ART OF LIVING ARTICLES n VIDEOS

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 complaini...

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.

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...

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 ...

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...

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 sh...

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 res...