happy and bubbling with enthusiasm or dull and difficult to please?

How would you like to see yourself happy and bubbling with enthusiasm or dull and difficult to please?

Often you like to be pleased, appeased and cajoled. So you put up a tough, upset face and act difficult to please. If a person has to appease and please ten people all the time, it will be so tiring. People who keep a long face and expect others to cajole and appease them make others run away. Lovers often do this. They expend a lot of energy in cajoling and this brings down the joy and celebration of the moment.

It is okay for you to show your upset mood or tendency once in a while, but doing it over and over again is taxing for you and people you love.

If you feel down, appease and please yourself. Your need to be appeased by someone else is the sign of grossness. This is the root of ignorance. If you want attention, all you get is tension.

Become one whose enthusiasm never dies, come what may.

It is not possible to attain Divine Love with a complaining face. The complaining face is a sign of an unaware mind. If you want to complain, complain to God or your Guru because both have their ears covered. (Laughter)

False securities do not allow your faith to grow

False securities do not allow your faith to grow. When you have dropped your securities, then your faith grows. When you buffer your life with securities, you keep the faith away. It is the faith that brings perfection in you. Faith is the greatest security.

If you have all the material securities and not have faith, you will still reel in fear. You have to let go of all possessions in the mind. False security is keeping things where they don't belong. It is an illusion of security because of having a job, a house, friends. Keep the house where it belongs, not in the mind. Keep the money in the bank or in the pocket, not in the mind. Keep friends and family where they belong, not in the mind.

The Divine is your only security.

Faith is realizing that you always get what you need.

Faith is giving the Divine a chance to act.

Your body belongs to the world. Your spirit belongs to the Divine.

different levels of layers of energy in our body

Q: Guruji, I experience some intense vibrations especially when I am in bliss. Can you please talk about different levels of layers of energy in our body?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: This entire universe is nothing but vibrations. It is all made up of waves, vibrations, and energy. When your vibrations do not match with the vibrations of others you call it negative, and when your vibrations match with other vibrations, it is harmonious and you call it bliss. When your energy becomes such that it becomes universal, then whatever the outer circumstances may be, you remain oblivious to it. We went to Machu Picchu in South America; in Peru, and the people asked me, 'How do you feel the vibrations here? 'I said, 'I do not feel anything', this is because wherever we go we create our own vibrations. So I do not say, ‘Oh, this is negative and that is not.’ Of course, when people are agitating, upset or sad, it definitely creates negative vibrations around you; no doubt. But remember that they are not as powerful as your positive vibrations. It may appear to you that they are over powering, but in reality it is not so.

human soul can often take one to two million years to find liberation

Question: "I have been told that a human soul can often take one to two million years to find liberation. Is it true that by doing Kriya and meditation every day, this liberation can be obtained even in one lifetime?"

Sri Sri: "Everything works with some strange karma. You must lift your eyes and look into this realm. There is a beautiful couplet that says, ‘This world has all the wealth, all that is needed, but one who has no karma, cannot get it.’

So, whether you get something or you don’t, it all works with some strange karma. Recognition, money, power, relationship, health; everything depends on some law in creation. When good times come, your worst enemy starts helping you, and when bad times come, even your best friend behaves like an enemy. All these things happen due to some very strange karma. An intelligent person doesn’t get caught up in all this. He still keeps putting in his effort, and keeps moving on. You do whatever is needed to put in an effort, and then you leave it.

Do you know Lord Krishna went three times to stop the Mahabharata (narrative of the Kurukshetra War) war? When someone asked Lord Krishna, ‘If you knew that the war was going to happen anyway, why did you go three times for peace negotiations? All three times your peace negotiations failed, then why did you go?’ That is a very valid question. Lord Krishna said, ‘If I had not gone, then the question would have come that you could have done peace negotiation, why didn’t you do it?’ You have your duty towards your karma, whatever you need to do, you do it! Suppose the peace negotiation would have succeeded, then the whole Mahabharata would have finished, and the Gita would never have come! The immortal song of the Divine (Bhagavad Gita) would never have come into existence! So, very well knowing that the Gita had to come, and the war had to happen, still Lord Krishna went for peace negotiations.

This is because it is in our dharma, our nature. We should keep putting in our efforts and not get attached to the consequences or the results. This is very subtle because the mind gets sucked into maya ‘illusion’ in some form or the other. The mind needs to be hammered into knowledge. It can easily slip out of these four pillars of knowledge, Viveka(discrimination), Vairagya (detachment), self-control, and honoring what you have (not grieving about what is not). And then, wanting liberation! So keep on hammering the knowledge back, again and again! Suddenly, you will find it is all there, anyway.

Now, when you slip, then also remember that is another level. Knowing all this, suppose you still get caught up (in maya), then don’t feel bad that you got caught up; even that is part of nature. Don’t say, ‘Oh, I did not apply knowledge!’ or ‘Either someone else is wrong, or I am wrong!’ Whether unpleasant things are happening or pleasant things are happening, I am a witness to it. And my mind is getting caught up in it, even that is a part of the happening; I am witness to that also. This is how you rise above the situation!

You have to practice pranayama, meditation and knowledge for a long time. The whole life itself is a practice, and when you practice with honor, then this knowledge becomes well-founded in you."

Lalita Sahasranama

In the Lalita Sahasranama (a sacred recital of the 1000 holy names of the Mother Divine), there is a verse, 'Rakta-varna mansanishta gudanna pritamanasa. Samsta bhakta sukhada lakinyamba svarupini'. (V. 103)
It mentions that the Devi is dressed in a blood-red sari and about Mansanishtha (references to non-vegetarian aspects of one’s body). I thought that the Goddess is vegetarian. They why are there such non-vegetarian references in the verses?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
No, it is not like that. These are references to the different Dhaatus (constitutional or fundamental elements that make the physical body).
There are seven Dhaatus in the body, and each Dhaatu has got a specific governing deity attached to it. That is, a specific divine energy is associated with it: such as Lakini, Dakini, etc.
So it is not referring or implying to non-vegetarian offerings.
It means that these divine deities are a part of you. Mansanishtha means that it resides in the muscles of the body. So a specific deity is present in the muscles. And then another deity resides in the skin, a particular deity is present in the blood and so on.
So the verse refers to the different aspects of Divinity present in different parts of the human body.
The phrase 'Gudanna pritamanasa' means that when that particular aspect is more dominant in you, what you would like more is sweet food. And if a different aspect is more dominant in you, then you will like sour foods more, such as curd rice.
This verse is actually an explanation for each of the chakras in the body (referring to the metaphysical centers of energy flow in the human body).
So when a particular chakra is opening up or active in you, then you will like a particular kind of food.
So when a particular chakra is active, or if you want to activate that chakra, then it is good to have curd rice, because it has a cooling effect. So in this way, different types of food, different colors and different parts of the human body are associated with different chakras.
There is a deeper science to all this. Do not take it literally to mean that some deity is really seated in a part of the body. This is all very scientific and is related to physiology also.

How to deal with rude behavior

How to deal with rude behavior
"What do you do when someone behaves very rudely to you?
1. Get upset
2. React rudely back
3. Get frustrated
4. Run-away from and avoid the person or the situation
5. Blame the person
6. Preach to the person
None of these will in any way strengthen you.
Then what are the options? See rude behaviour in this light:
1. It indicates the intensity of their commitment
2. It indicates the amount of stress and insensitivity
3. It projects the up-bringing of the person
4. It indicates a behavioural pattern
5. It shows lack of knowledge
6. It shows lack of observation of one's own mind and its sensations
7. It shows you behaviour to avoid
8. It is an opportunity for you to welcome and absorb the rudeness
9. It strengthens your mind
10. It unconditions the love that you are
The next time when someone is rude to you, make sure you don't get upset. Just give back a broad smile.
If you can digest the rudeness, nothing whatsoever can shake you."

Sita buried herself in the Earth, does this mean she committed suicide

Q: Sita buried herself in the Earth, does this mean she committed suicide?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: No, it is not committing suicide. Ramayana, Mahabharata are all written as poems. Also, the only materia medica (medical substance) that is written in poetry form is Ayurveda. In Ayurveda all the formulas are written as poems.
In the same way, Ramayana and Mahabharata are written as poems. In poetic language we must know that, when it says that they became one with the Earth, it means, they have completed their journey on this planet; they became one with the linga.
When someone dies here in Karnataka, they say, they became one with the linga. So poetic language is very different.
Recently they have discovered a new Bible written some 1500-1800 years ago. It’s written in gold on a copper plate. They found it near Turkey. It is a very different version that will shock the world. What they have written is much different than the belief that people have today. Scholars are still doing research on it.
Similarly, originally when Mahabharata was written, it was only 25,000 verses. It was called Jaya. Jaya was the name of the Mahabharata. Today, we have 1,25,000 verses. We don’t know how these 1,00,000 words were added to it.
Interpolation happened sometime in the Middle Ages. They started putting things into it.
All that we need to do is take pride of the past and move ahead into the future. The heart longs for the past, but the mind always want new things.
Mind says, something new, the latest. What is the latest model? What is the latest design? What is the latest food? What is the latest fashion? What is the latest technology? Mind wants something that is new, but heart wants something old. You don't say, ‘This is my latest friend.’ You take pride in saying, ‘This is my old friend’. The heart wants to take pride in the old, ‘My old friend.’
When people fall in love with someone, they say, ‘May be we have been in love for many births'. You take pride in old friendship. The heart longs for the old, mind goes for new and life is a combination of both, old and new.