Saturday, January 31, 2009

Some Sutras

Below are sutras, told by SRI SRI Ravi Shankar Guruji
The future is very comfortable. Glorifying the past is very comfortable. Seeing God now, here, is difficult. Seeing God in yourself is even more difficult
If you just fall in love with a flower, you go on appreciating it and go deep into that, and you will see that flower dissolves into the formless. You will see the space which is hiding deep inside that flower
In whomsoever you see whatever good quality---appreciating it, honoring it, heightening it, enlightening it---this is Divine Love, this is bhakti, this is devotion
Nature loves fun
A big Mind---that is God. And your mind is part of that big Mind.
All this universe you see, but you don't see God---which is the life of the whole universe
The whole universe is one body

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Is winning really important?

Sri Sri: In India if you go to any village in a car, the village dogs will chase your car. They will chase you with all they have got, with full energy and vigour. They will try to overtake your car. And seeing this if you slowdown a bit or stop the car because you have reached your destination, they suddenly get to overtake you. They overtake you and see that the car is stopped; now they don’t know what to do. So they look really stupid.
This is something similar to the attitude of a person who wants to win. Why do you want to win?
Suppose you become so skilful that you win each and every debate, and then what will you achieve?
Will it help you grow as a person, as an individual?

Friday, January 23, 2009

The Five Aspects of the Universe

You have five aspects to yourself:
1) Asti (IS-Ness),
2) Bhaati (knowledge, expression),
3) Preti (love),
4) Nama (name), and
5) Rupa (form).
Matter has two aspects: nama and rupa (name and form).
Consciousness has three aspects: asti (is-ness),
bhakti (it knows and expresses), and preti (it is loving).This is the secret of the whole universe.
Maya (ignorance or delusion) is not being aware of the three aspects of consciousness and getting caught up in the names and forms of matter.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

How to deal with rude behaviour?

What do you do when someone behaves very rudely towards you?
Get upset, React rudely back, Get frustrated, Run away and avoid the person or situation, Blame the person, Preach to the person.
None of these will in any way strengthen you.
Then what are the options?
See rude behaviour in this light:
It indicates the intensity of their commitment.

It indicates their stress and insensitivity.
It projects the upbringing of the person.
It shows a behavioural pattern.
It shows lack of knowledge.
It shows lack of observation of the mind and its sensations.
It shows you behaviour to avoid
It is an opportunity for you to welcome and absorb the rudeness.
It strengthens your mind.
It reveals the love that you are as unconditional.
The next time when someone is rude to you, just give back a broad smile. If you can digest their rudeness, nothing whatsoever can shake you.

Friday, January 16, 2009

How many times have you cried

Just turn back and look at your life when you were a kid. How many times have you cried?
You cried as though hell has fallen on your head. You thought that was the end of the world and then sobbed and sobbed and then went off to sleep. So what happened afterwards? Anything happened to you ? You remain unaffected by all these.
Try this :You can come home happily and say with a smile, "today the entire job that I did flopped! There was no success in any of the work I did today." Anyway everything has flopped, so at least do not let the mind also flop. You should have the guts to say "come what may I am not going to give up the smile on my face because I am much more than the event or the circumstances. Everything comes and goes, but I continue in spite of all the situations."When somebody has passed away, you cannot say "Okay, now I am going to be happy" and smile and dance! No, you should not do that.
The ancient people had designed a methodology for this.They said that if anyone dies in a house, the people of that house are in Ć¢EUR~ashoucha' for 10 days. For 10 days you can mourn and cry. After 10 days of mourning, on the eleventh day, they usually distribute sweets to the people, have a celebration, wear new clothes, have a family get together and have a feast. On the day of the final rituals, they take some ghee and water and put it on their eyes which give a cooling effect and then they decide. "Okay, now we get on with our life."If a spiritual person passes away, then even this not there. Then every moment is a celebration because the sprit is all pervading.In the same way, there is shoucha when a child is born in a house for 10 days. You are so excited because a new soul has come into your family. So be with all the excitement and happiness for 10 days. You are free from all the social rules and obligations for you to enjoy 100 per cent.Then come back to your commitments and responsibilities.
The sadness or sorrow is only in the circumference.
It is like a cloud covering the light that you are.
The nature of your being is joy. That needs to be uncovered.
Again, you need not make a mood out of it.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Self-Reliance and Surrender

Sri Sri:Self-Reliance needs enormous courage. When there is nobody else or you want to depend on yourself for everything, you need a lot of courage. Surrender needs less courage. A person who cannot surrender cannot be self-reliant either. If you don't have enough courage to surrender, then it is not possible to be self-reliant; you simply fool yourself. If you don't have a hundred dollars, you cannot have a thousand dollars. Even a little fear is detrimental to self-reliance. Self-reliance contains surrender. Fifty dollars contains ten dollars.Often people think that surrender is a way to escape from their responsibilities, then they end up blaming the Divine for all their problems. In fact, true surrender is taking total responsibility for everything.
Question: How can we do that?
Sri Sri: You take responsibility and you pray for help. Surrender eventually leads you to self-reliance because there is nothing other than the Big Self.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

A vaccine against terrorism - inter-faith harmony

One thing for which the world would like to forget 2008 is the rise of fanaticism and religious terrorism. Though the world has lived with terror for years, it became more pronounced in 2008 with acts of terror linked to religion or belief system. The perpetrators of the Mumbai carnage targeted Jews for their faith.
It’s a tragedy that religion, which has been the source of superior virtues such as honesty, love, compassion, justice and peace, is being used as a motivation to spread terror and kill innocents. Though motives and reasons vary from attack to attack, religious terrorism runs on the fuel derived from a misplaced belief that ‘my way is the only way’ and it’s God’s ordained duty to take up arms against those who have gone astray.
What can prevent fanaticism and religious terrorism in the New Year? Fortunately, there is light at the end of the tunnel as religious leaders are coming out against terrorism and pushing for inter-faith harmony.
In November, over 6,000 Muslim clerics gathered in Hyderabad to denounce religious terrorism and tell the world that there is no place for extremism in Islam. Earlier, the orthodox Islamic seminary Darul Uloom at Deoband issued a fatwa against terrorism. More importantly, leaders from other religions were roped in for the Hyderabad meeting of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind. A positive signal to unitedly fight terrorism is being sent to the larger community.
Taking the call for inter-faith harmony a step further, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar of Art of Living, who was chief guest at the gathering of the most influential body of Muslim clerics in India, offered to work with them to isolate fanatical elements abetting terrorism.
A month later, over 500 imams and rabbis gathered in far away Paris for the 3rd World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace where they searched for ways to resolve differences between Islam and Judaism, the main cause of violence and conflict in the Middle East.
These events may not immediately make religious fanatics desist from doing what they are doing in the name of religion. Yet they represent a serious attempt to find an alternative solution to religious terrorism.
While religion seeks to bring uniformity in a multi-faceted world, the goal of spirituality is to celebrate the diversity. To save the world from this pitfall of religion, the time has come to spiritualise religion.
One of the most notable aspects of contemporary spirituality has been its accent on educating people to a proper understanding of religion.
This is vital as the wrong understanding of the verses of scripture has caused upheaval and is used to justify narrow-mindedness. Religious terror arises when someone reduces his or her identity to a single affiliation based on a religion and a sense of victimisation.
The events of the last few years have shown that stringent laws and rules of society can go only so far in containing fanaticism in a society that loses spiritual values. The approach of offering spirituality as the only sensible response to terrorism addresses the problem at its roots.
Terrorism stems from wrong ideas and the struggle against it should be fought on the level of ideas. It’s essential that people’s consciences against terror are enlisted as a vital arsenal in the fight against it. For this, a mass spiritual awakening is imperative.
Spirituality nourishes the human values of compassion, love, caring, sharing and acceptance and honours the values found in all religions. This explains why spiritually-evolved people have never been at odds.
The time has come for people of all faiths to unite against terror and educate people against misinterpretation and misuse of religion. This can happen only when people are made to realise that God loves variety and diversity and that many different schools of thought exist in this world. This can happen only when people remember that truth is multi-dimensional.
9.1.2009-The author is a volunteer at the Art of Living Foundation

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Amarnath shrine board reconstituted

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, a prominent spiritual guru, was appointed as a member of the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB), a temple trust which was at the centre of communal tension in Jammu and Kashmir last year.Governor N.N. Vohra Wednesday re-constituted the Himalayan temple trust and appointed six new members to the board.
Sri Sri is the founder of the Art of Living Movement and is an eminent scholar on spirituality.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Message on New Year: Love & happiness

Every excuse to celebrate is good. There are two aspects of celebration. One is celebration as thanksgiving, as an expression of gratitude for the Divine. The second celebration is to move forward by dropping the past, knowing that life is eternal. In 2008, our country saw many upheavals. However, like the Christmas tree, life is evergreen. No storm or snow can weather away its leaves.
Similarly, our spirit is eternal and though time and again some adversities may try to cloud the spirit, the spirit moves forward through personal or social grief and emerges powerful. The nature of spirit is celebration. Celebration is the best medicine to help you move out of the gloom after a crisis. In celebration, you are not just having a party. If sacredness is attached to it, that celebration becomes complete. The body, mind and the spirit rejoice. Let time celebrate your presence. Keep smiling. When you let time celebrate you, you are a witness amid celebration. The year gone by has taught us many lessons; what we should be doing and what we should not. Every pain that we went through in 2008 brought us some depth, and all the joy and pleasure gave us a new vision of life and hope for the future.
Welcome the year 2009 with a genuine smile from within. That smile comes when you know for sure that you are loved. If you don’t know you are loved by the Divine, you will not be able to celebrate life. You will live in insecurity. With insecurity comes greed. With greed comes selfishness. And with that comes anger. With anger comes lust. And with that comes sadness and misery one behind the other, like a chain. In the past year, check how many days you were entangled in maya? Turn back and remember the whole year. When you do this, do not reject anything. Let your attention be on the self. This is a delicate balance. That balance is yoga. That balance is spirituality. Some people think being silent is spirituality. Some think only celebration is spirituality. Spirituality is a harmonious blend of outer silence and inner celebration; and also inner silence and outer celebration! Celebration that comes out of silence is real celebration. Year 2008 saw many rainy days. This new year, let there be sunshine - both in our lives and in society. Let us all have a determination to create a violence-free, stress-free society. May your life be filled with peace, joy and happiness! Happy New Year!