By Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Rekindle unity as we honor Martin Luther King Day with a special guided meditation led by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.
Today is such an important day. We’ve all gathered virtually to remember and rekindle the aspect of unity. We’re all one. We need to remember that our society, our nation, and every nation on the planet have to come together and uphold human values.
Human values say we all belong to one global family. We may be of different religions, different races, different backgrounds. We may follow different political, social, or religious ideologies. But we must not forget that we all belong to each other.
Healing differences and traumas
Our sense of bonding and unity has to be re-emphasized. In the last year, we’ve gone through a lot of turmoil. I know America needs that healing touch now more than ever before.
Meditation is the way. In meditation, we realize that there’s a deeper aspect within us. When it’s kindled, our feelings of separation and our traumas get healed. We come together, forgiving and forgetting the past, and start celebrating life in the present moment.
The coming generation needs this. It needs all of us to show that we belong to one global family, one united human existence.
Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi inspired society in all nations to walk on the path of nonviolence. This is the time to pay tribute to these great men who have contributed to the world.
We remember them and give them our respect. That can be done only through action, not through words. Meditation would be one such way, although meditation is not an action. It is relaxation.
But meditation is the way to be in touch with the true self that we are, our true nature that’s within every single human being. It blossoms as compassion, love, and brotherhood. This is what we have to rekindle, and this is the best way to pay homage to these men.
Around the world, we see a lot of stress. Because of Covid-19, people have to stay indoors and there’s a lot of trauma.
I invite those who haven’t tried meditation to do meditation and see for themselves how beneficial it is, how wonderful it is. You keep your mental and physical health robust.
Let’s do some meditation on this Unity Day, a meditation for unity, and then I can take some questions if you have any.
Act with awareness
Being peaceful doesn’t mean being complicit with or condoning injustice. Being peaceful will make our thoughts very clear. That’s what we want to do, and how we want to take action.
It will help you to respond without being reactive. Especially when there’s injustice reaction is very easy. Whenever you react to a situation, you end up regretting it.
What I’m saying is exactly what Mahatma Gandhi did. He preached peace, nonviolence, but he never said that you shouldn’t act at all. Martin Luther King, Jr. also said that. You have to act. You stand up for justice, but not with rage, with alertness, awareness, and with the intention to do something good in society.
You can’t take injustice lying down. No, no! That’s not acceptable. Right action will come only through a meditative mind.
Rebuild trust in society
I think the most important thing at this point is rebuilding trust.
Trust within us, trust in the universal law, the universal spirit, trust in God. We have that on the dollar bills. We trust in God to come into our lives. Number one.
Second is we need to trust in our constitution. America’s constitution is very vibrant, inclusive, and complete. We have to trust in the constitution.
Number three is trust in the communities. There are rotten apples and bad elements everywhere. There are people who don’t stand up for the ideals of society and human life. But we can’t generalize those incidents to all people.
So we must isolate those few fringe elements whose only aim is to disrupt peace and create divisions. We must be wary of those elements. A general trust needs to be reinstituted between communities and the administration, and among people as well.
Information with a pinch of salt
Technology and social media have done a lot of good, also. They have helped people to connect very well. We’re all connected with each other. I’m here in another part of the world, completely on the opposite side of the globe, and now we’re talking and getting connected so well.
Social media has also empowered people to exchange their views. Everything has a flip side, and another aspect of social media is that a lot of misinformation is spreading. Here one has to be wary. This is where we have to be very alert. Don’t take everything as gospel truth.
Whenever we get news, we must look into it. Verify it. Look into its authenticity and verify it. Only then must we really take it.
Recent incidents have taught us that we have to take every bit of news with a pinch of salt. Give the benefit of the doubt to it. Good or bad, whatever it is, we have to use our brains and then make a decision.
My advice is never to be carried away by news, misinformation, or any information, for that matter.
Moving beyond struggles without losing heart
For this, you need 3 levels of faith:
1. Faith in yourself. You can! Do you know the slogan from past decades? We can. So, every individual should say, “I can. I can successfully go through whatever particular situation I’m in. I’ll come out successfully with flying colors. I can.” So, trust in oneself.
2. Trust in the goodness in society. People are not all bad. If we lose faith in humanity, in our neighbors, and in society in general, we will be in trouble. Today it will be about race. Tomorrow it will be about religion. The next day, it will be about people coming from different backgrounds. This will lead us nowhere.
You see, there are fights happening in Africa between tribes, even though everybody is African. Then, there are fights between different parts of Sudan, west, and east, and fights in Uganda. Many small countries are fighting with each other. Similarly, there are Caucasian people in the Balkans and they’re all fighting. So, within a race also, people fight. Within a religion, people fight.
Stress and mistrust, lack of trust in human goodness is causing all of these heartaches and conflicts around the world. There’s conflict in Columbia. They all belong to the same race and same religion. Still, they have so much difference of opinion and so much conflict. So, we must know that conflicts can take any shape, but mainly the source of conflict is a lack of trust in human goodness. So the second type of trust is knowing, understanding, and believing that people are basically good.
3. Trust in a supreme power, our higher self, our consciousness. There’s a higher power, God, or whatever you call it. Trust in that.
So these 3 types of trust are needed. To whatever extent we have them, we’re at peace. To that extent, we’ll be calm and successful in our lives.
To help bring about trust, spiritual leaders should help end racism. Spirituality and racism can definitely not go together. Spirituality takes everyone beyond racism. How can spiritual leaders be embroiled in racism? It’s impossible! If that happens they’re not spiritual leaders at all.
Stopping negative feelings
Unexpected, sudden feelings of sadness, anxiety, frustration, and suffocation are common for people around the globe, especially youngsters. You feel so bad that you don’t know what to do. You want to come out of it and you have no methods, techniques, or tools with which to handle this situation.
This is where I’d say that SKY Breath Meditation (Sudarshan Kriya) is such a blessing for humanity. We can all practice the SKY techniques for a few minutes every day. Just a few minutes can help you snap out of this situation where you feel totally helpless about your own feelings and your own state of mind.
You feel so down, and you don’t know how to get out of it. People say you shouldn’t be angry, but you’re angry, and you don’t know how to snap out of it.
This is where SKY Breath Meditation will be of immense benefit. In my experience, I’ve seen millions around the world use these techniques. Some are ancient, and some are modern techniques. They use them to empower themselves so that they’re able to get out of these unpleasant feelings, which haunt them.
Different religious teachings
All these differences can be sorted out through dialogue. When you talk about a religion, you should also see the context of it. The practices of a religion are very different. Even within one religion, there are so many different practices and philosophies.
There’s only one Christ, but there are 72 branches of Christianity. Similarly, there was only one prophet Muhammed and there are so many types of Islam. There’s one Lord Buddha, and 32 sects of Buddhism. And Hinduism is just a way of life so there are so many different philosophies, lifestyles, and practices.
I see this diversity as the beauty of our planet. Instead of complaining about the diversity, instead of trying to tolerate it, we must celebrate the diversity, the different flavors.
You go to an ice cream parlor. You get many different flavors of the same ice cream there. In the same way, when we understand the unity among all the spiritual paths and religions in the world, the differences will only make us celebrate them, not see them as a point of contention.
Meditation for beginners
20 to 25 minutes of meditation is good enough. That’s why we recorded a large number of guided meditations. All that you need to do is put your earphones on and sit and relax on the app.
You can sit and listen to the guided meditations. You simply have to be there, that’s all. See, when you go to get a massage, you don’t do anything. You just lay on the table and the masseur does the whole job. In the same way, in meditation, you just sit and listen to the guided meditation.
Meditation happens to you. You don’t need to do anything. Maybe in one or two sittings you may still feel a little restless. Here, I’d recommend some breathing techniques and breathing exercises. In SKY Breathing Meditation, we teach all of these different types of breathing and meditation techniques.
All that can be very useful for you to practice. There are qualified teachers everywhere. They’re there to help. They’re more than willing to help anyone.
How to foster unity
To foster unity in the U.S., I think you must bring this thought to everybody. Everyone should ask this question of themselves, “How can I personally foster unity in the U.S?” Then the job is done.
If everyone thinks, “What can I contribute?” instead of wanting something for themselves, if everyone comes from this space of thinking “What is it I can do to foster unity?” then I tell you this very thought itself does the job. We simply recognize that we’re already united.
Sometimes we think we’re not united and we try to unite. That also becomes an issue. First of all, recognize we’re already united. There are just a few unfortunate minds that are full of fear and uncertainty. They remember bad experiences from the past that have led them to believe differently.
Those racist mindsets need healing. When they come close to people and they start recognizing that there’s no need to fear the other, we’re all part of one human society, we will see our dreams come true.
So I would leave today’s meditation with a thought for all of you there. Think, “What is it that I can do to bring more unity to America?” Let’s be united to work on this problem and continue to inspire people around the country to come together, forgive and forget the past, and start a new chapter with a lot of celebration and wisdom.
I’m glad to also say that this is the 40th year of Art of Living. We’ve entered the 40th year of service to humanity, to uplift the goal that life is a celebration. So let’s make this possible by bringing wisdom to every nook and corner of America.
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