Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Now that you are asking this question it is both of our responsibility. Yes, do your 100% and relax and when you feel that you can do a little better or a little more that indicates that you have been responsible. When you feel you are doing everything that you can then the responsibility shifts away from you.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

There are lot many species which are getting extinct too! Lots of snakes,scorpions, sparrows, butterflies… They could have come as humans.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

See wanting happiness is natural, everyone wants happiness but happiness does not come alone. Happiness brings along his twin sorrow also with him but no one likes sorrow and everyone wants freedom from sorrow. Freedom one wants from what? Sorrow and to want freedom from sorrow also is natural. Just as much as wanting happiness is natural the same way wanting freedom from sorrow is also natural. Okay, now the faster one realizes that happiness is there but sorrow is also there then the desire for freedom becomes stronger.
The one who does not wish for happiness receives freedom and the one who does not even wish for freedom is the one who receives devotion.
One who does not crave for happiness is already free but if one craves for happiness then one will also crave for freedom. When happiness does not please you then you have achieved freedom but when freedom also does not please you then you receive DEVOTION!
Devotion brings so much happiness and pleasure to you.

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.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Realization is just that I am not the body but I am much more than the body. I have been here before this birth and I will continue to be there after my death also. If someone realizes this, that’s it. But that only they can say, others cannot judge for them.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Liberation simply means freedom. Then you can say, ‘I want nothing for myself, I’m complete.’ Liberation is when you have accepted the whole creation the way it is, you’ve accepted people the way they are. Liberation is total peace; a peace which is unshakeable. And this sort of peace dawns when there is forgiveness, compassion, naturalness. You know if you assume you’re somebody then you can’t, if you are intelligent or stupid you have no liberation. You are neither intelligent nor stupid, neither rich, nor poor – if you think – ‘Oh, I’m a very poor guy or poor lady,’ no way you can get it! I am nothing! That sense of lightness, easiness, is what liberation is. A simple taste of it everyone has got, you know when? When your exams were over! The day you finished your exams when you were a child you came back home and threw those books on the sofa and just sat, relaxed! How did it feel? G R E A T, huh? That’s all!

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

You being in victim consciousness and having rage and anger, does it help you any way to carry on your life? Absolutely not! Waste of time, waste of your potential and life. So we must forgive, forget and move on. You hurt someone in the past and somebody hurt you, that account is closed now. Finished! There was some problem that has to come, and that has come and our own foolishness made it happen. Now it is finished and move on. This is the line of thinking that you must adopt and that makes us feel better.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Do you need an answer? If yes, then yes. If some people do not feel the need, then also it is alright. When you ask a question, and somebody gives an answer, the one who gives you the answer anyway plays the role of the Guru. You need medicine, and you go to a doctor. The one, who gives you medicine, becomes a doctor. Similarly who gives the answer, you accept him as your Guru.

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.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Why are you asking this question? You think you are not considerate of others? If you are very stressed then you don’t care what other people think or what others are doing. You just do what you want to do. But sensitivity comes with serenity, sensitivity comes with calmness, sensitivity comes with culture. Your background, your culture, how you grow up, and what were the situations around you. You have that ability to be considerate. Do not doubt that. Compassion is in our very nature. Only when you are extremely stressed, compassion appears to have disappeared. It really doesn’t disappear, it stays somewhere deep inside.