Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
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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:
Some dreams don’t come true in spite of putting efforts. What should one do?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You keep putting your effort. There is a proverb ’Try and try again and at last you will succeed.’ So, perhaps you don’t succeed the first time or second time. Yet if your intention is strong, it will happen.Q:
Why is my mind so restless during lunar eclipse?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
There is a remedy to all celestial phenomena! You know what? ‘Om Namah Shivaye’. The vibrations of the mantra create an armor around us and protect and energize the whole body – mind complex.Q:
Jai Gurudev means victory to the big mind. But doesn't the small mind play a role in this?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Small mind has its role. It is only because of the small mind that the big mind wins. It is Obvious. There are only two kinds of people: those who are victorious, and those who make others victorious.Q:
Guruji, my boss wants me to be diplomatic and feels it is very important for communication but I am a very straight forward person and cannot be diplomatic. What is the right thing to do?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Why do you put a label in your head ‘I am a straight forward person’ and why should a straight forward person not be diplomatic also? A straight forward person need not be rude all the time. Now you hide your rudeness behind that fact that you are straight forward, no you cannot justify the rudeness that way. Straight forwardness is necessary and diplomacy is also necessary, you have to have both. When you meet someone who is blind, you cannot tell that person, ‘You are a blind person’. You may say I am just straight forward, I am just saying the right thing, but you shouldn’t do that. So diplomacy is part of life; that is a skill you need to have. Diplomacy need not be that one is not being straight forward because it is not the opposite of being straight forward, not at all. These two things should go together.Q:
What is the purpose of my life? Why have I taken birth on this planet?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
The way you are smiling right now, to bring that smile on the faces of others as wellKnowledge BYTE:
Do you know the meaning of the month December? (Audience says No!) November? (No!). December – Dash + Ambar, Dash in Sanskrit means ten and ambar means sky. So December makes the tenth sky. Similarly November (Nav + ambar) makes ninth sky and so on. All these names have Sanskrit roots.
Once upon a time March was celebrated as the New year. March is the first month which means go ahead, to move on. And that is when Sun enters the first constellation – Aries. Even today in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Turkey and in many parts of India, March is celebrated as the start of the New Year. So the real new year begins in march. January is the eleventh month and February – the last month.
Q:
If all are God’s children, why is there a difference between people?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
We make the difference. Some get ‘A’ grades or ‘B’ grades in school. We may have different talents and qualities. Some can lift 100 kilograms, some ten and some cannot even lift two.Each person is unique in what they can do but at another level, everyone is the same. The blood in every person is red. Whatever breed a cow may be, the milk will be the same color.
No two people will have the same fingerprints. If you look at our qualities and talents, we are all unique. At the level of love, we are all the same. There is no difference.
A small child will not eat ten idlis. If you give an adult, a small cup and spoon, will it do? Capacities are different, yet everyone is the same.
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:
When can I be like the Divine?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You are already now.Q:
Dear Guruji, you say that our relationship is as old as this earth. Have we celebrated your birthday in some past live as well? I don’t remember but you would, so please tell me.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Yes we have. Of course! Now tell me, the first time you met me did you feel that we are meeting for the first time? No, I also have never felt as if meeting a stranger with anybody. All those people, everyone I met, I have always felt I have met them before and I know them. As of now I have not met a single stranger.