Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
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Q:
Do you get stressed?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
The product really works well! Just last week I went to Kerala. They had organized 19 appointments in a day. I cancelled some of them before I went there. Yet, I ended up attending 22 appointments. I thought I would get irritated, but I surprised myself and didn't. Each one of us has tremendous energy within us. One single cell can light up the entire city of Bangalore for 24 hours.Q:
How does God see the world?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
God cannot see two. For God there is no you and I! He can only see himself in everything and everyone!!Q:
Sometimes it seems all this is untruth, we running after things knowingly or unknowingly. Sometimes I feel I am compulsorily driven away with the flow and that distresses me. What is it that doesn’t change? What is the truth?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Truth cannot be spoken. Only in Silence, in deep meditation you can experience the truth!Q:
Guruji, I appreciate the Sun and the Moon and the Nature, why can’t God appreciate when I do something good?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
He doesn't appreciate you, because he knows you can do better. If he starts appreciating you every moment, then your desire to perform better will not be there.Knowledge Byte:Truth is that which does not change. Examine your life and identify all that changes as "not truth." With this outlook, you will find that you are surrounded by only untruth.
When you identify untruth, then you will become free from it. When you do not identify the untruth, you cannot become free from it. Your own experiences in life make you identify your own untruth.
As you mature in life, you find everything is untruth - events, situations, people, emotions, thoughts, opinions, concepts, your body - everything is untruth. It is only then that Satsang – the company of truth - happens in the real sense. A mother cannot see the child as untruth until the child becomes an adult. For a baby, sweetness is not untruth, and for a teenager, sex is not untruth.
Knowledge is untruth if it is only words. But as existence, it is truth. Love as an emotion is not truth; as existence, it is truth.
Q:
Is there a masculine and feminine side to everything? Then why do we categorize things as male or female?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Yes! There is a neutral gender also.There are 3 genders. Some things fall under the neutral gender too. In fact, there is a whole scripture on the gender of stones as well as trees. The Shilpa Shastra or Book on Sculptures elaborates on this. Hawaiians also say that different stones have different genders! They can identify those. But it doesn’t matter. The Self, or the Spirit is beyond gender.Q:
Does the cycle of life and death never end?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
The whole world is like that. It’s all spherical: everything moves in cycles. You have to come back, but you have a choice. If you are born out of compulsion then it's the same old story again and again. But if you get liberated, then you have the choice and the will to be born when you want. When you come back liberated, it is joyful.Q:
What is the best way to make someone aware of their responsibilities?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Anything that works! Anything that makes them aware is good. Don’t sit and think what is the best way? Whatever ideas occur, you apply those and see which one works. The one that works is the best.Q:
Distractions and problems of everyday life come up again and again. Is it better to lead a detached, quiet life?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Life is a combination of both: dynamism and silence, chaos and quietness. You shouldn’t be afraid of either. Those who are used to chaos, are scared of silence. Many times, in my public talks I have observed that some people can't even close their eyes, they’re so scared. Sometimes politicians and even professors can’t sit for 10 minutes with eyes closed. They’re scared to do so. People are so scared of silence, of stillness, of closing their own eyes. Similarly people used to their silence, to their comfort zone are so scared of chaos and disturbance. Both are incomplete. You should feel as comfortable with silence as you are with chaos, and that is the art of living. We see dynamism in silence and silence in chaos. When you are at home with both of them you are able to contribute in both situations.Q:
Guruji, does choosing a Guru means one can’t follow theteachings of other masters? Can one have more than one Guru?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Oh! It’s so hard to manage one Guru,how can you…! (laughs) It’s not easy. Respect everybody but follow one path.Honor everyone and you will see, all the masters have said the same thing.There is only one truth, so, they have said the same thing, but the methods aredifferent as per the needs of the time.You don’t have conflict when you are on this path. Whicheverpath you were there, they have blessed you and that’s how you have come here.You have served those paths, those teachers, those masters and their blessinghas brought you here, with this conviction you move forward. Ok?
It’s just that if you keep trying everything, you get soconfused! So, I would say, see one in all and all in one as a principle.
Honor everyone and follow one path.
Q:
The more and more my love blossoms for the Divine, the harder I find it to give away my pains and worries. How can we give garbage to the most precious ones?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Never mind. Divine will take it.He will snatch it from you if you don’t want to give it to him.
As long as there is a connection, there is always give and take. You will always receive blessings. You will always receive bliss and unwanted things will just drop off.
It is nice of you to think that way. It also shows your level of consciousness. In this level of consciousness, drop this identity of garbage as part of you.
You find something pricking in the mind, just see it as garbage. Not as your garbage or garbage of someone else.