Wisdom from Sri Sri: Peace

Showing posts with label Peace. Show all posts

Thursday, January 14, 2010

The one who asks, the one who hears, the one who understands, the jeeva is all atma

4:09 AM |

Bangalore ashram, Jan. 3

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Objects need me but I don’t need objects. After the first two becomes strong, then three.The car needs me but I don’t need it. This world needs me but I don’t need the world. You don’t have to reject externally but know in your mind. Even your body is anobject. This is subtle. But when this knowledge dawns, there can never be poverty or lack. We keep thinking, ‘We need this and that’. But when we have the dharana that ‘the Divine cares for me and I don’t need anything’, then your needs are taken care of anyway.

Q: Why this year called virodhi?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Maybe to keep a space for conflict also in society. It finishes in March. March ahead.

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: Guruji, I have sinned in the past…

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: See, forget all sin and merit, when you come here. Punya brought you here, and sin is all gone. Washed off.

Q: At home, how to handle the situation when people have different thoughts?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Accept that. There can be differences. And you will become settled. Can you say there should not be waves in the ocean? That is the nature.Similarly in this world, different people will say different things. You should just smile and move ahead.If I keep saying, at sometime, it will get into a person.

Q: People are talking about the end of the world in 2012. When I started thinking about the end of the world, I wonder – what is creation?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: 2012 – nothing is going to happen. We will still do satsang like this. Only there will be more people!If creation was not made, how will you ask this question? It was made so that you can ask and I can tell!

Q: What do I do when there is duality while meditating and too many thoughts come?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Don’t try to see something in meditation. Just relax. If too many thoughts arise, give them all a hug. Duality is what? Good and bad right? Right and wrong? These are the conflicts.Keep in mind three laws while meditating – I am nothing , I need nothing, I am going to do nothing - akincan, achah, aprayatna.If you have these three principles, you will be able to meditate.

Q: When will there be complete peace?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: First, in you is there complete peace? Then there will be peace in the world. Waves come and go. In the world, all are happy at all times – this is not possible. The importance of food is when there is hunger. If there is no hunger in the world, what to do with food?

Q: I am unable to fulfill my commitments.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: What you can fulfil, focus on that! Be happy you fulfilled two commitments, next time go on with three, four..., focus on that.

Q: How to know you have given 100 percent?

SriSri: 100 percent - you will feel! You know! I will ask 10 people to feed you in kitchen. Will run away! You will know.

Q: I want to contribute towards the environment…

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Do u have balcony in your flat? Take a pot, add some tomatoes, coriander, chillies. Grow it.

Q: What is Shiva?Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Shiva is called Mahakala – grand time!

Q: I am anxious about the results of my interview. What to do?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Do Ujjai breath, bastrika, meditation, sing and dance.

Q: When do you call something mature? I am confused?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: When confusion is gone, then you call mature!

Q: Sometimes, I feel a disconnect with everybody?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Good, that time close your eyes and smile. I am with you at that time!

Q: When will everyone embrace the Art of Living?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: There is nothing inside or outside the Art of Living.

Q: Why aren’t you hitting the world just like that? Why so slow?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: You all need a job too!

Then Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said: The pink sky on Sunday asks you to sing a song! You know which song? Jai Jai Radha Raman Hari Bhol!

“That which you cannot express is Love.
That which you cannot reject/renounce is Beauty.
That which you cannot avoid is the Truth.”
~ Sri Sri Ravishankar

Labels: Commitment, Knowledge, Meditation., Past, Peace, Shiva, Sin

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Willingness to serve when joy arises should be the wish

5:53 AM |

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Bad Antogast (Germany), Dec. 31

Sri Sri pulls out questions from the question basket. Reads them one by one, smiles and puts the paper by his side. A child comes forward to put a no.1 sticker onSri Sri's hands.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Another year is passing by, has passed. Let uswelcome 2010. The past year has made us rich by its experiences. The problems itbrought us brought more talents from within us. Whenever problems come, they beckon more skills and talents within us and the ability to handle them. We are thankful for that. Just imagine a life without any challenges. It will be so dull. Challenges or crisis will bring up the talents within you and make you aware of the abilities you have to overcome them.

In Chinese, there is only one word for crisis as well as opportunity - because every crisis is an opportunity to exhibit your strength, skill and abilities to endure any situation, circumstance. A crisis brings up that opportunity to exhibit your skills. The moments of pleasure or joy, of course, brings you an expansion and implies that you should serve. When you are happy you contribute to the world and you serve - not just remain in your own little enjoyment. Being happy coupled with service makes your happiness rich. Trouble and misery brings the strength to let go, to renounce. It brings dispassion and from this you learn a lot.

We often get attached to misery too. You know why? When you were a child, you made a sad face, immediately someone patted you on the back and tried to cheer you up. You were crying and parents attended to you. So there is a subtle sense of wantingattention whenever you start enjoying misery. You have to get over that and growbeyond that and that is when you gain the power to renounce.

In the New Year, wish for happiness in which you can serve and share so that it grows and if any trouble or misery comes, they come, like day and night, they are part of the world, ask for the strength to be centered. Willingness to serve when joy arises should be the wish. Not that the whole year everything should be rosy, that does not really happen that way. Most of the days will be one way or another. So with this prayer or wish, you will see the days of trouble will be very few, if at all, and they will only bring about the skills from within you, make you more skillful, strong and beautiful. That's the practical way.

So the New Year, learn from the previous year and move on to the New Year knowing you are timeless and those moments of meditation that you experience that timelessness. That is when the events don’t touch you, emotions don’t shake you, thoughts don’t disturb you, nothing whatsoever throws you off balance. In that serene space that you are, repose! Then neither pleasure nor pain touches you. You go beyond the duality. More satsang and seva is the way to reduce misery. Satsang and seva. We are sofortunate. We have this opportunity to even think, discuss knowledge and have anexperience of that inner space. Imagine those billions of people who never know how to close their eyes and be peaceful, to take a dip in that inner serenity even for a moment! For us it is so natural to be happy and peaceful. For those who do not know how to be peaceful, it like those insomnia patients who are so restless and tired, so tired and exhausted with everything around them but so restless they don't know how to rest or sleep! Can you imagine that sort of situation? That's where your intervention is so precious, so much needed. Many times you don't have to talk much. Just you being around people who are not so peaceful brings them that wave of peace, that relief that they are looking for!

Q: Is it true that I have to love myself before others love me?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: My dear, you are love when you relax. Let go of the feverishness and desire. You are love. You don’t have to sit and say to yourself, ‘I am love’. You don’t have to make an effort. It is a noun. Your name is love. During a course in Switzerland, I was talking on the yoga sutras of Patanjali. A couple of participants went to have acappuccino during the break time. Nearby they met people, who said that they used to follow some other path and they were exchanging notes. They said, ‘We wake up at 3:00 in the morning. Sit and repeat I love myself for about an hour!’ We sleep well and love ourselves!

If someone tells you, ‘you don’t love yourself’ – it is not true. Even if you are inflicting misery upon yourself, even then you love yourself because misery brought attention to you. When you understand this you will snap out of this tendency.

Q: I feel I’m too attached. How to break?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Serve, serve and serve to break from attachment. When you find something beautiful, you get attached. You want to posses it. When we try to posses, then it becomes ugly. Beauty is that which you cannot renounce/reject or capture. That’s why it is called beautiful.Serve, instead of wanting to posses. Whatever is beautiful we want to posses it, and then jealousy comes, pain comes. When you find something beautiful, just serve.

Q: What if I don’t reach my goal and experience misery instead?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: When you are doing good things in the world, you will never find yourself in a bad spot. Misery will never come to you when intentions and actions are benevolent.

Q: I feel very small and insignificant in this world. Is that ok?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: All that is small is very beautiful. You are alive. That is important and you know that you are alive is even more important. Two things: I am small, little.Another is: I am useless. You are tiny, this you know. But thinking that you areuseless, good-for-nothing is no good. Tiny like ping-pong, a star, is ok. Useless, dirt, hopeless- these sort of self realization you should not have. It is exhibition of self-ignorance not self-realization.

Q: How is it that some people are peaceful by birth even though they are not really doing any spiritual practices?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: If you heard the yoga sutras of Patanjali – there are some people who are so by birth, some are peaceful because of their past impressions. They would have done these practices in some previous lifetime if not now. That has brought them peaceful impressions in this life time. If parents are very peaceful, mother had a peaceful time during pregnancy – that also creates strong impressions. Some people have had a tough life from the very beginning – things don’t disturb them – they have endurance to disturbances. Someone has lived in a noisy area, then any sort of noise doesn’t disturb them.

How much stress you could handle, how much contrast you have experienced in situations, makes the difference. In third world countries – arguments don’t bother them. They fight and have tea together. You are not used to fighting and then sitting with them immediately. These are all how we have trained ourselves, our mind.

Q: What should I do to bring peace on this planet?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Keeping this question with you will do much more to fuel your engine to move forward. Again and again you will think and plan and that will help you to move forward. There is a lot to be done. We can all do it together.

I understand, in many countries there is continuous violence. 92 percent of thepopulation is depressed they say, in Palestine. Afghanistan has a similar situation. Pakistan now, Iraq, Yemen are in the same condition. There is a lot that needs to be done. When you see the magnitude, you think what to do really! But don’t lose heart. Keep doing!

“That which you cannot express is Love.
That which you cannot reject/renounce is Beauty.
That which you cannot avoid is the Truth.”
~ Sri Sri Ravishankar

Labels: Attachment, Love, Misery, Peace, Satsang, Service

Sunday, July 26, 2009

‘Spirituality is what gives depth to life’

1:56 AM |

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What H.H Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said today

‘Spirituality is what gives depth to life’

Bad Antogast, (Germany), July 23:

Q: Guruji, will there be a positive change in the civilization; no wars and hunger and poor people? Is it possible to create a world of peace, harmony and friendship? Is it possible in our lifetime? Thank you.

H.H Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Yes, we should have this vision; we should start working towards it.

All these problems are there in the world to wake us up. If there were no problems, we would sleep, we would be very selfish, we would not do anything about it. These problems are there for us to wake up and do something about it.

Q: My friends expect me to drive them with my car, but then they drink. They look at me differently. I don’t understand why.

H.H Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: It’s very difficult to understand people’s minds. So, you better give up. They themselves don’t understand their mind, so how can you understand their mind? Do you understand your own mind?

The most unreliable thing in your life is your own mind. One minute, it likes something, another minute it likes something else. So, your mind goes all over the place. So, you cannot rely on your own mind. Once you know this, you will laugh, you will smile. Never mind: why should I control someone else’s mind when my mind itself is not under my control? Isn’t it?

Our mind is a multi-channeled television. You know, there are so many channels: the horror channel, history channel, discovery channel, news channel and then there is a cartoon channel. All is happening!

A poet from Karnataka (a state in South India) wrote a very nice couplet about the mind. He said: The mind is like a forest, with so many animals in it. There are nightingales that sing very sweetly and there are crows, and there are tigers, lions and there are mosquitoes. The same way, your mind is a forest.

It’s amazing, just to watch what our mind says. Nobody’s mind is in their control, we shouldn’t expect everyone to behave like an enlightened person. Unfortunately, that is what we do. We want everyone to be perfect.

The world always considers you, sees you, much better than what you are. And even the people don’t see you the way you are, or the way you are not. Never mind, why do you have to bother about it?

Q: Please can you let us have your thoughts on the ‘ascension of mother earth’ and if the world is likely to be different after December 2012?

H.H Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Many of you ask this question about 2012. This year there is a 999 (9^th September 2009) that is coming up.

The world is already changing and it will change. Change is a constant thing on this planet, everything changes, people change. The year 2012 is good because people will change towards spirituality. After the economic meltdown, people have realized that running after material things is not the ultimate aim of life. We need to eat, but we shouldn’t have eating disorders. Eating itself is not the purpose of life, but we need to eat. That awareness is coming and it’s going to make a big difference.

There will be changes and you will be the pioneers of that change. When you are meditating and teaching people about spirituality, more and more people will appreciate this knowledge and their lives will change. And it’s going to be good, don’t have to worry about it.

Q: What is the most important gift you are blessing me and the world with?

H.H Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: If you go to the pharmacist and ask him: ‘Give me the best medicine’, what will he say? ‘I have the best medicine, but for what disease?’ Isn’t it?

Similarly, this knowledge gives you everything that you need. You have a headache, you have the best medicine. You have a leg ache, you have the best medicine. You have an ear ache, a heart ache, the best medicine is available to you.

When you are determined to be useful to people, useful in anyway, you don’t have to ask: just be useful. Do whatever is needed whenever, and you will be useful for that purpose.

I would always say that this knowledge in the Art of Living is like an ocean. If someone wants to just walk by it, take fresh air, they are welcome. Someone wants to swim in the ocean, they are welcome. Some others will take salt out of the ocean, yes. Some others want to dig deep and take oil, you are most welcome. Someone goes for fishing; take a few fishes, fine. Some others go and find all that precious stones, gems, it’s your choice.

All is available here and what you make out of it, how you use it, is entirely up to you.

Q: Dear Guruji, I come here, I listen to you, then I read all your books, tapes, videos and DVDs. I seek the knowledge. I want to be a better person, but when I most need it, I lose temper. I explode in anger. It seems that the knowledge vanishes from me, from my mind, my intellect. What to do?

H.H Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: First of all, know that you are already the best person. Don’t try to better yourself, you are good. Ok?

Now, the second thing is about losing the temper. It has been an old habit for you. Did you notice that when you lose your temper now, you come out of the anger faster? Earlier, you used to lose your temper and it would take months for you to come out of that anger. Sometimes years, isn’t it?

How many of you feel like that? Now when you lose your temper, you come right back. For someone who just looks at you, they think you have not changed. But in your heart of hearts, ask yourself: Haven’t you changed? You have definitely changed, definitely.
So, more meditation, more advanced courses, all this will definitely help. Regular meditation is important. Change takes time. Let it take. But don’t get disappointed: ‘Oh, I still lose my temper; I’m still not a better person.’ You shouldn’t blame yourself. Then, there is no possibility of faster progress or growth.

Q: Guruji, how do I differentiate between being flexible and manipulative? Is there an intention behind it?

H.H Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Yes, intention and your selfish desire is what can make you manipulative. But, if you are content, you are free and you have a goal to achieve, then it is adaptation, not manipulation.

Q: I am beginning to realize who I am. Seemingly, I am the same as I always was, but with less tension and more clarity. Does self knowledge come at the specific time in a person’s life, and is there any special significance to this?

H.H Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Yes, self knowledge comes by its time. Sunlight will not enter the room just because you have opened the windows. Yet when there is sunlight, it won’t come in if the curtains are closed. For sunlight to come into this room, two things are needed.

1) Your effort to keep the curtains opened.

2) It should be the time for sunlight to come.

Q: How to deal with the fact that one didn’t get any support from the family. My mother was against her children. I try to find a way in life for twenty years and it doesn’t seem to be possible.

H.H Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: You know, your mother and father have been a doorway for you to enter onto this planet. So, you have come through the doorway. Thank the doorway, honor the doorway, but don’t go on putting all the blame on them. Don’t blame them. They had only that much knowledge, that much love. They gave that much. If you have more knowledge, more love, you give it to others. Why say: Why didn’t my mother love me? She had her own problems, she must be blocked with so much worry and tension. She was not as privileged as you are. You know, you are much more privileged, because you got this knowledge. You had a chance to know what true love is. Not everybody has this opportunity. Isn’t it? So, just have compassion for her. Suppose, if she also had same knowledge just like you, and has been so sensitive towards her children, she would have expressed it. If she lacks sensitivity, she couldn’t express love, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have it. So, have compassion for her.

You know, there are four attitudes:

· friendliness for people who are happy,

· compassion for those who are miserable,

· happiness for those who are doing good work

· indifference with those who are doing bad work, bad things in life.

With this attitude our mind is saved. The most important thing is to save your mind at all cost. Remember that. We hear all the slogans, save the environment, save water, food, earth, trees. Nobody talks about saving your mind.

Your mind is being bombarded by so many things around, so many stimuli, so many things from every side. And gets into a mess and keeps reeling.

Just wake up and see what is in life? It is nothing. What do you do? You take a paid job, you earn money all day, come home, spend money on weekends. That’s it. And have fights, love, then fight again, and then you die. Life is finished. And you don’t even get bored, because it is so boring. You don’t even realize it is so boring, because you haven’t seen anything better. If there is anything better and that is all you see, that is what you will do. There is nothing better in life to do, no goal, nothing.

You feel such pity, ‘Oh my God, what a waste of human life.’ This human body has been given to us, we have attained this body to know, to realize something stupendous, something much bigger, something deeper, something vast. If we are not introduced to the vast space within us, if we don’t know about it - what kind of a life is it then? It is a baseless life. There is no support, no base. Isn’t it?

Spirituality is what gives you depth, which gives depth to life, which makes life vast, which gives you direction, which can eliminate all the sorrow and suffering and bring you fulfillment and joy. Isn’t it?

You know, we must realize how fortunate we all are. We are very fortunate. What we have to be concerned about is about people being happy and that they get the knowledge and the depth in their lives.

Aggression is not our nature. We don’t do anything aggressively. We gently keep enlightening people as we walk along our own path. There are so many people who are longing for this knowledge.

Labels: Knowledge, Meditation., Mind, Peace