put in your effort and give up

In the field you throw so many seeds. Not all seeds sprout. Some sprout, some don’t. When you sow saplings, not every sapling grows. Some do, some don’t. In a tree, not all flowers become fruit. Some fall when they are not even ripe. That’s why you put your effort and then you give up (here meaning surrender).

Giving up without putting any effort is foolishness and after putting all your effort, not giving up is also foolishness. Put all your effort and give up. Not putting all your effort and giving up is also foolishness.

What makes you free? Putting your effort and giving up makes you free. If you say, 'I give up', without putting effort, it doesn’t make you free. You say, 'I give up', but you have not really given up because of that tendency of wanting to do. That will hold you back from being free. The secret of freedom is, put your effort and give up.
Not putting your effort and giving up doesn’t free you. And, putting all your effort and not giving up will also not free you.

Any action should only be done with awareness. An action from an unaware state has no meaning. Then it’s not called effort.

yoga-stilling the mind

Yoga: Stilling the mind
There is a new icebreaker in the international diplomatic circuit. The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call at the UN General Assembly for declaring an International Yoga Day has gained support from several quarters – many representatives from Congress and President Obama as well have shown keen interest in yoga.

From being an ancient spiritual pursuit for those seeking enlightenment, yoga has been absorbed into mainstream lifestyle by people from all cultures and backgrounds across the globe. And now it has also arrived in the global political arena. Good governance and administration require multi-faceted skills and yoga brings skill in action. In fact, it was called Raja Yoga because it was practiced by kings and princes in the ancient days.

Yoga became popular in the west as a solution to lose weight or as a physical exercise and people also found relief from many ills such as stress, anxiety, professional burnout, addictions and insomnia. In additions to its remedial properties, yoga is also a path to realize and harness your deepest potential.

It has a profound impact on multiple levels of our existence. While stretches and postures make the body supple, pranayama and meditation take the mind deep within. An unknown dimension opens up within our being that enriches the experience of life in many ways. There are several benefits of yoga – it enhances health, improves memory and concentration, sharpens the intellect, de-stresses the system and increases energy levels. It also unveils an intuitive ability within us which is much needed for creative pursuits and in overcoming obstacles like the writers’ block.

According to Maharishi Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, the oldest known text on the subject, yoga is freedom from all the distortions of the mind. If we observe the mind, we will realise that it is always engaged in one of five things

Seeking proof or answers
Forming conclusions
Imagining or fantasising
Remembering past events or memories
Dreaming
Yoga or union with the Higher Self happens when the mind is not engaged in any of the above. You usually identify with the activity in the mind. In the waking state, you are caught up in all that you see, smell, hear, touch, taste. If not, you return to sleep or to the state of dreaming where you are completely cut off from the world. None of these really give that deep rest that the system needs to totally recover from the stress that it gathers.

In the physical realm, it takes effort to get results. In the realm of the mind, what is needed is effortlessness. For instance, you cannot relax or go to sleep by putting effort; in fact, putting effort is counterproductive. It takes a certain kind of skill to become effortless. The ability to deeply relax renews your ability to be dynamic in action. Passion is like the in-breath but you cannot just breath in; you need to breath out as well and that is dispassion. Life becomes a harmony when we have all three – passion, dispassion and compassion.

Often one has to sacrifice personal freedom to some degree to observe discipline. But yoga is a discipline that opens the door to inner freedom, contradictory as it seems. With practice, you acquire the knack of switching between different modes of the mind, from engaging with the outside world to withdrawing from it and going within; between passion and dispassion. This skill of moving outward or inward at will makes you the master of your own mind, and when you win over the mind, you win over the world.

medical findings of sudarshan kriya

Medical findings about the Sudarshan Kriya taught in Art Of Living course:

A world conference on science, consciousness and spirituality held in New Delhi noted the key findings of research conducted on the Sudarshan Kriya . Below is a simplified synopsis:

1. Less depression, more elation
Dr Richard Brown from the USA has postulated that Kriya contributes to a state of alert calmness through its effect on the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is crucial in social bonding, empathy and love; it is the centre of our gut instincts and is crucial to our ability to perceive, observe and make complex decisions. Impaired vagal activity is found in people with depression, anxiety, panic disorders, irritable bowel syndrome, violent adults, post traumatic stress disorder, early Alzheimer’s and obesity.

2. Sleep like a baby

`Stephen Porges suggested that the different rhythms of breath in Kriya stimulates different fibers of the vagus nerve. This makes SKY unique and likely to have a much wider range of effects. Interestingly, brain wave rhythms during and after Kriya are similar to those of babies.

3. Think Positive
Dr Fahri Saatcioglu from Oslo did a 6-week study on the effect of Kriya on the relaxation response and feeling of wellness on 109 subjects. 56 of them went through the Art of Living course and performed Kriya daily for 6 weeks. The other 53 relaxed in an armchair for 15 minutes daily for the same period. 6 weeks later, a significant increase in the experience of wellness in the Kriya group was noted as compared to the ‘armchair’ group. There was a sharp decrease in anxiety, depression and stress and a marked increase in optimistic thinking in the Kriya group.

4. Live longer
Dr Neeta Singh from New Delhi studied the effects of Kriya on the genes that affect stress related pathways of the human body. She found an increase in vital antioxidant enzymes that are responsible for a longer life span and better protection against cancer.

5. Healthy heart, skin and blood pressure
Dr Stephen Larsen from the USA studied neurophysiological responses before, during and after Kriya. The tests run were EEG (recorded at 19 cortical sites), EKG, heart rate variability, galvanic skin response, hand skin temperature, pulse plethysmography and blood pressure. He found that Kriya practices produced significant changes in ALL physiological measures. It appears that over a period of time, the practitioner’s health becomes more robust, flexible and able to deal with the challenges of stress. This explains why regular practice of Kriya is very important.

6. Decreased work-related stress
Dr Vedamurthachar from Bangalore studied the effect of the AOL Course on occupational stress and anxiety among 60 software engineers. At the end of a month, the 30 engineers who took the AOL course showed a sharp reduction in anxiety and improvement in stress coping skills as compared with the 30 controls.

7. SKY and vegetarian meals for good health
E G Lyulyakina from Russia studied the oral micro flora of SKY practitioners. She found that the number of microorganisms in lacto vegetarians were 2-3 times less than that in ‘non strict’ vegetarians. She concluded that practice of Kriya and a vegetarian diet reduces the microbial content of the mouth.

8. Fight Cholesterol
Dr Chiplonkar from Pune studied the lifestyle, behavioral and health aspects of 105 adults before and after undergoing the part I Art of Living Course. She found that majority of micronutrients showed a positive correlation with sattvic foods. After the practice of Kriya for 2 months, she found a significant reduction in anxiety, sharp increase in antioxidant capacity, reduction in triglycerides and a marginal reduction in oxidative stress.

9. Beneficial for cancer patients
Arielle Warner in USA studied the psycho spiritual benefits of Kriya were studied in women diagnosed with breast cancer. The subjects were evaluated 2 weeks before the Art of Living Course, 8 days after the Course and after 5 weeks of regular practice. A significant improvement in quality of life, spiritual well being, positive states of mind and perceived stress was observed after the AOL course and was maintained 5 weeks later.

10. SKY rules over other similar yoga tools
Dr Janis Carter from Australia compared the effects of different modalities like Iyengar and Desikachar yoga, Qi Gong, Sudarshan Kriya Yoga and a multicomponent yoga intervention (MCYI) in treating Australian Vietnam war veterans with long standing Post traumatic Stress disorder. She found that the interventions that used many tools of yoga viz. Sudarshan Kriya and MCYI showed the greatest efficacy.

11. Psychoanalytical healing
Dr Patricia Gerberg from USA discussed the effects of doing the Art of Living Kriya program in a patient undergoing psychoanalysis since a long time. She found Kriya useful in healing negative past impressions and the `dissociation’ that rendered the patient unable to connect with others and with his own feelings

JGD

Why is your photo everywhere?

Q: Why is your photo everywhere? What about the ego?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: I in fact, don’t want my photo to be everywhere. I tell people, but they do the same things, they bring it. Dr. Lawrence Carter also made a portrait of me in Atlanta (laughter). A huge big portrait and put it in the hall of fame there, in the university.
I want to tell you one incident. I was once travelling in a plane and there was a politician, a minister travelling in that same plane. When we got down, the politician was trying to come out, but there were about 200 people trying to give him a garland, and he was refusing. He was running around saying, 'No, no, don’t give me a garland. I am a simple man, don’t honor me'. And the whole drama happened for about half an hour. In his refusing the garland, he made it into a big scene. I said, 'If they brought it with so much love, you should have just taken it and moved on!' The whole thing would’ve finished in 2-3 minutes. In Ashtavakra Gita it is said, your wanting something or refusing something, both are same.
You know, for almost 10 years we had no pamphlets, and no photo of mine was published anywhere; in magazines, newspapers, nowhere. For 10 years, we didn’t do any printing, it was all by word of mouth – if you benefit, tell your friend. And they tell their friends. So everything was happening by word of mouth. But when it became larger, people said, 'No, we have to do this'. So to give information we started letters. Then printing, and the magazines, all these things started later to keep people informed.

Those days there was no twitter, not even cell phones. The only way was through magazines or newsletters.

ONLY THE HEART MATTERS

Gurudev, I have heard this couplet: 'Sadguru pura je mile, paiye rattan upaar; Mann dije Guru aapne, paiye moksh dwaar' (One who has a Sadguru receives wealth greater than the rarest gems, and one whose heart is devoted to the Sadguru finds liberation effortlessly). How can a seeker surrender himself wholeheartedly to the Sadguru? What does this couplet mean?

Sri Sri: This is what I just explained, isn’t it? I gave you the answer even before you asked me this question! (Laughter)

What does a Guru want from you? Just your heart, isn’t it? So dedicate your heart to the Guru, and be free!

Giving your heart to the Sadguru means that you feel that ‘My Guru belongs to me, and is taking care of everything’. Just have this faith.

See, the mind can get clouded with doubts and a million other thoughts. At first you doubt yourself, then you doubt the others around you, and then you doubt the whole world around you. This doubt slowly consumes your mind.

Doubt is responsible for having destroyed so many happy families. So just drop the doubt. Having total faith in the Guru means just this –‘My Guru belongs to me’, and walking confidently in life with this unshakeable faith.

Just believe that - I will get everything that I deserve, and no power can stop that from happening. The One who is giving will give me everything in abundance. Whatever is mine by merit of my karma will surely come to me.

You know, this whole life will end in the blink of an eye. Just look back and see, some 30 to 40 years have just passed by in an instant! So why be troubled about the few 20-30 years more to come? That too will pass by easily.

You will spend half of that time just sleeping. The remaining 10-15 years will be spent in eating, travelling and spending time with your family and friends. So life will come to an end in the snap of a moment. Life is running at such an amazing speed. Just wake up! Realize that you are already surrendered to the Divine.
Do not ask, ‘Oh, how should I surrender myself to the Divine?’ Just take it for granted that you are already surrendered to the Divine.

That’s it.

There is no point in asking, ‘How do I surrender? How do I create or feel that belongingness with the Divine?’ There is no way to create that belongingness. You should just feel that 'I already belong to the Divine’, that is it. Finished! Do not question that even once.

I feel, we should give this lesson to all the newlyweds also. They should understand how a husband and a wife should interact and be with each other.

Do not go about policing each other. Do not ask your spouse, ‘Do you really love me?’

You should not ask such questions to your spouse, even if a doubt comes in your mind. Instead you should ask, ‘Why do you love me so much? You love me so much more that what I really deserve’. Then your love grows.

Demand destroys relationships. Any demand on any one person will destroy that relationship. Got it? Do not demand. You are here on the planet only to give and contribute, not to take. When you take this step, you will see that whatever you need will simply come to you. This is the law of Nature.

When you have this belief that you are here on this planet to give and to serve, you will find that you will receive ten times more of whatever you need or desire. Then whatever it is that you desire, you will get it in abundance.

You should not get stuck in small petty things like ‘I want that person’s attention’, etc. Do not settle for such small things.

If a beggar approaches you, and asks for alms, what do you usually say? ‘Please move ahead’, isn't it. You only invite that person to a party who is already prosperous and has everything. Nature also acts in the same way.

Who do you invite home to dinner? You invite someone whose (heart) and stomach are full, isn’t it? So you should bear this in mind and not go running after small trivial things like a rat. It ruins your peace of mind, and you end up disturbing others around you also. In fact the entire environment gets spoiled because of that.

Just observe this, if a person comes and sits next to you, or if you sit next to someone who goes on complaining about something or the other, and finding faults in everything, do you feel like sitting with them? No! You feel like running away from them that very instant.

You would want to feel uplifted in someone’s company, isn’t it? Who in the world is bothered about how many medicines you have had, or how much your leg is hurting? Or how your neighbours are troubling you? What is the use of telling such stories to others?

See, life is a mix of everything. There are both pleasant and unpleasant times, and it goes on. Do you think that everything will happen as per your liking only?

Will everyone keep praising you all the time? No, sometimes some people may insult you as well. You have to listen to that also. What is so disappointing in that? It is nothing. Be strong and brave.

Life is like a river, and when a river flows, sometimes it is clear and pure, and sometimes some garbage, like dry leaves, twigs and branches also falls into its stream. Life is like that. Such things keep happening in life from time to time.

When you spend too much time in the company of certain people, some problem or other does arise. The more limited and narrow we make our world and our life, that much more our troubles and difficulties will increase in life. So do not stay stuck in your narrow limited view of life, and the world.

Now by this I do not mean you leave your home and your responsibilities. Many people misunderstand such things. They think, ‘Gurudev has said to not get entangled in my limited world’, so they abandon their duties and responsibilities towards their families. No, this is not right.

Once I was at Paris airport and was passing through airport security. There were a lot of people seeing me off, some 200-300 people. Now this one lady came; she must have been in her late 60’s. She came to me and showed me a ring on her finger, and asked me, ‘Is this necessary?’ I just saw the ring with a stone on it and said, ‘No, it is not necessary’. And then I left for New York.

Two days later her husband called me and asked me, ‘Gurudev, why did you ask my wife to divorce me?’ I replied, ‘I would never say such a thing’. He is a 75 year old man, married for 45 years. He said, ‘No Gurudev, you told my wife that marriage is not necessary, so she has decided to divorce me. My wife said you have given her this advice’.

Oh God! You know, people want something else but they want it to come from my mouth! And both are my devotees. So I told him, ‘No, you need not do that at all’.

We so often get caught up in small things. Instead, you should think that if someone comes and sits next to you, they should feel uplifted. You should fill their heart with joy and happiness. This is what you should do. But we end up doing the opposite.

Even at home, when a man comes back from work and is exhausted, his wife will complain and taunt him by saying, ‘You did not do this, this is not right, that is not good’, etc. So he ends up facing problems at work and also at home.

Ladies also have a similar problems. They work the entire day in the house, and if the husband comes back home in the evenings and does not share a few nice words with her, how will she feel? If he just sits reading the newspaper, or stays on the phone for business, then the wife also feels troubled. There needs to be understanding from both sides. But the main thing is, do not make demands or place conditions for things from your side.

You should have this firm resolve in your mind that whoever comes to me should only go back happier and lighter, no matter what our own condition may be like, because you know that God, or the Guru is there to fulfil all your needs and any lack that you may have, for God and the Guru are one.

You should only think of giving to whoever comes to you. This is the feeling that you should have from within. Remind yourself that ‘I have but One Master, and everyone else are my children whom I have to serve and nourish, come what may!’

See, life is so short. So be happy at all times and spread that happiness to everyone around you. That should be our aim. Then everything will come to you

how to remove physical desires

Q: How can we remove the physical desires that harm us and our relationships?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: By enhancing your prana (energy). When there is lust, there is a feeling of wanting to grab. When there is love, there is a feeling of wanting to give.

How can the feeling of lust be transformed to love? By raising the energy level in our system.

When energy is stuck in the lower chakra (two-three inches above the base of the spine), there is a feeling of lust. However, when the energy channels open up, the energy rises. Then there is more love, compassion, awareness. All these other beautiful, finer emotions also get opened up. Then violence disappears from the system.

I AM GOD

It was thought that to say, "I am God" is blasphemy. I tell you, to say "I am not God" is blasphemy! When you say, "I am not God," you deny God of His omnipresence.

You are made up of love. If you say, "I am not God," you are denying that God is love. If you are love and you say, "I am not God," you are saying God is not love, and that is blasphemy.

"I am" is your consciousness. If you say, "I am not God," you deny that God is aware, alert and awake. You exist. When you say, "I am not God," you deny God of a portion of existence, and that is blasphemy. Also, you are denying the scriptures that say, "God made man in His own image." If you say, "I am not God," you are denying God.

Question: If God is omnipresent, why is there hatred and suffering in this world?

Sri Sri: Just as in a movie, it doesn't matter whether it is a tragedy or a comedy, or one with a happy ending; in the Absolute there are no opposites. All the opposites are part of relative existence.

Relative existence is not the complete picture. Good and bad, right and wrong, everything is relative. For example, milk is good, but too much milk can kill you. A drop of poison can save a life (most medicines have "POISON" written on them). These are neither absolutely good nor bad; they are just there.

Truth transcends duality, and God is the absolute and only truth. In a movie, when light passes through the film, it doesn't matter to the light what the film is. Tragedy or comedy, hero or villain, the light is always there.

In the same way, no matter what is happening in your mind, YOU ARE GOD!