When you are free from stress, you have a sense of belongingness and understanding’

Q: I feel very shy while interacting with people. What is the remedy for the same?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: You know, when you have a sense of belongingness, shyness disappears.

Q: What is the fastest way to feel belongingness and unity?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: When you are free from stress, you have a sense of belongingness and understanding. This is what happens when people undergo The Art of Living program. It happens so naturally.

Q: Should yoga become an integrated subject in school, especially if training/practicing can help our students to achieve something higher?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Yes, certainly. In several countries, they have already made yoga compulsory in schools.

Q: Do you follow any religion?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Yes, I am a born Hindu. I continue to be a Hindu, but the programs we teach are very secular. People of any religion can practice it.

Q: Please tell us what does ‘one word family’ mean to you and what should we do to make this family happy?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: What family means to me? The whole world is one family for me. You know, I feel absolutely at home wherever I am. I never have a feeling of being in a country or land that is not mine. I never felt strange anywhere. My concept is to see the whole world as one family; of course family is a very important institution, it is the foundation of a society.

Q: What shall we do to always be happy, because as I know your concept is to relax and attain happiness by that?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: What to do to always be happy? First, drop the feverishness to hold onto ALWAYS and you will find yourself happy. And then, if some moments of unpleasantness creep into life, accept that also.

Q: You have a very big dream in bringing world peace. If, in our lives, we meet people who follow orthodox and rigid ideas and are ready to die and harm other people, how should we deal with it?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: We need to deal with such people with patience and we have to educate them, it’s not an easy task. First, we should begin from prisons. When one amongst them joins us in spreading peace, it is much easier.

Q: Do you have any special courses or programs to help the people working honestly in mass media to reduce the stress?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Yes. You know, this program that we teach is very useful in reducing stress, irrespective of whether you are in a media company or in the corporate sector or in aviation. Stress is a common factor in any work place and this will definitely help people get out of stress. Mainly, what we need to see in the world today is a violence-free society, a disease-free body, a confusion-free mind, an inhibition-free intellect and trauma-free memory. You know, we nurture so many types of inhibitions; if ten compliments are given to you and only one insult is given, your mind locks onto the one insult. So we need to bring a change to that - a trauma-free memory and a sorrow-free soul. This is the birth right of every individual and this is what these practices bring to you.

Q: In today’s world, people really think of survival. How to deal with it?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: It is a natural concept where survival is the first thing. It is a natural instinct but when self-confidence and vision is infused, survival will naturally be included in it, without any kind of fear. I have spoken about this in our books - Celebrating Silence and Celebrating Love. You can read these books when you have a question.

Get back to beauty and power that is within’

Russia, Sept. 5:

When we become like children, then we realize that we have greater power. It is within each and everyone. Realizing this, is most beautiful. Beauty is not in clothes. It is in the inner quality. Appearance is beautiful, but if anger, jealously or greed finds a place, then it reflects in the personality, and all the beauty is lost.

How to get back to that beauty that we are born with? Go anywhere, to the North, South, West or East, one finds every child beautiful. Children radiate joy and love. As we become adults, we learn skills and gain abilities but we somewhere miss maintaining the inner beauty, that spark of love in our life. Can we maintain those powerful skills and yet retain that beauty we were born with? I would say yes, that is what The Art of Living is all about - Making life a celebration; dream about a stress-free, violence-free society, disease-free body, confusion-free mind and sorrow-free soul. Tell me who doesn’t want all this? It is possible. In the last 30 years of The Art of Living, we have seen that everybody needs love in every corner of this planet. And that is what we spread.

Talking about this Russian tour, I feel absolutely at home. Nice people here. I want this sweetness to be maintained. But we see it is disappearing in the younger generation.

There is more stress accumulating in youth, and we need to see that our younger generation is free from stress and depression. The World Health Organization says that 30 percent of Europe is suffering from depression! Let us all take commitment that we will not let it happen. We want to see a happy world. I want every tear to be turned into a smile. That is why all this yoga, pranayama and kriya are so important to relieve this stress. In the ballet, we observe the whole body can balance on the toes. One leg in the air and one firm on the ground makes the dance. A solid material and spiritual foundation makes a dance. Spiritual experience is having one foot in the air and the other firm. That balance is power. We find ourselves in trouble when we lose this balance.

The ancient spirituality always united people of all cultures and religions. Don’t you think this is what we need today? In the name of religion, so many wars and terrorism are coming into picture. One solution is that everyone gets back to spirituality. Get back to beauty and power that is within. We communicate much more through our presence than the words. I have said all that I want to say.

Any questions?
Find the question/answer session in the next post…

Too much feverishness spoils your efforts

German Ashram,

June 29, 2010

Q: Sometimes I think I live in a world surrounded by formalities and exchanging superficial words. But the question is I feel that there is more to it, life cannot be just being nice and living in this cordial way but there is more because I worry that when I die, I wouldn’t even remember where to start again?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Now I understand there is a longing, there is emptiness, and there is a craving for something higher. Right! And that gives that pain. So, that pain to attain something very fast is in a way good, but what is needed along with this is a little patience.

Q: Are you my Guru? But they said Gurus find their devotees!

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar : That you have to decide!
Yes, Gurus find their devotees, this is usually said. You know when was this said? In ancient days, when children would go to the Gurukul, the teacher would come and test the aptitude of all the children - this child is good in engineering, this child is good in music, this child will be good for this, for this, for this… Then the teachers would say, ‘Okay, you come and you do Veda, you study Ayurveda, you study music’; so teacher used to pick up. That was when parents would bring their children to the Gurukul and then the Guru would pick up which student would study what.
Once you are here in the knowledge, once you are on the path, your heart will tell you,” This is the place for me and I have to get here”, and that is when you accept someone as your teacher. Not that someone comes to you and says ‘I am your teacher, I am your Guru’. If so happens then don’t believe that, okay! Nobody can impose that; it should come from within. Your heart tells you that this is genuine, this is right, this is good. So once you accept someone as your Guru or teacher then this anguish disappears to a great extent, and know that you are not alone!

Q: What to do with the doubts that come in the mind?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: You know, the doubt is always about something positive, if not then the doubt will not come at all. The doubt comes because something is right, something inside says yes this is good. So in the initial stages, that type of doubt comes. You move on and from your feeling you decide, oh this is my teacher, I respect and love, then that’s it! Understand what I am saying?!

Q: I feel afraid at times whether I will be enlightened. What should I do?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Once you are on the train, you know that this train will reach. Suppose you are sitting in a car and this car is being driven to Karlsruhe, you don’t ask after every minute if you are going to Karlsruhe, no! You relax! You know the driver is going to take you to Karlsruhe. You won’t be dropped somewhere in the middle. That much of faith that comes from within you is there in you; otherwise, you would not even come here. The very fact that you have come here indicates that there is faith. Otherwise your heart would block you, but your heart says, ‘no, go there’. That means you are doing the right thing. So once you are here, you relax.

Relax and you will always find your life will move in the right direction. Not just here, life after this also, definitely, because the moment we die, the first person we meet is our Guru, our teacher, second person we meet is our mother and then the person whom we loved most. The three people we meet and then later on we meet everybody else. So there will be that assurance, you will be fine, you are moving ahead, so don’t worry.

Arjuna also had this doubt in the Bhagvad Gita, “what will happen to me? He was in the same pain, I may not succeed in these spiritual practices, I may not go anywhere, what will happen to my life, I will be neither enjoying anything here nor will I get the other world. I’ll get confused, I’ll go back into the same stuff in my world, Krishna what do I do then?”Krishna says “Nahi Kalyana Krit Kaschit Durgatim Taata Gachchati”. My dear you will never go down, you will never be miserable, I guarantee you this. You will never go down in life, and you will only go up. When you have done good things in your life, when you are on this path, in this knowledge, you will only progress forward and forward. You will only go up in life here and here after. He says ‘svalpa mapyasya dharmasya trayate’, a little bit of knowledge, a little bit of love, a little bit of dharma, little bit of it is good enough to take you away from fear. So relax.

That is why it is said you need a teacher on the spiritual path, you need a Guru, and you need a personal feeling, connectedness from your side, not from the other side. Why? Because otherwise you have the anguish, uncertainty, fear, but once you have that feeling when you have the trust, ‘okay my Guru is there, he will guide me, he’ll take me on the right path then you are relaxed’. And there is that peace that dawn in your heart and mind. Even if you stumble a little bit here and there, doubts may come, but then they just vanish, they just come for a few hours, at the most for a couple of days, and then they disappear. So there is that assurance that you are not alone.
See how soon the tears are turning into a smile!

Q: Guruji, What is Bhakti (devotion)?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar : Listen to Bhakti Sutras talk, I have spoken in that, yeah!

Q: Can you please talk about greed?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: See, there is greed inside us that we don’t recognize. One is when we want to accumulate so many things in life and the second greed is for experiences; oh I want to experience this and that, so many spiritual experiences. This greed is okay to a little extent, little bit but if it becomes too much then what happens, it makes you so unstable, makes you run around and not go deep enough. A little bit of greed to do seva is okay but too much greed to do seva, is no good! Do you understand what I am saying? So a little bit greed for knowledge is okay, but when you want to know more, you want to learn, you want to quickly attain the highest, that propels you but if it is too much then you know you are spoiling it, in the sense you are in too much of a hurry, do you see what I am saying?

What happens yesterday while cooking rice? What happened when you were in too much hurry? Rice remained uncooked. So it has to be put again and similarly, we should act dynamically, quickly, but not too much! That’s a little, little at a time. So you have to hurry to get to the railway station but once you got into the compartment, no more hurrying! Relax! Once you have boarded the train, don’t run inside the compartment with your luggage up and down, you’re not going to reach any earlier; then I would say relax, relax, relax. Don’t worry; you will reach at the right time, okay!

Catch more in the next post..

“That which you cannot express is Love.
That which you cannot reject/renounce is Beauty.
That which you cannot avoid is the Truth.”

~ Sri Sri Ravishankar

"One World Family"

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http://www.artofliving.org/