Bangalore, 9 December 2011
Q: Dear Guruji, I want to know why do we have to get moksha?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: It is a natural tendency of every human being to be free. Freedom is not luxury, it is a necessity. Not just human being even animals want freedom.
Babies want freedom. If you tie a scarf on the neck of a baby it just wants to remove it. You put a chain on a baby’s neck and the baby wants to pull it out.
It is the adults who put jewelry around their neck but children want freedom, they don’t want any restriction that is why they throw their hands up and down; free!
Wanting freedom is innate to human beings as well as animals. Every life wants freedom and moksha is nothing but freedom.
You take a deep breath in and you can’t hold it there, you want breathe out. Only when you breathe out there is freedom. When you breathe out you want to take a breath in and that is freedom.
Freedom is a natural desire in every human being but when the mind get so muddled up in unnecessary day to day things, it forgets that it wants freedom. It is as good as someone who wants to sleep but has forgotten how to sleep.
So every life or human being craves for freedom. It is impossible to not want freedom.
Freedom is not running away from situations and circumstance. Sometimes the situation is stifling or unpleasant and we run away from it and think this is what is freedom, but that is not so.
Freedom means being unphased by circumstances, situations and the people around you; freedom from your own emotional garbage; freedom from the jungle of your thoughts that bother you; freedom from all the entanglement that you harbor in your head and freedom from fear and anxiety.
Anything that stifles you makes you small and you want to be free from that.
Freedom (mukti) comes first and then bhakti. Only when you are free does love well up in you and bhakti comes.
If you think you are bonded labor you cannot be grateful.
If someone has brought you freedom you feel grateful, ‘oh I am so free. I feel happy!’
Only one who is happy and one who is centered can have gratitude or be in the space of love.
Now, is love not bonding? This is the next question.
Read more at What Sri Sri Said Today
© The Art of Living Foundation
Q: Dear Guruji, I want to know why do we have to get moksha?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: It is a natural tendency of every human being to be free. Freedom is not luxury, it is a necessity. Not just human being even animals want freedom.
Babies want freedom. If you tie a scarf on the neck of a baby it just wants to remove it. You put a chain on a baby’s neck and the baby wants to pull it out.
It is the adults who put jewelry around their neck but children want freedom, they don’t want any restriction that is why they throw their hands up and down; free!
Wanting freedom is innate to human beings as well as animals. Every life wants freedom and moksha is nothing but freedom.
You take a deep breath in and you can’t hold it there, you want breathe out. Only when you breathe out there is freedom. When you breathe out you want to take a breath in and that is freedom.
Freedom is a natural desire in every human being but when the mind get so muddled up in unnecessary day to day things, it forgets that it wants freedom. It is as good as someone who wants to sleep but has forgotten how to sleep.
So every life or human being craves for freedom. It is impossible to not want freedom.
Freedom is not running away from situations and circumstance. Sometimes the situation is stifling or unpleasant and we run away from it and think this is what is freedom, but that is not so.
Freedom means being unphased by circumstances, situations and the people around you; freedom from your own emotional garbage; freedom from the jungle of your thoughts that bother you; freedom from all the entanglement that you harbor in your head and freedom from fear and anxiety.
Anything that stifles you makes you small and you want to be free from that.
Freedom (mukti) comes first and then bhakti. Only when you are free does love well up in you and bhakti comes.
If you think you are bonded labor you cannot be grateful.
If someone has brought you freedom you feel grateful, ‘oh I am so free. I feel happy!’
Only one who is happy and one who is centered can have gratitude or be in the space of love.
Now, is love not bonding? This is the next question.
Read more at What Sri Sri Said Today
© The Art of Living Foundation
