Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Never mind, don’t examine this too much and think, "Oh, am I feverish?" If you have passion, just go with it, okay? Where do you have time to sit and think whether it is feverishness, or what? Just be spontaneous, my dear. Never mind, even if mistakes happen, I don’t mind it!

Spontaneity is the sign of a vibrant life. When you are spontaneous, you don't chew on the past, you don’t chew on yourself or others. If you get upset, I don’t mind it, but it should be a spontaneous anger, not a stale one that goes on in your mind for months together, and then one day you burst! You can give fresh anger; your anger should be like fire and ice, fresh! It’s okay if it goes off also, otherwise you will keep some stale thing in mind when you are angry.
Children are like that, they are angry for a moment when you take a toy away from them, they are so angry, and then the next moment they are okay. Just stick to those tendencies that we came with to this Earth.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Yes, yes, yes absolutely.

Once Adi Shankara was saying that the whole world is all illusion, everything is maya, it is not real, it is dream-like. Just now, wake up and see, all that has happened until this moment, is it there anymore? It is all gone, everything. This morning, when you had breakfast, is it not like a dream for you now? Just think of this morning, is it not like a dream? It’s all gone. Could this be a dream? Just project your mind on the future. You are going to go sleep, and then come back tomorrow, this is all like a dream.

Another 10-20 years will pass, one day you will be under the ground or as ashes, everything will be done. Is it not like a dream? That is what Adi Shankara was saying - life, the whole universe is all made up of one thing. He was talking Quantum Physics.

Do you know what Maya means? It means that which can be measured. This whole world can be measured. Thus, whatever you can measure is all temporary, it is not permanent, because measurement is always relative. You may measure something here, you measure the same thing on the moon or in another space, it will measure differently. Vedanta said the same thing, what science says, millenniums ago.

Once, when Adi Shankara was walking, a crazy elephant started chasing him, so Shankara ran for shelter. Someone asked him, "Why are you running, the elephant is Maya, it is an illusion!"
Do you know what he said? He said, "Yes, the elephant is an illusion, my running is also an illusion". So, different levels of reality exist. You need a dream gun to shoot a dream tiger, from a real gun you cannot shoot a dream tiger.

I am tempted to share another incident. There is a very well known psychic and astrologer who came to our program one day. On the second day he came with bandages on his legs. When I asked if he got into an accident, he said, "No, I didn’t go anywhere". At night, he saw a dog or a tiger in his dream, and kicked the wall so hard to run away from the animal, that he woke up with a fractured leg. The psychic had a fractured leg the next morning when he tried to kick the dream tiger with his real leg. So be careful on that count, okay? (Laugher)

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional; you have heard that before, right? Pain is nothing but an intense sensation. Yet, do not justify or encourage pain. Some people start justifying and encouraging pain, and that is where masochism starts. You need to stay clear of masochism, and that is why I would say if pain comes, it has come due to some karma, that's it, move on.

The principle of karma is such a healthy thing to save the mind. It's such a good vaccination for the mind. When you say karma, then you are able to let go and move on, otherwise you brood over whatever has happened in the past,and you try to link things with some cause.
If you look back, whatever you thought as cause is also an effect, it is not the cause. Every time you fix something as the cause of an effect, you have erred. You have seen that it is not true; it has not stood the test of time. No cause has stood the test of time because every cause is an effect. This is the spiritual way. When you think in this direction and go deeper to the ultimate cause, you find that there is only one thing that is the cause of the entire existence. With this one realization, your peace can never be taken away by anybody or any incident on the planet; nothing can move you if you know the cause!

That is why there is a beautiful verse in Sanskrit,"Tasmai nama parama karana karanaya", Shiva, you are the cause of all causes, the grand time that is beyond time, otherwise we keep going round in this cycle of karma.

Yes, it can be little confusing if you don't pay very keen attention to what I am saying. One is karma, i.e., cause and effect. Another is going beyond karma; how do you get out of the cycle of karma? Are you getting this? You have to ponder on this once more. This principle of karma is a big blessing for you to let go and move further.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Yes, when there is love and wisdom, none of these negative tendencies will come close to you. However, if there is love without wisdom, all these things that you mentioned, will all attack you at once.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Oh my God, one itself is big! And then if you have two-three gurus, you will become bigger! Guru means ‘Big’. If you are on the spiritual path, know that it is they who have paved the way for you to be here. And so thank everybody, honor everyone, but follow one system of practice, otherwise you will be so confused doing a little bit here-and a little bit there.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

No,take up some creative work. You know the whole day I am busy attending to the many projects that we have taken on. This morning we had a meeting about a ‘Welcome Home Project’. Did you know that 22 veterans committed suicide every single day in this country in 2014? They have still not published the numbers for 2015; we need to stop this!
I feel so obliged. We have the knowledge here, this can save the lives of millions of people, we must make this knowledge available to them. We had a meeting about it this morning. Michael has made the movie and Tom has acted in it. So, you also take up some project.

We also had a discussion with the Yes! team for programs in schools. They are doing such good work, they were telling me stories about how school children and teachers are getting transformed.

I met with the Overseas Volunteers for a Better India (OVBI) group, they are doing excellent work. Similarly, there are so many programs happening, IAHV is doing some beautiful work here in this campus. I get reports on how it is going in the medical community in Long Island and other places. So you also take up some work or start writing something, then you will also feel that you are close to me, that's it!

I am always available. I always meet people, anybody, and everybody!

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Listen, I would like you to take these two words away from your dictionary - surrender and devotion. Both these words are very confusing. They have lost their essence and meaning in some way. And what is, is.

Why do you have to label devotion? You have love, now you don't need to give the love in your heart a name or a relation because then there is an effort, "Oh I want to be devoted, I want to be surrendered".
The more you try to be devoted the more you will feel you are going farther away from it. Everyone has commitment. When you have love, there is commitment. And love with commitment is what you call devotion. You have commitment, and you have love, and they go together.

Now, let us see what is surrender? What do you need to surrender? Do you need to surrender all your good qualities? Your compassion, love, joy and peace? Or do you need to surrender stress?
I wouldn't like to use the word surrender. I would say -- let go of stress, let go of the negativity, let go of the small-mindedness, pettiness, this is all that you need to give up. But when you give a name to it, such as surrender, it appears to be very confusing or scary.

These words -- devotion and surrender are used so much by communities of faith, that it has become a very big mess in the mind. Either we feel we have surrendered or we are so devoted, and this, in a very subtle way, creates self doubt. Even those who are very devoted will ask, "Am I devoted?"
Why bother about all this? Your heart is pure and clean, your mind is clear, your heart is pure and you are sincere in your commitment, and if others say you are devoted, it's up to them to say you are devoted! Do you see what I am saying?

Today, words are losing their meanings. There are new paradigms coming and so some words are so misused or wrongly used. To avoid this confusion, instead of surrender, let us say - let go of all that you cannot bear.
Is this easy or difficult? Anything that feels like a burden, don't you want to let go? Yes! Don't you want to let go of worrying? That is what surrender is!
Don't you feel commitment and a connection? That is devotion.

In religion, people have used devotion; in politics, they have used patriotism; it is the same relationship, isn't it? What do all of them contain? Sincerity! An evolved consciousness has this quality.
What is an evolved consciousness? Where there is no selfishness, no greed and no want. The wanting to grab something for oneself indicates poverty and an unevolved consciousness. When you are mature, there is abundance, and when you have abundance, none of these negative traits come close to you.

Don't bother if others think you are small minded, it is their problem. If you have not expressed yourself properly, you must express it. Express and ignore, educate and ignore.

I think some of you have this question, 'What do I do about the other. How do I deal with others if they are jealous of me, or if they are unjustly accusing me? What do I do?' I would simply say, "Educate and ignore!"
The quality of an evolved, uplifted, blossomed consciousness is sincerity. You cannot be a mature person without sincerity, confidence, refinement, sensibility and sensitivity. All these qualities are embedded in your consciousness. And as you grow, you will see these qualities simply start manifesting. You only need to have this commitment that I want to grow in my life.
Again, don't make that a feverish statement, "I want to grow, I want to grow" and run around like a headless chicken. Know that once you are on the path, you are moving ahead.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Yes. (Opens a bottle of water and gives it to the plants on the left of him.) They were a little thirsty.

You know, the ancient style of writing history was very poetic, and it was all in couplets. None of the history of ancient time was written in prose form. They were all in poetries. In poetry, you need rhythm, so to keep the rhythm there is exaggeration, and there is beautification - all these things happen. Poetry is not poetry if it is flat. There needs to be a little elevation in it. But because of the exaggeration you cannot discard it as myth, because there is also fact in it.

Ayurveda is also written in poetry form. No medicine anywhere in the world is taught in the form of poetry except in Ayurveda. In the world, this is the only medicinal system which is all in poems so that you can remember them by heart. Poetry is easy to remember. In those days, there were not many books, so people made it all into poetry. Even the healthy things, the healthy habits were all in poetry.

If one bears this in mind, then there is no difficulty in identifying the real facts of history. Today, we have what is called Astrophysics. In Astrophysics, they really find out the exact dates of historical events. And this is being done today. There are softwares available for that.
Some of our AOL members, Dr D.K. Hari and Hema Hari, they have made web pages on the historic facts of Ramayana and Mahabharata. If you’re interested, you go and look into those web pages.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

By default. I started telling somebody what I know, and they made me a Guru, what to do? You know, everyone is a teacher for someone or the other, whether you want it or not. So, when you know something and you teach others, you become their teacher. And when you learn from someone, then you become a student. So everybody is by default a teacher to someone and a student to someone else.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Good, good! Good to be a joker, than to be too serious. Have fun in the world. The short time we’ll be on this planet we should make ourselves happy and others happy. What is there to brood over?

And if you feel things are insufficient - people can keep feeling insufficiency throughout their life. You know, even billionaires feel insufficient because they have big debt. You have a billion dollars, and then you put that into some factory or industry to multiply it. In order to do that you borrow more money. And then it all goes on, and you feel so burdened with so much of loan on your head. You come to square one. So it is very strange.
People who do not have anything, sometimes, they look much more happier than the billionaires on this planet. Billionaires are burdened I tell you, really burdened and afraid. Many of them are under such pressure.

I’m not saying that you should remain a poor person, or anything like that. No, I want you to understand that you must de-link your happiness with your status, with your wealth, with your post or with your position.
Happiness has nothing to do with your position in society, your position in the world, your position in your company, or wherever you are. Happiness should be de-linked from all that.

You should make it a habit to be content and happy. It’s just a habit, that’s all. Unconsciously it gets into our mind, so unconsciously we start being unhappy. Though there is no reason to be unhappy, it has crept into your subconscious mind, “Oh I am unhappy". Or we keep complaining, “This is no good, that is no good, nothing is good, nothing is okay, I don’t like anything”. We need to be cautious about this sort of negativity. We need to guard our mind and our consciousness from being swept away by this sort of negative tendency.

Yesterday, I spoke about the 4 points, and one of them was happiness (santosha). That we need to cultivate, “Come what may, I am going to be happy”. This is what it is. A strong powerful person is one who is happy, not one who has a lot of money. If someone says, “I have millions of dollars”, ask them, “So what. Are you happy?” Ask this question, “Are you exuberating happiness? Then I call you a real millionaire - no, in fact a trillionaire. Otherwise you’re good for nothing".

It is because some negativity or unhappiness has crept into your subconscious mind, you say, “I don’t like this, I don’t like that".
Who asked you what you like and what you don’t like? You go on declaring to everybody, “I don't like this, I don’t like this”, and you look very foolish. Someone looks at you and thinks, “Oh my god, this guy is a little off”.

Nobody is interested in what you like and what you don't like. You don’t need to declare your likes and dislikes. You declare to yourself, “I am going to be happy, come what may. Nobody can disturb or take away my happiness”.
You don’t need to say it out to anybody, but you have to have this conviction. Then you feel the inner strength coming up, and a smile in you that stays on forever.
In the beginning it may not stay forever, but it is there most of the time, that is good enough.

This can become another problem, “Oh I wanted to be happy all the time, but I became miserable sometime”. Never mind. Don’t become unhappy because you became unhappy. That becomes a chain reaction. You know, like you didn’t want to be angry...
Often this happens with young mothers. They don’t want to be angry at their kids, so when they get angry at the kids, they get angry with themselves because they got angry at the kids. “Oh I am so bad, I am angry at myself because I got angry at the kids”. Come on! Sometimes it is alright to be angry at the children. It’s okay. Mother’s anger is like a vaccination for kids. Mother’s scolding is like a vaccination, so that they become strong. Then they can sustain the anger they face from society -- from their colleagues, from other kids in the school. Otherwise children may become so vulnerable and so weak when we bring them up with that tendency.