Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
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Do we have to be independent or do we need to look for interdependency?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You don’t have to be interdependent; it is just that you need to realize it. The word ‘independent’ is obsolete. It is nature that we are interdependent on. We have one nature, one ocean, one air, one earth and everyone is dependent upon it. We are interdependent! From tailor to farmer, from teacher to doctor – we depend on all for some purpose or another. So, total inner dependence is not possible in the world.
Guruji, how to maintain the purity of teaching Yoga in today’s commercial world?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
First of all we shouldn’t blame the world and we should not blame the cause. Purity of Yoga is there when your intention is clear, you are here to serve. If you count that there are twenty people and I will get this much money, if you think that then it can spoil the purity. That is why we have kept our courses in such a way that the teacher gets a very little amount to cover whatever expenses are there. You know you are doing it as a service and you are keeping a charge because without any charges people don’t value it, and of course you need some finances to make arrangements like the durries and the microphone and all this stuff. So if your intention is pure, if you are financially and otherwise okay and this is only an added support or income to you, then it is okay but if you are thinking only on these lines that I want to make money out of teaching yoga then your whole attitude is changed. Just imagine a school teacher is teaching the children only to get money and not to see that the students are passing or they should get better. A teacher comes for tuition for an hour and he keeps looking at the watch then within fifteen minutes he runs away, what is the quality of such a teacher. So there is no individual, personal attention that is given, so if the commercial thing doesn’t enter your mind then you are there for the cause, you are there for others.
Can you please talk in a little detail about the Mind and intellect, and how are they related?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
There are three golden rules for meditation. The first is you say “I want nothing, I want nothing for next 15-20 minutes.” If you say “I need to drink water or change my position,” then meditation cannot happen. When you want nothing, then you also do nothing. The second golden rule is “I do nothing.” You only breathe. Do not make an effort to think “I want nothing” and “I do nothing” - Just an effortless attention. Then the last one is even more important, “I am nothing.” While meditating we drop all notions about ourselves of being rich, poor, intelligent, stupid, male, female or any other. So what are you? Nothing! After meditation you can again be something. It is your choice, but if you think, during meditation, that you are somebody great or somebody hopeless, there is no way you can settle down to that deepest core of the being. This must be our initial step to settle into that infinity, the consciousness of which we are all made up of. It is the journey from sound to the inner joyful silence.
What do I do when I close my eyes for meditation?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Whole time you keep on doing something or the other. Your body is involved in some function or the other, thoughts keep passing and bombarding the mind. Good news is that, you need not do anything – meditation is not an act, it happens. You simply sit and let it happen. There are three steps to meditation:
Step 1: Relax
Step 2: Relax more
Step 3: Relax more and more
Meditation happens with effortlessness!
I learnt some techniques of meditation where I was told to concentrate on a point or imagine something. I have practiced that for a long time but to no avail. I feel something is missing. Can you please talk about that?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Meditation is not concentrating on any point. It is neither about imagining anything. That involves effort and meditation is effortless. You don’t do meditation, but you let meditation happen.
Is meditation concentrating on tip of nose or centre of forehead?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Meditation is not concentration. Meditation is the simple art of doing absolutely nothing, not even thinking, so you don’t concentrate but you de-concentrate. If you are asked to concentrate on something, just a gentle attention works. Effortlessness is the key. Using the breath as a tool, bringing the mind to a standstill state is possible. You just let meditation happen effortlessly.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
If you want to do, you can do anything. It has to come from within. With the determination, ‘I will do this job, and I will see to it that it gets completed’. This commitment from within will help you, and get you through. Got it? Nobody can do the job other than you.So, take up with small things and follow it through, and then you will get the confidence. That prepares you to take up big tasks. You know, why do you drop things? Because you think they are not important. But there is nothing important or unimportant in life, everything has importance. So, even if something looks unimportant, you say, “I want to finish it, and I will finish it”. Then you will be able to enhance your commitment.
I was wondering what exactly the mind is? Is it a little space in our brain or is it universal?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Mind is energy which is all over the body. See, every cell in your body is emitting some energy and the totality of all that energy around you is what you call the mind. What happens in mind reflects in the body, what you put in the body, reflects in the mind. Mind is not present at some point in the brain, but mind is all over the body. There is so much deep knowledge about consciousness;
The vibrations around the body make things happen around us. Have noticed, sometimes you see some people and you feel like talking and, sometimes for no reason you feel like avoiding some people. So, one of the best ways to have good interpersonal skills is to cleanse one’s presence, one’s aura.
On a more gross level, Mind has got two dimensions. One is open mind and one is closed mind. An open mind is receptive, ready to learn, ready to catch the moment. A closed mind says, “I know it all”. Mind that has confined itself under the boundary of ‘I know it all’ doesn’t let one’s personality to blossom fully. In one of the traditions in East, the name given to a religion is Sikh. Sikh means one who is always ready to learn, and the knowledge of the self is so vast that there cannot be end to learning.
A little more on the Mind! Mind – in want of new! What is the nature of the mind?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
The mind needs something new constantly, every minute, every second… It wants something today, something else tomorrow or an entirely different thing the day after tomorrow. You get bored if you have to eat the same vegetable everyday. You want to taste different varieties of food everyday. Why? Mind wants something new all the time. Homework for you! But how much newness can exist? Is there any stop to this more of the mind?