Having enunciated what other Rishis say, now Narada comes to his own way of looking at Divine love. He says :
Naradastu tadarpitakhilacharita tadvismarne param vyakulteti
But my opinion is tadarpitakhilacharita - offering all my actions, all my attitudes, all my tendencies because it is the actions, tendencies and intentions which stop you from rejoicing in the Self. And all that hinders me to rejoice in the Self, I offer them all to the Divine. And when I forget the Divine, becoming extremely uncomfortable is the real characteristic of Divine love. Narada says forgetfulness of the Divine causes intense pain, intense longing, intense restlessness - this is the characteristic of Divine love.
Astyevamevam
It is like that.
Yatha vraj gopikanam
Like it happened to the Gopis of Brindavan. The Gopis had nothing of their own. Every move they made was for the Divine, their mind, their heart, their soul was all immersed in Lord Krishna. It is like that, like the Gopis of Brindavan. How they were utterly in dismay, when, even for a moment, they forgot their beloved. And how everything that they did was only with one thought, “How would my Lord appreciate this? What would he want? How would he like this?”
This was in their mind all the time. Whether they sang, they cooked, they churned the butter or they danced and dressed, they did everything for one reason - how would my lord appreciate this? It is for the love. There are ample number of stories about Gopis and their love and devotion towards Krishna. Narada says that is a sign of Divine love. There is a story…
Once Lord Krishna had a headache and all the doctors came but they could not find the reason for his headache. No medicine would work. Krishna said one medicine would work, “If the dust from the feet of any one of my devotees is applied on my head, my headache will go.”
Were there no devotees in Dwarka, in the place where he was? Many people were there, but how many would put the dust of their feet on his head, because the scriptures say that if you put the dust of your feet on the Lord, then you will go to hell. It is a sin and nobody wanted to go to hell.
Then Krishna sent one of his messengers, Udhava, to Brindavan. As soon as he came, all the Gopis asked him, “Oh, tell me, what is the news in Dwarka? How is Lord Krishna? Is everything okay?” “He is fine,” the messenger replied, “but he has a headache.” A cry arose, “He has a headache! Are there no good doctors there? Are there no Vaidyas there?” He told them that they are there but the medicine was not available. “What is that medicine?” they asked, “Come on tell us, what can we do?” He said that he needed the dust of the feet of devotees.
“How much do you want? Take truck- loads!” Udhava reminded the Gopis that if they put the dust from their feet on the head of the Lord, they would go to hell. “Never mind, even if we have to go to hell, have to be in hell for thousands of years, fourteen thousand years - we don’t mind. You take the dust. We can’t bear our Lord having a headache!” There was not a bit of selfishness in the love of the Gopis. The ‘I’, ‘I’ had totally dissolved. They existed as though they were not - so hollow and empty. And there are many such stories - the love of the Gopis with Krishna is something unique. It is one depiction of what Divine Love is.
Tatrapi na mahatmya gyan vismrityapavadah
Often, love and respect are in conflict. Respect needs a certain distance and love cannot tolerate any distance. Often when people come together, when they have so much love, they lose respect for each other. And there is a conflict in trying to gain the respect.
Finally, they have neither respect nor love - they loose both. Most marital problems end up like this, because there is a need for love and there is a need for respect, too. But they are seemingly opposite. It is only in Divine love that respect also grows and love also grows.
The closer you come, the more respect you get and the farther you go, the more love you experience. Distance is not a factor in Divine love, in the love which is fully blossomed. Such was the love of the Gopis.
(Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, spritual leader and founder of the Art of Living Foundation)
this blog is related to the worlds best organization called the art of living run by volunteers
Friday, December 13, 2013
For-a-kite-to-go-high-it-needs-a-little-thread
Tatrapi na mahatmya gyan vismrityapavadah – they did not forget the greatness, the respect, the glory which belongs to you. That which is part of you seems to lose its glory. But in divine love the glory increases. You do not forget the glory, the closer you get. That is a sign of enlightenment, of knowledge, of wisdom, of blossoming in love. Love cannot tolerate distance and respect cannot do away with distance. Divine love is a combination of love and respect and both are totally nurtured.
Tadviheenam jarannamiva – without that love, without that respect, the love is worth nothing. It is like the love of prostitutes. A prostitute is not interested in giving pleasure to the person, is not happy when the other person is happy, but is only worried about her income; what she will get out of it. If love comes with a bargain, “What will I get out of it, what do I get being devoted to god, what I get by doing this...” then, it is like the love of a prostitute. Yes, he has used a very strong word.
Nastyeva tasmin tatsukh sukhitvam – the Gopis said that we are here for your pleasure, we have come here because you would like to see us – not because we want to see you. There was no demand of any sort there, there was no complaint. “All that we want is your comfort; what is it that you want? We are here for you.” That is the love of the Gopis. “Our only intention is to make you comfortable and whatever it takes, we are ready. We are here for that.”
Nastyeva tasmin tatsukh sukhitvam - rejoicing in this, in the comfort of the beloved is the sign of love. If you examine, if you keenly look into the experience of love that you all have had, you will find all these characteristics hiding here and there. It is all there, it only needs a little watering, a little enrichment. Love cannot be devoid of these characteristics. You do have them, you only need to nurture them a little. And that is why these sutras – the threads. For a kite to go high, it needs a little thread. This knowledge, this wisdom is such thread.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, spiritual leader and founder of the Art of Living Foundation
Tadviheenam jarannamiva – without that love, without that respect, the love is worth nothing. It is like the love of prostitutes. A prostitute is not interested in giving pleasure to the person, is not happy when the other person is happy, but is only worried about her income; what she will get out of it. If love comes with a bargain, “What will I get out of it, what do I get being devoted to god, what I get by doing this...” then, it is like the love of a prostitute. Yes, he has used a very strong word.
Nastyeva tasmin tatsukh sukhitvam – the Gopis said that we are here for your pleasure, we have come here because you would like to see us – not because we want to see you. There was no demand of any sort there, there was no complaint. “All that we want is your comfort; what is it that you want? We are here for you.” That is the love of the Gopis. “Our only intention is to make you comfortable and whatever it takes, we are ready. We are here for that.”
Nastyeva tasmin tatsukh sukhitvam - rejoicing in this, in the comfort of the beloved is the sign of love. If you examine, if you keenly look into the experience of love that you all have had, you will find all these characteristics hiding here and there. It is all there, it only needs a little watering, a little enrichment. Love cannot be devoid of these characteristics. You do have them, you only need to nurture them a little. And that is why these sutras – the threads. For a kite to go high, it needs a little thread. This knowledge, this wisdom is such thread.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, spiritual leader and founder of the Art of Living Foundation
Worry & Feelings
THE head worries and the heart feels. The two cannot function at the same time. When your feelings dominate, worry dissolves.
If you worry a lot, your feelings are dead and you are stuck in your head. Worrying makes your mind and heart inert and dull. It steals your energy and prevents you from thinking clearly. Worries are like a rock in the head. They entangle you; they trap you in a cage. Worries are uncertain since they are about the future.
When you feel, you do not worry. Feelings are like flowers, they come up, they blossom and they die. Feelings rise, they fall and then disappear. When your feelings are expressed, you feel relieved. When you are angry, you express your anger and the next moment you feel fine. Or when you are upset, you cry and you get over it. Feelings last for some short time and then they drop away, but worry eats at you for longer periods of time and eventually consumes you.
Feelings make you spontaneous. Children feel so they are spontaneous, but adults put brakes on their feelings and start worrying. Worry obstructs action while feelings propel action. Worrying about negative feelings is a blessing because it puts brakes on those feelings, preventing you from acting on them. Worries about positive feelings usually never occur. Often you start worrying about your feelings when you think you are feeling too much.
Offering your worries is prayer and prayer moves you in feelings.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
If you worry a lot, your feelings are dead and you are stuck in your head. Worrying makes your mind and heart inert and dull. It steals your energy and prevents you from thinking clearly. Worries are like a rock in the head. They entangle you; they trap you in a cage. Worries are uncertain since they are about the future.
When you feel, you do not worry. Feelings are like flowers, they come up, they blossom and they die. Feelings rise, they fall and then disappear. When your feelings are expressed, you feel relieved. When you are angry, you express your anger and the next moment you feel fine. Or when you are upset, you cry and you get over it. Feelings last for some short time and then they drop away, but worry eats at you for longer periods of time and eventually consumes you.
Feelings make you spontaneous. Children feel so they are spontaneous, but adults put brakes on their feelings and start worrying. Worry obstructs action while feelings propel action. Worrying about negative feelings is a blessing because it puts brakes on those feelings, preventing you from acting on them. Worries about positive feelings usually never occur. Often you start worrying about your feelings when you think you are feeling too much.
Offering your worries is prayer and prayer moves you in feelings.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
The humility we practise is nothing but boosting of ego
The second sign of love is talking about it constantly, praising it. A newborn baby in the house is such a joy for the grandparents and they won’t stop talking about it. And the same is with the parents, “Oh, look at the baby, 2, 3 months old baby, wished Jai Guru Dev, she folded her hands. She looked and you know, she said this, she said that, she recognizes this, she recognizes that. I was wearing a new outfit and the baby looked at me and said it is so nice. (Laughter) These are all the imagination of parents and grandparents. And they all say they have seen so many kids, but nothing like this baby. For them the baby is beyond anything in this world. That adoration...you should see the spark in their eyes when talking about their kids. They don’t mind if the other person is listening or not. They don’t even see that the guests to whom they are talking are thoroughly bored. But they don’t stop talking about their babies. Their baby is the best and the cutest, the most intelligent baby in the whole world. Never has something like that happened ever before. Parents feel like that, grandparents feel like that, isn’t that so?
Kathadishviti Gargah - that is another sign of love. Talking about your story, your passion - that is what you keep talking about.
Atmarati avirodhena iti Shandilyah - the Rishi Shandilya is known for just breaking all the rules. (Laughter) When no other rule fits, then that is called Shandilya Shastra, that means its own rule. You can find such rules in the streets of Calcutta, in India - everyone can drive the way they want, left, right or centre; anyway you want, you can drive.
Rejoicing without conflict. The moment joy comes in life, suddenly you feel guilty, “Oh, I shouldn’t be enjoying this, no, no, I shouldn’t feel good about me. I shouldn’t praise myself.”
And if someone praises you, you feel an expansion. As soon as you feel that expansion, suddenly something happens and you say, “No, no I shouldn’t be feeling like that, this is ego.” You think you are boosting your ego. These types of conflicts put you down. Self blame is the worst thing that can happen to a seeker on the spiritual path. If you blame yourself, how can you ever go near you? Because you never want to go to something which you blame, which you dislike. So if you blame someone, you cannot be one with them. And if you blame yourself, you cannot go deep into yourself. You cannot get in touch with yourself, your centre. In our society, we have made so many arrangements to feel bad about ourselves, blame ourselves - so much guilt, calling yourself a sinner and a hopeless person, good for nothing. And we think that this is humility. The so called humility we practice is nothing but boosting the ego in an indirect way. It is not humility at all. In the name of virtue, in the name of humility, we try to put conflict in our consciousness.
In the name of service, in the name of love, unknowingly we are creating more conflict in our consciousness. Then you can never settle peacefully within yourself. Meditation cannot happen within you.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, spritual leader and founder of the Art of Living Foundation
Kathadishviti Gargah - that is another sign of love. Talking about your story, your passion - that is what you keep talking about.
Atmarati avirodhena iti Shandilyah - the Rishi Shandilya is known for just breaking all the rules. (Laughter) When no other rule fits, then that is called Shandilya Shastra, that means its own rule. You can find such rules in the streets of Calcutta, in India - everyone can drive the way they want, left, right or centre; anyway you want, you can drive.
Rejoicing without conflict. The moment joy comes in life, suddenly you feel guilty, “Oh, I shouldn’t be enjoying this, no, no, I shouldn’t feel good about me. I shouldn’t praise myself.”
And if someone praises you, you feel an expansion. As soon as you feel that expansion, suddenly something happens and you say, “No, no I shouldn’t be feeling like that, this is ego.” You think you are boosting your ego. These types of conflicts put you down. Self blame is the worst thing that can happen to a seeker on the spiritual path. If you blame yourself, how can you ever go near you? Because you never want to go to something which you blame, which you dislike. So if you blame someone, you cannot be one with them. And if you blame yourself, you cannot go deep into yourself. You cannot get in touch with yourself, your centre. In our society, we have made so many arrangements to feel bad about ourselves, blame ourselves - so much guilt, calling yourself a sinner and a hopeless person, good for nothing. And we think that this is humility. The so called humility we practice is nothing but boosting the ego in an indirect way. It is not humility at all. In the name of virtue, in the name of humility, we try to put conflict in our consciousness.
In the name of service, in the name of love, unknowingly we are creating more conflict in our consciousness. Then you can never settle peacefully within yourself. Meditation cannot happen within you.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, spritual leader and founder of the Art of Living Foundation
One of the Characteristics of Love is Worship or Adoration
Love is multi-dimensional. It is vast and enormous. Love is magnanimous and so many sages have viewed it from many different angles. And they glorified one aspect of love. Worship is one such aspect - pooja or worship. In a society which is bound with ego, worship is looked down upon. Worship is considered a sin in an ego-bound society.
Honouring is considered to be something not very nice in a stiff and competitive society. But in a society or in an institution where love is honoured, love blossoms. Honouring, worshipping is held very high. In the East, you can find people honour the trees. They worship trees, they worship people. People worshipping people are looked down upon in the West. Honouring someone seems to take out someone’s prestige or self-esteem.
But in the East the value is completely different, the one who is honouring gains more prestige. What they honour doesn’t matter. You may honour a cow, you may honour a snake, you may honour or worship a tree. But the value of the one who is honouring goes up. The worshiper is glorified, not what he worships, because the worshiper exhibits the quality of his own consciousness. If you praise someone, it is your generosity, your magnanimity that comes through in the praise. There is a proverb in Sanskrit which says, “Gods praise each other, human beings simply live in peace and demons curse each other, they blame each other.”
One of the characteristics of love is worship, adoring. When people are in love with any celebrity, they adore them, they worship them. It just indicates the degree of love. One who is in love with this entire universe would worship everything in this universe. Because every little bit that is in this existence is part of one divinity. And worshipping this universe only makes you more Divine.
God worships you every day, the divinity is worshipping you every day. That is what pooja is. This existence is offering you flowers, it is offering you fruits, it is offering you grains, and it is taking the sun and the moon around you. It is doing aarti to you. (They call it aarti when you light camphor, or a wick or a candle and move it around the altar.) The divine is doing your pooja every day. The worshipper and the worshipped become one, that union is love. Adoring the divinity in all the forms is divine love.
It begins with you, where you are. Worship is condemned in a society which is individualistic and which is ego-centric. But in a society, which honours the entire existence, which honours every little thing in this world, worship is adored and held high. Adoration is one of the signs of love.
— Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, spritual leader and founder of the Art of Living Foundation
Honouring is considered to be something not very nice in a stiff and competitive society. But in a society or in an institution where love is honoured, love blossoms. Honouring, worshipping is held very high. In the East, you can find people honour the trees. They worship trees, they worship people. People worshipping people are looked down upon in the West. Honouring someone seems to take out someone’s prestige or self-esteem.
But in the East the value is completely different, the one who is honouring gains more prestige. What they honour doesn’t matter. You may honour a cow, you may honour a snake, you may honour or worship a tree. But the value of the one who is honouring goes up. The worshiper is glorified, not what he worships, because the worshiper exhibits the quality of his own consciousness. If you praise someone, it is your generosity, your magnanimity that comes through in the praise. There is a proverb in Sanskrit which says, “Gods praise each other, human beings simply live in peace and demons curse each other, they blame each other.”
One of the characteristics of love is worship, adoring. When people are in love with any celebrity, they adore them, they worship them. It just indicates the degree of love. One who is in love with this entire universe would worship everything in this universe. Because every little bit that is in this existence is part of one divinity. And worshipping this universe only makes you more Divine.
God worships you every day, the divinity is worshipping you every day. That is what pooja is. This existence is offering you flowers, it is offering you fruits, it is offering you grains, and it is taking the sun and the moon around you. It is doing aarti to you. (They call it aarti when you light camphor, or a wick or a candle and move it around the altar.) The divine is doing your pooja every day. The worshipper and the worshipped become one, that union is love. Adoring the divinity in all the forms is divine love.
It begins with you, where you are. Worship is condemned in a society which is individualistic and which is ego-centric. But in a society, which honours the entire existence, which honours every little thing in this world, worship is adored and held high. Adoration is one of the signs of love.
— Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, spritual leader and founder of the Art of Living Foundation
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Wisdom from Sri Sri
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 on Sri Sri's hands.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Another year is passing by, has passed. Let us welcome 2010. The past year has made us rich by its experiences. The problems it brought 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 wanting attention whenever you start enjoying misery. You have to get over that and grow beyond 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 so fortunate. We have this opportunity to even think, discuss knowledge and have an experience 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 a cappuccino 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 are useless, 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 the population 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
Reads them one by one, smiles and puts the paper by his side.
A child comes forward to put a no.1 sticker on Sri Sri's hands.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Another year is passing by, has passed. Let us welcome 2010. The past year has made us rich by its experiences. The problems it brought 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 wanting attention whenever you start enjoying misery. You have to get over that and grow beyond 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 so fortunate. We have this opportunity to even think, discuss knowledge and have an experience 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 a cappuccino 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 are useless, 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 the population 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
Knowledge sheet - intention
Intentions keep the tension in. Being hollow and empty means dropping
all intentions. Within tension, rest does not become deep. Devotion
dissolves intentions. Intention pushes you to the future. Bliss is
always present. The one who wakes up to this truth is wise. In a state
of bliss, once in a while, if an intention comes up, it manifests
effortlessly. The more intentions you have, the more in tension you will
be. To minimize your intentions could be your last intention.
- Sri Sri
- Sri Sri
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