlier your anger would remain for long, now it subsides. To other people, you look the same but if you look within, the anger comes and goes away quickly. Earlier it used to take five years, now it takes five minutes to go away. This is our experience. That is why you should not blame yourself when you get any negative sentiments. Witness the feeling and let it go. With practice, the consciousness becomes stronger.
A plant has to be watered but when it grows into a tree, it is no longer necessary. Similarly, if the inner consciousness becomes stronger, all these vikaar (distortions) get erased.
Vishranti vikar mita (Deep rest removes negativity). That is why people are jailed. They are tired of doing bad deeds, so we let them take rest. When they rest, the negative thoughts get destroyed. There is no rest deeper than meditation.
Q:
What is dispassion? Do you have to be a sanyasi to experience dispassion?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Dispassion starts happening naturally. When you grow up, your mind doesn’t get stuck to small things like you were so much attached to lollypop when you were small, yet when you reached school or college that attachment naturally dropped. Similarly, with toys or even friends. When you grow up, you still have friends but you rise above that entanglement. Similar is the case with mother and child. Naturally entanglement starts leaving you. If dispassion doesn’t happen then you experience sorrow. We get into the cycle of sorrow thinking – ‘Oh, I did so much. I did so much for my kids and see what they are doing now.’ What responsibility I was supposed to do, I have fulfilled. There is no restriction on others’, your children’s feelings. We can’t ask anybody to express feelings forcefully. Feelings naturally arise in anybody’s heart whatever those feelings are. Feelings don’t ask for permission before arising. But if you live in knowledge then negative feelings are almost negligible. Also positive feelings exist not as craving but love.People say knowledgeable is one who kills one’s feelings. No, it’s not like that. Sadbhav, saintly feelings continue to exist. Lord Krishna also said in the Bhagwad Geeta ‘One who is not tied to me - the Consciousness, Higher Self - neither has intellect nor feelings. Without feelings and intellect, there is no question of peace or happiness.
Transforming craving and aversion into love is dispassion.
Lord Shankaracharya also said there is no happiness in world which can’t be received through dispassion. Dispassion doesn’t mean going to forests. It has
been so wrongly interpreted. Bliss and happiness are there in dispassion.
Like the lotus resides in water but still remains free from getting wet, in the same way while living in society one is not to let society enter one’s mind. Birds fly above you that’s ok, but don’t let them build a nest in your head.
Sanyas (an ascetic) is getting established in the Self. One who is unshaken by anything is a sanyasi. Sanyas is 100 percent dispassion and 100 percent bliss and has no demand. It’s very good if sanyas happens after the fourth ashram, the vanaprasth ashram. So much satisfaction in the mind that ‘Nobody is my own’ and ‘Nobody is the other’, or ‘Everybody is my very own’, or even ‘this body is not mine’ is the state of sanyas. Total happiness in mind is sanyas. Leaving clothes and going to forests is not sanyas.
Q:
People seek roles and positions and seek temporary power. Can you talk a little bit about this power?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
If you work, if you take responsibility, power comes along with it. If you don’t work and don’t take responsibility you are powerless. Responsibility is taken and you don’t wait for someone to give you that power and we acknowledge that. It’s the position not the person who has that power.Q:
Who is atma?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
The one who asks, the one who hears, the one who understands, the jeeva is all atma.Q:
What should be done to end the cycle of karmas?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
By seva, sadhana, and satsang.Q:
We have a chance to study Vedas. It says that you should not stick to the result that you should just do the action. That is difficult. Please give some advice.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
See suppose you do some help to somebody, and they don’t thank you, what happens to you? You feel sad? Unhappy? Just a thank you from the other person can spoil your mind in spite of you doing good work, is it worth it? If they don’t say thank you, does not matter, at least you do not lose your happiness. This is exactly what it is expectations reduce joy. Anything that comes to you, as a surprise gives you joy. Isn’t that so?Q:
Why does our mind run after fame money and glamor? Is it necessary?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Well, you got this question! First, you understand that the mind is running. Then you get this question, ‘Is it necessary?’ I leave this question to you. It is very personal, very individual. I don't think it is necessary. But myanswer will not necessarily suffice for you. It is has to come from within. Otherwise, it will be just a mood making. ‘Oh, I don’t want money’, but one part of the mind will say, ‘No, I need money.’ One mind will say, ‘I don’t need fame andanother will say, ‘No, I need fame’. Like this, the conflict starts happening. But when you wake up and see, and see those people who have had all this - how shallow and hollow they are, then naturally you find there is no significance in all this. Then neither will you crave for it, nor will you make any effort to renounce it. People who say, ‘I don’t want fame’, inside, somewhere, the mind is saying, ‘Oh, I want fame, I want fame’. When the sun hasarisen, what is the use of a torchlight? You are moving with a torchlight and suddenly you realize there is no meaning in moving with the torchlight, when the sun is there.Then that is your experience, your true experience. So when you run behind things which are illusive - you will realize that it is causing more pain, more suffering and ‘it is not giving me what I really want’.Then there is fulfillment, centeredness, a subtle solid strength comes from within. Then if fame comes, money comes, it doesn’t touch you. It comes or doesn’t come, doesn’t matter to you. ‘I want it’ or ‘I don’t want it’ are two sides of the same coin. Somewhat we need to be – let it be.
Q:
If something bad is happening, what do we do about that?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
First, you accept that something bad is happening, and then realize that you want to stop the wrong from happening. The wrong will stop at the right time.