Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
How to choose right career path?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Identifying your energy type is the most important. There are 3 energy types, predominance in creativity, sustenance or challenge facing ability. What kind of person are you? First identify that. Then it will become easy for you to choose a carrier. – Contributed By Yes Plus Teachers
How do I know if I am doing the right job?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
If you had a million dollars in your bank and would still do what you are doing, then that means you are in the right place. - Contributed By Yes Plus Teachers
People around me feel jealous due to my good performance. Please suggest what I should do in these circumstances?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Ok! About jealousy! Just join hands with them or praise them. Another thing that you can do is not to take any notice of their jealousy at all. - Contributed By Yes Plus Teachers
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Pick up good things like cleanliness and following the rules from the Western society. Western Civilization has such cleanliness and the sense of following rules. Learn the Human values from the East. Every country or tradition has something good to offer. We need to learn hospitality from the Japanese, precision from Germans, etiquette from the English and marketing from America and from India, human values.
We can also learn, what not to learn or what to unlearn? Too much formality! At some places, the mother has to take permission to go to her daughter, or the daughter has to take appointment from the mother. This has started to happen somewhere in urban society here also. The naturalness, sense of belongingness is disappearing from the society. That has given rise to depression and other disorders in so many countries in the west. There is such a sense of belongingness and human values even in a village in the east, and that is to be maintained.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Definitely. It is possible to stay in such a state of love without any of these negative connotations with that – if there is wisdom. Love with wisdom is bliss. Love minus wisdom is what you have mentioned; all this jealousy, greed, all this paraphernalia.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Well! You are in deep love with somebody, so that person must be right for now. But whether he continues to be right in future, nobody can say. It depends on you! How you handle. You are in love with some body, but is he in love with you or not? First you find that out! If that man is also in love with you, then see how you both preserve your love with a dose of wisdom and how you carry on, how you conduct yourself – all these factors are there. Correct? It’s very easy to fall in love, but many of us don’t know how to maintain that. Someone falls in love with us and we don’t know how to receive and nurture that love. We lose other’s love for us too. So these skills, I have spoken about these skills in the knowledge facets, in Celebrating Love, you read it.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
We need to wake up and see that planet is our home and when you go higher, you don’t see borders. Borders are our understanding, our illusions. There really is no border. Sky knows no border, clouds know no border, and wind also knows no border. The elements of this earth have no borders. The planet is one home for everyone. We are all one family. So, we need to think from a broader perspective. Which is the correct perspective? That the whole planet belongs to us. We cannot dump our nuclear waste into some other place. The effect of dumping any waste anywhere in Earth will again come back to us! We cannot keep one place clean and pure in isolation. It is not possible because the air will carry! We have to care for the whole planet. We have to make the entire planet organic. We have created so many types of viruses on this planet. Because we meddled with nature. We have destroyed many species on this planet because we have not taken good care of it, and our food production has gone so low. That it’s going to be a very heavy thing on the coming generation, you know! I think every individual, every human being on the planet will have to take responsibility of not polluting the planet, of continuing sustainable development by planting more trees, preserving our lakes, preserving water. It is so important! Water scarcity is another big issue in the world. Millions of people are into starvation! So, we need to have a global picture and care for the whole planet. Of course, we need This is most important! But at the same time, we should have the idea about the whole planet and the entire humanity being a family.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
As such there is no conflict. You have to balance your life. You know some spiritual practice every day, some breathing exercise and yoga would help you long way, and then some social service activity what we call seva in India. All that we earn, we spend on our self. Isn’t it good that we should keep at least 3 or 4% of our earning to give to those who are in need of it. There are around 300 million children in the world which need education. You can be part of it. You can help in Africal Even here you can help children to get educated. One day in a month, take a time off in a group, go and help clean the environment, and help environmental programs and social service activity you can take on. If we sit and think what about me all the time, then we will get depressed. You should see what you can do and how you can contribute to the world which is in need. That question and feeling should be within us. We all have to work towards having a violence-free society; drug and alcohol free healthy society. Violence free society, disease free body, confusion free mind, inhibition free intellect, trauma free memory and sorrow free soul is the birth right of every individual and that’s what I have been telling around the world. We are all one family, we all belong to one family. This knowledge is not the wealth of one community, or one religion or one nation – it belongs to the whole world, the technology to be happy and content. Technology to have the sense of belongingness with the world belongs to everybody, and not just to India or Hindus or Buddhist like that…Don’t you think so?Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Yes, Spirituality is asking ‘who am I?’ and Science is asking ‘What is this? Objective analysis is science and subjective understanding is spirituality. And they go hand in hand. They were never in conflict in the east, because the paradigm was same. Science says understanding follows the experience and then the concept arises. But occidental philosophy says first you believe and then you can get experience in the future, which science wasn’t comfortable with. That’s why science and spirituality was always in conflict in the west, where as it never was in the east because science was always encouraged. It is said in Bhagvat geeta ‘Gyan Vigyana triptatma’, subjective knowledge and the scientific knowledge both should go together, and then only you will find fulfillment.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
One who knows won’t tell you and anybody who tells you, they don’t know. It’s very important question; keep it with yourself, ‘what is the purpose of life’? You should ask yourself again at times. The question will clear all the cobwebs around you and will keep you on track of what you want and where do you want to go.