Tuesday, August 2, 2011

The more dispassionate you are, the more the power of Sankalpa comes to you

July 29, 2011
Q: Dear Guruji, what to do when people start using knowledge points or start using your name to hide their lies or to get their work done?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: : What can you do for that? I can’t teach them, you can’t teach them. You can only pity them. They will bear their own cross; they will bear their own Karma. With compassion, tell them, 'why do you do it, don’t do it'. If they don’t listen, then what do you do? You can’t agitate, you can’t go on a hunger strike! what will you do? Pray, bless them, pity them, disassociate with them and if you have the strength, then counter them. How you will counter - you think about it.
Q: What is the significance of worship? Worshiping the idol, worshiping the nature and worshiping oneself, is it all the same?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Yes, worshiping is just creating an environment for the mind to become like a flower. Your heart opens, your mind opens, and your whole consciousness opens. And worship is just an act. It doesn’t matter what you do. Its all just in the outer; the main thing is your inner feeling. That’s why Pooja is good but Manas Pooja is superior. Manas Pooja is mentally doing the Pooja. My heart is your throne; Ratnaih Kalpitamaasanam Hima-jalaih Snaanam Cha Divyaam… all this in mental prayer, everything is yours, this whole universe is yours. My heart is a flower, mind is a flower. And when you rest, when you penetrate into deep rest, what happens is your solar plexus also blossoms, becomes bigger. Solar plexus is called the mid-brain and what scientists found out is that the solar plexus is usually the size of a small gooseberry and it becomes as big as a mushroom or a plum in the yogis. Those who do yoga and meditation regularly, they found out that the solar plexus is bigger. From a small little peanut size or a little gooseberry to a bigger plum’s size it becomes. When the mid-brain or solar plexus becomes big there is more control over the autonomous nervous system. This is what yoga does. This is why they say Padmanabha; you know, there is a word Padmanabha. Padmanabha is what? He is resting, in Yoga Nidra. His Nabhi (naval) has become like a flower. Padma means lotus, like a flower. When your naval has blossomed like a flower, then what happens? You are a yogi and if you are a Padmanabha you become so creative. What comes out is the creator. It is just symbolic that from the naval a lotus came up and the creator came on that. There is an inner meaning. When you are doing Yoga Nidra or when you are doing meditation, when you go deep into the fourth state of consciousness, what happens is that your Nabhi (naval) becomes like a lotus, Padma, flower. You know, all the negative emotions are stored here in the stomach. That is why when you are in fear something happens in the stomach. Anxiety, something happens in the tummy, isn’t it? How many of you have experienced this? Whether it is fear, anxiety, negative feelings, greed, jealousy - something happens in the stomach. A sense of loss, all the traumas - something happens in the naval center. It shrinks, becomes small, it is not a Padmanabha. When the naval blossoms, only generosity, love, creativity - all these things come. So Padmanabha means one who is very creative. So inner Pooja is just offering, everything is yours; my mind is yours, my body is yours, my thoughts, emotions, the whole environment, everything is only one. See, you are saying, 'there is no me, there is no you, there is only one thing' and that is Pooja. Aarthi means let the light of my life always go around the Divine and that I accept all the knowledge. I take it; I take the wisdom inside me.
Q: Dear Guruji, when you say I am different from the body I understand that, but when you say I am different from the mind I do not understand that. How am I different from my mind?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Okay, now are you your thoughts or the thoughts are yours? Mind means thoughts. Thoughts come and they go. So many thoughts come and so many thoughts go. Many you agree and many you disagree and those you agree, later on, you disagree with those same thoughts, isn’t it? You sit and write down all your thoughts. Later on, you will find, 'oh, am I the same person who is thinking all this?' You would wonder, correct? So, in that sense, you are different from your thoughts. Thoughts come and go but they come in you and go in you. Its like clouds in the sky. The sky cannot be clouds. But when there are so many thoughts, and it is so cloudy, you feel, 'oh sky means clouds'. But if you have had a taste of clear sky, a few moments of open sky, then you see, 'oh the sky is beyond the clouds, not just the clouds' and that is the beauty in the sadhana. In the very first Sudarshan Kriya, what happens? The very first time you experience few moments without anything. Just a few moments; that opened up your awareness through the clouds. You think the clouds are what the sky is, but you got a little hole, and you could see the blue sky beyond the grey clouds right? isn’t this your experience? Now you turn back and see what were you before you did your first course, first meditation or Sudarshan Kriya? Who were you before that? Who are you now? How many of you feel you can’t relate to the person who was ten years ago? (Many raise their hands) See, that very clearly shows you are not the thoughts. What you think as a person ten years ago is just a bundle of thoughts, the mind. But you got a little space, glimpses outside the mind into the no mind or the space that we are; and meditation is being that no mind. But sometimes clouds come and thoughts come and they go and skillfully between them you just stay centered.
Q: Dear Guruji, how to improve the power of Sankalpa? How to drop the Vasanas?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: By silence. The more dispassionate you are, the more the power of Sankalpa comes to you.

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