DR. KIRAN BEDI: Social Activist& retired Director General of Police, Magsaysay Award winner, India. Guruji, every public servant is in public service and every politician is in public service. How can this public service be spiritual without being considered a saint or wearing ochre robes, because everybody can’t wear ochre robes or a saint’s clothes? How can he be saintly in his public service, as a politician, as a public servant, or as a police officer? How can he deliver the service, which is truly spiritual in spirit, while living in simple ordinary lives as we do? Can we do that Guruji? Can we be a spiritual public servant?
GURUDEV SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR: Kiran! Absolutely! You don’t have to wear robes. You don’t have to change the way you look, you don’t have to change your attires in order to be spiritual. In fact, there is not a single being on this planet, which is not spiritual. Spiritual, to me is someone, who is seeking harmony, who is seeking love, who is seeking happiness. Tell me, is there one living creature on this planet, which doesn’t want love, which doesn’t want peace, which doesn’t want to help others? No. The innate quality of every human being is to go towards the highest love, highest bliss. In this sense, everyone is a spiritual being. So we cannot underestimate by someone’s appearance or behavior that they are not spiritual.
Now, coming to the point of how one can develop being spiritual, in spite of being in different professions or different roles they play in society. I would say that spirituality is the mother of all professions, the mother of all talents, the mother of all abilities and good qualities. So, if you get to your own source, then you can only enhance your skills, abilities; your communication becomes better. All that it needs is for you to have a clear, pure heart; that’s spiritual, which anyone can have, anyone can do it. Now, how to cleanse your heart? I would say, when you look at all the negativities, imperfections in yourself, you get shaken. ‘Oh! I have these many imperfections; I have jealousy, anger, lust, greed; how would I be spiritual?’ These questions might come up in your mind or in your head. I tell you, these are not your nature; they are just super impositions on you. You can easily shun them; and allow your true, innocent, beautiful nature that you are gifted with, to be expressed in its full capacity, in its full potential. So, a police officer could be a good police officer when he listens to his conscience; and he checks his stress levels. He feels he is getting stressed up, let him relax a little bit and see life from a broader vision. Broadening your vision, learning to release the stress, listening to your own conscience, and not doing anything that you don’t want others to do to you - that is conscience. Whether a politician, a public servant, a businessman; if they miss this conscience, they can’t do well or do justice to their profession. They can’t do justice to themselves, nor to the world they are in.
