'When we are joyous with ourselves, then nothing from outside can seem boring to us'

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:  If you don’t like something, then your focus is all the more on it. If you like something, then you focus on it. When you’re neutral about something, when there is no aversion, then there is no focus.
Studying the nature of mind is itself is an amazing phenomena. You will be thrilled knowing and learning more and more about your own mind. When I say mind, I don’t mean just mind. I would rather say the consciousness because the mind is one function of the consciousness. The perception is what we call the mind. The perceptible aspect of the consciousness is called mind. The judgmental aspect, the intellect.
The study of consciousness is the most difficult. And with time and maturity, everybody gets it.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:  Definitely. You should aspire for enlightenment and enlightenment is unconditional happiness, unconditional love and a life in which you are in the driver’s seat. You must aspire for enlightenment. Right from when you recognize to aspire anything in life. Go to the highest first and all the good things will come along, you don’t have to make an effort for it.
When I say you don’t have to make an effort, I mean you don’t have to sit and worry about it. When you aspire for the highest, your action will be spontaneous and in the spontaneity you will see things have started falling into place.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:  Being in touch with your very center. When you worry there is a tendency to lose that focus or centredness. It is the same when you are tired or too busy. Self referral means coming back to yourself, to your center again and again. The core value within you.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:  Money and experience. That’s all and some discipline. If you have to do a job you have to discipline your life in a certain fashion.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:  Definitely and you all have it. And it opens whenever you listen to knowledge.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:  Absolutely natural.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:  Gotra is a family tree, like you know if you marry your own siblings, or cousins, they say the genes will not develop properly, children will not develop. The family trees go back to some rishis in the past. And they say that gotra means we belong to this (a particular) family. Today what the scientists say about blood groups was known to people thousands of years ago. Yet people from the same gotra have spread. If you marry in the same gotra the children will not be too healthy. That is the main thing. It’s better to avoid.
But those were the thoughts from some thousands of years ago but now since we have gone so far away and the population has spread so much, it has become so vast. I don’t know how relevant it is. But (marriage within) gotra is better to avoid.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:  Yes.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:  First of all you should know you have a beautiful mind. The mind is free, it is loving, beautiful, satisfied and not feverish. So when the spirit is centred or your mind is centred, that beauty shines through.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:  Yes, do it. Sanskrit is the mother of all languages. Whether it is English, Russian, German or Italian, there is a lot of Sanskrit in it. Of course, Sanskrit is the base of all Indian languages.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:  My consciousness is nitnutan (new every moment). First we get bored with ourselves and then bore others or get bored from others. When we are joyous with ourself, then nothing from outside can seem boring to us.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:  Wanting it, itself is half done. The rest is a little discipline and you should know that you will get it. It will be given to you. That’s why you have the path, the guru. You will just get it. Shama jali hai tere liye, tujhko kuch nahi karna hai (The candle is lit for you, you don’t have to do anything). You don’t have to do anything just be hollow and empty from inside.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:  It’s alright, don’t make an effort to sit and go on remembering the past. I think you have too much free time. Get busy and start working. There are so many things to do in the world. Where is the time to live in the past, recollect all the past. Right? The world is new every moment. Go with it. Don’t turn back and keep looking back. Move forward.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:  It must be there. There is no heart that does not get affected at the sight of misery. This we assume. At one time, everyone should desire to do seva. This we cannot say.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:  Essence and secret! It will be whispered into your ears when you go into meditation. Do (Sudarshan) Kriya and meditation.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:  Have you begun to understand it? (reply: No) then start from somewhere and then we will see whether it is fully understandable or not.