Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Just with meditation you can realize God. Not necessary to study all the scriptures. With devotion, you can realize god effortlessly.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

First of all, lawyers do a lot of left brain activity - that is logic, analysis and verbal skills. Definite parts of our brain are assigned to definite jobs, so if one part of the brain is overused, there will be wear and tear very soon. To balance and rejuvenate that part of the brain, you have to do activity which uses the other side of the brain, like music, meditation, silence, relaxation, etc. You get the much needed balancing of left and right brain.

Meditation changes the structure of the brain, it gives you intuitive ability, inner comfort and relaxation. It helps the brain to recuperate itself. Meditation and silence have physiological, psychological and spiritual benefits.

As lawyers, right or wrong, you are arguing the whole day, you are talking a lot, so silence is very good as it gives rest to that part of the brain. This is something you can gain here. With meditation, your logic does not disappear. Many people think - if you are into music and meditation you may lose your logic and ability to argue. This is not so. Meditation makes the brain sharper, mind clearer and body robust. And as lawyers, this is all that you need, you need stamina to stand up and speak, to work late night and prepare for cases. I am sure that meditation will help you.

See, a college student has to do the homework only for particular period of time. Once they graduate they don't need to work so hard, but a lawyer is like a student for life. They have to prepare for the next day. Sharpness of intellect and memory is demanded of a lawyer. If a lawyer looses memory, it will be disastrous. They need clear and sharp memory, keen observation and perfect expression. I am sure meditation will definitely give you all this.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

First of all, lawyers do a lot of left brain activity - that is logic, analysis and verbal skills. Definite parts of our brain are assigned to definite jobs, so if one part of the brain is overused, there will be wear and tear very soon. To balance and rejuvenate that part of the brain, you have to do activity which uses the other side of the brain, like music, meditation, silence, relaxation, etc. You get the much needed balancing of left and right brain.

Meditation changes the structure of the brain, it gives you intuitive ability, inner comfort and relaxation. It helps the brain to recuperate itself. Meditation and silence have physiological, psychological and spiritual benefits.

As lawyers, right or wrong, you are arguing the whole day, you are talking a lot, so silence is very good as it gives rest to that part of the brain. This is something you can gain here. With meditation, your logic does not disappear. Many people think - if you are into music and meditation you may lose your logic and ability to argue. This is not so. Meditation makes the brain sharper, mind clearer and body robust. And as lawyers, this is all that you need, you need stamina to stand up and speak, to work late night and prepare for cases. I am sure that meditation will help you.

See, a college student has to do the homework only for particular period of time. Once they graduate they don't need to work so hard, but a lawyer is like a student for life. They have to prepare for the next day. Sharpness of intellect and memory is demanded of a lawyer. If a lawyer looses memory, it will be disastrous. They need clear and sharp memory, keen observation and perfect expression. I am sure meditation will definitely give you all this.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

First of all, lawyers do a lot of left brain activity - that is logic, analysis and verbal skills. Definite parts of our brain are assigned to definite jobs, so if one part of the brain is overused, there will be wear and tear very soon. To balance and rejuvenate that part of the brain, you have to do activity which uses the other side of the brain, like music, meditation, silence, relaxation, etc. You get the much needed balancing of left and right brain.

Meditation changes the structure of the brain, it gives you intuitive ability, inner comfort and relaxation. It helps the brain to recuperate itself. Meditation and silence have physiological, psychological and spiritual benefits.

As lawyers, right or wrong, you are arguing the whole day, you are talking a lot, so silence is very good as it gives rest to that part of the brain. This is something you can gain here. With meditation, your logic does not disappear. Many people think - if you are into music and meditation you may lose your logic and ability to argue. This is not so. Meditation makes the brain sharper, mind clearer and body robust. And as lawyers, this is all that you need, you need stamina to stand up and speak, to work late night and prepare for cases. I am sure that meditation will help you.

See, a college student has to do the homework only for particular period of time. Once they graduate they don't need to work so hard, but a lawyer is like a student for life. They have to prepare for the next day. Sharpness of intellect and memory is demanded of a lawyer. If a lawyer looses memory, it will be disastrous. They need clear and sharp memory, keen observation and perfect expression. I am sure meditation will definitely give you all this.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Keep your emotions and intellect pure, then you achieve fullness of life. You need to keep your body clean, for that you need Ayurveda, yoga and you need to eat sattvic food. Then you have to keep your emotions and thoughts clean. When all these three, your body, your emotions and the intellect are pure then you have really learnt the art of living.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

If other people don't like you, then just let it be. Just know that the divine likes you. No need to feel bad about these things.
Where is loneliness, tell me? Look at the environment, spend time with nature and your loneliness will go away. There are many people who are facing problems, serve these people who need you. If you serve these people who need help, you will not feel alone. If you sit alone and think that others should come and serve you, then you will feel alone. When you serve those who are in need, your loneliness will go away.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Your body has different parts, isn't it? And you have a foot cream and face cream. You don’t apply your foot cream on your face, or your face cream on your feet. Hair oil is different and body oil is different. You don’t say that you will not apply toothpaste on your teeth but somewhere else. Similarly, these are two different things. One is, there is one divinity, and then, for specific actions or things, there is a ‘yagna’. These are different concepts.

Yagna is a science where specific materials and herbs are used that impact specific parts of our body. Don’t think that the Navagrahas are just planets, they are specific vibrations in the cosmos and they relate to different parts of our body. The whole science behind a yagna is the connection between microcosm and the macrocosm. For example, Mars is connected to the liver and to proteins.
Like this, there are many connections between different herbs, different materials with cosmic vibrations. The cosmos has a number of vibrations and specific vibrations are named for different planets and they also relate to the movements of planets. You doing something here is not going to affect the Sun, but you holding an umbrella definitely protects you from the sun.

Similarly, in different seasons, you take different foods. Nature grows different foods in different seasons. You don’t get mangoes in the cold winter. Mangoes come only in the summer. If you consume them only during the season nature grows, your health is better. Nature has designed this, and so the time, vibrations, food, environment and even animals are all connected.

Another important thing is that all the Grahas (planets) and their Devatas (vibrations) come in specific vehicles. What is the vehicle? This is interesting to analyse. A goat carries the Mars vibrations, and like this every animal brings down specific vibrations from nature on to the ground. It is fascinating to go deeper and analyse this.
In the middle ages, people never understood that butterflies have very specific things to do. If there are no butterflies, food cannot be grown. People with less knowledge question what butterflies have to do with having more food. In the US, when the pesticides were spread, they never considered butterflies or insects as an important phenomenon. So what happened? All the butterflies disappeared! Now they are bringing butterflies in containers and leaving them in the fields so that pollination can happen and food can be grown. The quality of food suffers a lot when pollination does not happen. So, from an ant to an elephant, everything has a role to play in this planet. Honouring them is what this is about.

When you say that there is only one consciousness - this is quantum physics. But there are also many different materials and that is classical chemistry. They are not at loggerheads with each other, and can both go together. You don’t have to pray to all the Navagrahas. All that you need to say is, "Om Namah Shivayah". The prayer is only to one, in that everything is contained. But in yagnas, specific things are done and you see they are all part of that whole. You don’t see it as separate.
See, in your homes, there are different rooms - kitchen, dining, bedrooms, etc. Don’t you decorate each room? If someone says, you have decorated the house from outside, what is the need to decorate each room? You simply say that you would like to decorate each room inside the house. But it is all part of the big house. This is how you should take it. Not think that there different Devatas away from Shiva. They are all a part of Shiva, each an aspect of Shiva.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Well, I think it is both. God created man in his own image and man started creating God in his own image. There is nothing wrong. There is a term called ‘co-creation’.
Man has created God, it is not a crime. Many times we think that man created God, that means he doesn’t exist, this is not so. All the art forms, sculptures, imaginations, philosophy and even science, has all sprung up from man’s mind.

What do you mean by God? God is a principle, an energy which is creative, transformative. God is the generator, operator and destroyer. Doesn’t man do all these three things? Does he not generate, operate and destroy? So, where is the difference?

You think that God is something different from you; sitting somewhere up in the heaven to give you a little finger and when you try and catch Him, he runs away. This concept of God is what is troubling, and this is the concept that gave rise to communism and atheism. Or (the other concept is that) you think that God is in only one shape and one form. No! You can adore Him or Her in any shape and any form. God is the summum bonum of creation, the basic existence of all that is! It is the basis of all existence, in fact it is the existence itself.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

I don’t think it was because of the Bhagavad Gita. You may not have worked properly! You might have been chanting in your work place, or did not work at all. I have to hear the other side of the story as well my dear, before I give you any verdict. I cannot give a one-sided verdict.

Just because you are reading the Bhagavad Gita and saying that you do not expect any fruits for your actions is not a reason for not paying you for sure. You must not have used your brains when it should have been used. You must not have followed the Bhagavad Gita and simply read it. You may not have been skilful.
What does the Bhagavad Gita say, “Yogah Karmasu Kaushalam” (yoga is excellence at work). It is an open secret that when you are a subordinate and tell your boss that he is wrong, no matter however right you are, that’s it! You will get the final order. So you have to be skilful in expressing it.
You can say that I feel like this but you know better. Just saying the last part, you know better, not with a different tone but in the right tone will help you. The whole thing is about skill in communication.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Of course, when it is cool, it is better for meditation and that is why they used to go into caves where it cooler, and not in the scorching heat. But, there are techniques and methods to do in hot climates as well. There are pranayamas you can do in warmer climates. Sheetali and sheetkari pranayama are there (to cool the system in hot weather).

You know, the ‘hot yoga’ has become quite popular in the west for some time, but I would not recommend you to do all that. I would say that you should do it in an air-conditioned room and that is good enough. Of course, this gives you temporary relief if you do in hot climate but its repercussions on your nervous system has to be studied scientifically. Before this, we cannot advise people to do asanas and pranayamas in 40 degree celsius temperatures. Cooler places are definitely more congenial.
If you see, a wild forest in the Arctic area where it is cooler, the trees grow in an orderly manner when compared to a forest in a tropical country. Have you noticed that the branches and trees? The shapes are all very orderly. So the temperature reduces and the entropy also reduces. That means more orderliness comes up. It is the same for plants, human beings and animals.