Honoring Our Ancestors

03 2012 Aug

Bangalore, India

(Many devotees offer Gurudev peacock feathers to which he says) I want to know if these are these plucked from peacocks or does it fall down naturally and people pick it? If they pluck it then don't bring these at all. We shouldn't encourage people to pluck from peacocks. I don't know if this naturally falls or people pluck it. (Audience: they pluck it Gurudev) Then you shouldn't bring this at all. Do not buy it at all because if you keep buying it they may kill even more of the peacocks. No one should buy this. We will put instructions everywhere that no one should buy peacock feathers because that can create greed in some people to pluck them forcefully from the peacocks. What do you say? Agreed! This is a new trend that has started. You should stop buying these. Very good decision we made today! Q: Gurudev, I want to dance with you? Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: My spirit is always dancing. Q: Gurudev, can the Guru change the karma of a person, and when does that happen? Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: If a Guru alone could change the karma of a person then he would have changed the karma of everybody in one stroke. No, you have to do some effort as well. Guru can definitely relieve you of your sins. When you commit a sin and you realize that you made a mistake, you cannot relieve yourself of sin, but the Guru can definitely do it for you. So in that sense, yes! At the same time, you have to do Purusharth (self-effort). You need to do some good work. And the sense of love and devotion is equally proportionate to the amount of karma that gets released. Read more on What Sri Sri Said Today