ART OF LIVING ARTICLES n VIDEOS

Gurudev, how to overcome jealousy? Sri Sri: Just know that you are going to die and the other person is going to die too. The person whom you are jealous of will be finished, you will be finished and everything will become ashes. What is there to be jealous about. Once Mullah Nasruddin and his friend, both were taking a nap under a tree, on a hot summer afternoon. After the nap Mullah woke up and said, 'Ah! I saw a great dream. I saw this beautiful lady falling in love with me', and the spark was still in his eyes. He looked so joyful and so his friend said, 'I am so jealous of you. Why don’t these beautiful ladies come into my dreams? I only get horror dreams of my wife, and I perspire.' Mullah said, 'Do you think I do not perspire thinking about my wife. It’s a dream. Why don’t you also dream. Why should be jealous about my dream. At least you have freedom to have you own dreams, even if it becomes reality now or later'...

Gurudev, if a person feels hurt by the divine where does one go? Sri Sri: There is nowhere to go! It is impossible that the Divine hurts you! There is a beautiful couplet in Kannada that we used to learn in school. It says, the more you squeeze sugarcane, sweeter is the juice that comes. The more you cut a diamond, the more it shines. The more gold is hammered, put in fire, the more it shines. The more you grind sandalwood, the more its fragrance spreads. Nature puts you through many different tasks and tests, and you come out shining from it all. You must remember that nature will not give you a burden which you cannot carry. God first measures the tail and then puts it on the animal, so it can easily wag its tail. Just imagine if a rat had the tail of an elephant, which it cannot even lift! Nature is very intelligent, it only gives you that problem which you can handle. ======================================================= Gurudev, I have a deep rooted secret...

Something happened in the past, it was to happen and so it happened. Accept the past and don’t brood over it, move on. Suppose you have committed some mistake, you have insulted somebody and that person holds on to it for so long, even after you have asked for forgiveness from them a million times, what do you do if that person still doesn’t forgive you? Somebody has been wrong to you and you also have been wrong to someone. Don’t you seek forgiveness and move on? You don’t want someone to hold on to your mistakes for your whole life, isn't it? If the person forgives you, moves on, understands your position, how do you feel? See the other person in the same way. You being in victim consciousness and having rage and anger, does it help you any way to carry on your life? Absolutely not! Waste of time, waste of your potential and life. So we must forgive, forget and move on. You hurt someone in the past and somebody hurt you, that account is closed now. Finished! There w...

How to keep on loving without expecting. How is it possible? In love expectations arise and if not fulfilled, it hurts. Sri Sri: Yes, you will have to go through these gymnastics. If you have wisdom, you don’t have to go through the pain to learn. When there is lack of wisdom, you go through pain, but you will come out of it in sometime, don’t worry. This is why it is important for one to have a larger context to life. When you have a larger context, all these trivial things don’t really bother you. They are all like waves on the surface of the ocean, they rise and fall; like ripples in the lake, they rise when the wind blows, and when there is no wind, there are no ripples. So, have a bigger context. That is atma gyaan (knowledge of the self); nothing can shake me, I am much bigger than the emotions, I am much bigger than the world around me, people around me. Their praise and their blame doesn’t matter. I am much bigger than all this! This aware...

Wanting to influence is itself a problem. What do you get by influencing people around you? You don't know one secret: if you influence somebody, or make a big impression on them, they become jealous of you. And then, they try to pull you down. Or they don't care and they make fun of you. In either case, what do you gain? More problems. Just be your natural self. Simplicity, honesty, contentment, creativity - these will influence all the people around you. || Jai Guru Dev ||

There are two types of respect: Respect that comes to you because of your position, fame or wealth. This type of respect is impermanent. It can be lost once you lose your wealth or status. Respect that comes because of your virtues like honesty, kindness, commitment, patience and your smile. This respect, no one can take away. The less you are attached to your virtues, the more self respect you have. If you get attached to your virtues, you look down upon everybody else, and the virtues start diminishing. Non- attachment to virtues brings the highest self respect. Often one confuses ego with self esteem. Ego needs the other for comparison; self esteem is just confidence in oneself. For example, a gentleman claims that he is thorough in Mathematics or Geography, this is self esteem. But to say that I know better than you, that is Ego. Ego simply means lack of respect to the Self. Ego upsets you very often. Self esteem is immune to getting upset by external factors. I...

You know, many of you often say, 'Oh, I feel so hurt'. You fall in love and then you get hurt, isn't it. How many of you have had this experience? ( Many raise their hands ) You didn’t expect a certain action or reaction from the people whom you love, and you get an unexpected response and you feel hurt. What happens when you are hurt? You start shutting down, you start withdrawing. And if it happens more than three times, your whole personality gets affected. Then you become a very rude, rough and angry person. Isn’t that so? Let us say someone hurts you, how do you behave the next moment? You become rough, rude and angry. This is one reaction. There is another way to look at it. Why does someone hurt another person? Only two kinds of people can hurt you. First, one who is wise can hurt you, because when you get hurt you wake up from your slumber. The hurt wakes you up, somewhere it makes you stronger. Second, one who is himself hurt or who is ignora...