Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
The question ‘Who am I’ has been pricking me since childhood and has not gone away and it drives me absolutely insane. Nothing makes sense. What to do?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
You are such a fortunate person. If other questions are driving you insane, I would not say so, but if this question ‘Who am I’, is driving you insane, you are the luckiest person, and you are the best seeker. This is good. Hold on to it!Don’t let this craziness go away. It is this craziness in you which brings charm in life. Anyone who has any type of craze will have a spark in their life. It is good to be crazy about something and the craze to know about oneself is wonderful.
Don’t read too many books. Reading books is detrimental to this. This question, ‘Who am I?’should lead you to meditation. That is the best thing. That is enough. Hold on to it, and don’t go and ask anyone else who are you?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
This simply means to realize that you are loved, that's all.
Love is not an act, it is what you are; your state of being. When you are calm, serene and subtle, that's what it is. Usually here in the west, if one is angry at oneself then it is understood as ‘I don't love myself’. If you are angry at others that means you don't love others, no. Love is there, you should never question it.
Love gets distorted when there is no knowledge. With knowledge, it remains pure. When love gets distorted it becomes anger. You love perfection and so you get angry. You want things your way and so you get anger. When you love objects, that is greed. When you love yourself too much that is possessiveness! This is all love coming forth as emotion. So, if you love yourself just relax in peace, don't be hard on yourself.
There are two occasions on which people are hard on oneself:
1. When they pity themselves.
2. When one feels, ‘Oh, I'm so righteous, I'm too good, I did so much and see nobody recognizes me, nobody loves me’.
Thinking about your goodness you can become hard on yourself, and thinking about your bad qualities you become hard on yourself. In either case, you go off balance. When you think good about yourself you will definitely find bad qualities in others. You will search and find the wrong in others, otherwise you can never feel too good about yourself. Also, when you think others are so good and I'm not that good, I have these negative qualities then you become hard on yourself. In either case, you have fallen, you are not on your bicycle, you are not balancing.
Usually we think that people who are hard on themselves are those who criticize themselves. When you praise yourself also you are hard on yourself! Do you see what I'm saying? When you stick to your good qualities you are hard on yourself, and when you stick to your negative qualities you are hard on yourself.
Gurudev, everything seems so simple and so easy when I'm here but once I'm out of here, that’s when all the challenges start.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
That's why it is necessary to be in the Guru's cocoon till you are able to fly as a butterfly. Knowledge is easier here. A worm's intention is to become a butterfly, but it does the opposite, it gets into a cocoon where it cannot even move out. Either you can be a worm or you get into the cocoon and then you start flying. That's why you find it easy here.
What are your thoughts on home schooling?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
That's up to you. If you want to play multiple roles, you can do that. But I think children should go to school and mix with other kids.
See things from a bigger perspective. The world is like a dream. If you are stuck to events, you can never see the being. Being is beyond events, so your purpose in life is to realize the being and stick to the being, not to the events. Events are just like a drama. An actor comes in several different dresses and performs and gets back into the screen. If your mind is stuck in the event, there is no better ignorance than that. You are so ignorant then you live in a small hole, you have to get the events out of your head. Pleasant, unpleasant, all events. Do you see what I am saying?
All that happened this morning – you standing at the airport when I came out of the VIP room, isn’t it all like a dream now? What is a dream? It's an impression in the mind. What is a memory? It is an impression, that's it. Everything that has happened till this moment is like a dream.
Why we say it's like a dream, because in the waking state you are experiencing a dream. In a dream, you don't have control. But in the waking state you can create, remember or recollect, that is why it's like a dream, but it is an impression. So, realizing the dream-like nature of the world moves you onto another dimension, and that is where reality begins.
(A member of the audience asked a question which was inaudible)
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
In meditation there is no ego; there are no boundaries. Boundaries come when the spirit attaches itself to a desire, and then ego comes up to protect that. It’s all the play of ego, desire and intellect.
Three things obscure our spirit:
1. Ego
2. Intellect
3. Desire
These three things cover the spirit and then you start feeling suffocated. Your intellect creates judgements – that person is like that, this person is like that, I like this person, I don’t like that person. Ego, intellect and desire are the three things that can make you miserable. But if your intentions are pure, if your intellect is broad and your ego is vast then the opposite happens; these three things bring you more joy in life.
See, you are doing some good work and ten people criticize you. What happens? It hurts your ego. It is the nature of people to talk. You don’t need to get upset if some people talk something against you. And if there is something good in what someone is saying, then take it and thank them. If there is nothing good, then know that they are just saying it out of jealousy, and it is their problem.
If someone is saying something for your good, you should only thank them. They have the guts to say that. If they are saying it out of ignorance, then educate them and ignore. The third option is to have compassion.
When the intellect is pure it sees beyond words. When the intellect is impure it sees conspiracy theories. It builds up a universe of conspiracies. The same is with the ego, when the ego is pure, then everyone becomes part of your ego. You are natural and you feel at home with everyone. When the ego is impure, then you think, ‘I don’t want to talk to them’, or ‘I don’t want to be subservient’, or ‘Why should I listen’. If you feel, ‘People are looking down on me’, that is your own ego. Do you see what I am saying?
Come on, wake up! The world has ignorant people, you can’t expect everyone to be enlightened.
Today, I met a gentleman who was called a cheat by the whole of Europe, and people were wondering, why is Gurudev meeting this person who is such a big cheat. A doctor is necessary when there is a disease. Knowledge is essential when there is a problem. And you cannot separate the honest people in society into one corner. They have to live with people who are dishonest and change them. We have to create an impact in society, and not run away. You can’t just have a group of compassionate people put away in a room. In society, all types of people will be there and we need to be strong enough to influence them and not get influenced by them.
Just before I started The Art of Living, I met this 108 years old man. He was a Pandit and has written around 700 books. He was a great astrologer. I was around 21 at that time, and he told me one thing. He said, “For any organization you need 12 people – four good, four mediocre and four hopeless people. This forms a good organization. The four hopeless people will bring out all the good qualities and the strength in the four good people. And the mediocre will learn their lessons from both side”.
I sometimes think to myself, ‘What wise advice he gave me, even before I thought of starting an organization’. In fact, I never wanted to start an organization. I was very happy; I am happy now also. At that time, I had my little suitcase, and I would travel from place to place, talk to people and give some knowledge. This is how I started and then the organization started happening on its own.
Don’t look into the behavior of others around you. If it is not inspiring, don’t look at it. If it is inspiring then definitely take, as they must be one of the four good people. If you are focused on the four hopeless then you will want to run away, you will want to blame others and yourself, and all this negativity will chase you like a shadow. And the farther you go from light, the shadow becomes much bigger and then you fight with your own shadow. When does your shadow get bigger? It is when you are away from the light, and when you are no facing the light. That is when your shadow is bigger than you.
The four good will never run away, they are like solid pillars. The four mediocre will try to run away because they are focused on the hopeless people. There was a saint who would give an example of a rose and say that a person is coming to you with a rose but because your eyes are on the thorns which are beneath the rose, you think they are coming to hit you with the thorns. If your sight is focused on the rose, the thorns will not bother you. You will see how you can put your hands in-between the thorns and hold the rose – that is the skill that you will get. If you have a little intelligence, then you will know how to hold and enjoy the rose and not be bothered about the thorns.
What is fear?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Every seed has a membrane around it. That shell is there to protect the seed, but when you soak the seed in water, at some point the membrane breaks and the sprout come out of it. In the same way, fear is a mechanism around the life to protect it; at the same time, there is a way to go out of it.
If you see, very young kids, they don’t have fear when the mother is taking care of them. But when a kid starts walking on its own, then he looks around here and there very carefully. So, fear comes around that time, and it disappears when the mind or the intellect get mature. A mature intellect has no fear.
Sometimes our elder in our homes asks us to do wrong things. How should we say no to them?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Respecting elders does not mean that if elders tell you to do something wrong or ask you to steal something, then you do it. You should say no to it. Just say sorry to them and tell them that you can’t do any such wrong tasks.
When you say, “I can't do it”, they will not force you. You should keep your energy in good work and not invest in wrong things. If you involve in a wrong doing, you will not be able to sleep peacefully.
Gurudev, when we chant a mantra continuously, will that mantra effect our body and life ?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Definitely! But we should not keep chanting continuously, this is not correct. Do you keep bathing continuously? When you chant the mantra for some time, your mind will become stronger. That is why it called mantra. We can do it for 20 - 30 min. If you keep doing it continuously, your intellect will become dull. We should not do it too much. If you stay a lot in water, you will become a fish (laughter). That is why it is referred as mantra-snaan (bath).
If someone keeps listening to music, his intellect will stop working. Similarly, someone who keeps doing math and never listens to music, his personality will also be unbalanced. These things are there to balance our left brain and right brain. We should look it from a scientific perspective. From a scientific perspective, we should listen to music for some time, we engage in some discussions for some time, and we should think for some time. Afterwards, you will experience an all-round development.
(A member of the audience asked a question relating to a talk given by Gurudev on 29 October 2016 which was inaudible)
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
What is a lie? Something which keeps changing is called a lie. If you said something yesterday, and today you say something else, then that is called a lie.
Now what is truth? Truth is that which is unaffected by time. Something which remains constant and unchanging through the three phases of time (past, present and future) is what is truth.
If you look around and see, everything is changing. The way you were yesterday, or ten years back, you are not the same today. In a year’s time, every cell in our body changes.
So, when I say ‘Everything is a lie’, it means everything is changing.
Now, when you understand that everything is changing, then there must be some reference point which doesn't change, through which you can know that everything is changing. And what is that reference point? That reference point is you.
If everything in you changes, then how can you say ‘I have changed’? If everything in you changes then you have become another person itself. So, you need some reference point for change to be observed, otherwise you can't even know change. There is something in you that is not changing, but what is this that is not changing is not very clear.
We usually say, ‘I went to this school 20 years back’, or, ‘I did this job 25 years back’, but who was that person? Even if you look at a picture of you taken around 20 years back, you will not find much resemblance. Your body, mind, intellect, thoughts, feelings, everything has changed. But certainly, there is something which has not changed because of which you can notice this change. That is why I say, first identify the changes that are happening within you. Once you identify these changes, then slowly you will be able to identify that what is not changing. And once you identify that which is not changing, then you will realize ‘This is what I am, this is what I have been searching for.’
How to face Rahu and Shani Mahadasha (astrological planetary positions that bring forth a very hard phase of time)?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Don’t think that Rahu Dasha or Shani Dasha are bad. If you are on the spiritual path, and if you practice meditation, all these Dashas will do only good things to you.
People think the Shani Dasha is very bad. Shani Dasha pushes you towards the spiritual path. If you are stuck in small things, it relieves you from there and puts you on the spiritual path. If you are already in knowledge and wisdom, Shani Dasha doesn't do anything wrong.
In life, there are ups and down. Some good thing happens. Something which you don't like happens. But every incident is an opportunity for you to grow stronger. So, don't worry about Rahu Dasha or Shani Dasha.