Bangalore, 20 December 2011
Q: Guruji, I am a psychologist. I want to know how can spirituality add to my knowledge and make it more holistic.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Meditation can turn around many psychiatric problems.
Study consciousness more deeply. Study the Bhagawad Gita, study Yoga Vasishta and then you will understand more about what consciousness is.
Read the teaching of Lord Buddha and Mahavir. They have spoken about the different aspects of consciousness and the different modules of consciousness. That will also help.
Q: Guruji, I understand that I am God but I do not experience it. Why is it so?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Unless you have experienced it, you cannot understand it.
You simply have heard someone say it.
But that is okay. Keep it at the back of your mind and just live simply and naturally. Know that the highest flowering in life is being in love and acting through love.
You may not feel love all the time and everywhere. Many times we try to feel love as an emotion. Love is not an emotion, it is our very existence.
So, ‘God is love’ should not be taken as being more emotional.
You have just heard somebody saying you are God, okay let it be! Just go through your experience. You are nobody, you are an expanded awareness; know that much.
First understand what you are not then what you are comes to you spontaneously.
Q: What should I do as a believer when people criticize my Guru, my religious book or my belief?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Just give a big smile.
Tell them you smile at their ignorance. That one comment does more work than getting angry at them.
If someone says something against what you hold dear, say 'I pity your ignorance.' That is all. What can you do? You can’t change someone's wrong thinking by force. They won't take it.
In those situations, sarcasm is the best way to handle it. Your sarcasm goes like an arrow into their mind and breaks the barrier which they might have created for themselves.
Tell them, ‘I feel sorry for your ignorance’ and that is good enough.
See, now there is an attempt to ban Bhagavad Gita in Russia.
I said this is injustice done to the people of Russia. We are anyway reaping the benefit of Bhagavad Gita. But the people of Russia being denied of Bhagavad Gita is an unpardonable injustice done to them by their own people. We don’t lose anything but they are at loss.
Read more at What Sri Sri Said Today
© The Art of Living Foundation
Q: Guruji, I am a psychologist. I want to know how can spirituality add to my knowledge and make it more holistic.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Meditation can turn around many psychiatric problems.
Study consciousness more deeply. Study the Bhagawad Gita, study Yoga Vasishta and then you will understand more about what consciousness is.
Read the teaching of Lord Buddha and Mahavir. They have spoken about the different aspects of consciousness and the different modules of consciousness. That will also help.
Q: Guruji, I understand that I am God but I do not experience it. Why is it so?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Unless you have experienced it, you cannot understand it.
You simply have heard someone say it.
But that is okay. Keep it at the back of your mind and just live simply and naturally. Know that the highest flowering in life is being in love and acting through love.
You may not feel love all the time and everywhere. Many times we try to feel love as an emotion. Love is not an emotion, it is our very existence.
So, ‘God is love’ should not be taken as being more emotional.
You have just heard somebody saying you are God, okay let it be! Just go through your experience. You are nobody, you are an expanded awareness; know that much.
First understand what you are not then what you are comes to you spontaneously.
Q: What should I do as a believer when people criticize my Guru, my religious book or my belief?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Just give a big smile.
Tell them you smile at their ignorance. That one comment does more work than getting angry at them.
If someone says something against what you hold dear, say 'I pity your ignorance.' That is all. What can you do? You can’t change someone's wrong thinking by force. They won't take it.
In those situations, sarcasm is the best way to handle it. Your sarcasm goes like an arrow into their mind and breaks the barrier which they might have created for themselves.
Tell them, ‘I feel sorry for your ignorance’ and that is good enough.
See, now there is an attempt to ban Bhagavad Gita in Russia.
I said this is injustice done to the people of Russia. We are anyway reaping the benefit of Bhagavad Gita. But the people of Russia being denied of Bhagavad Gita is an unpardonable injustice done to them by their own people. We don’t lose anything but they are at loss.
Read more at What Sri Sri Said Today
© The Art of Living Foundation
