Every time you are confused you grow one step higher

Germany, 2 January 2012

Q: Are our emotions linked with age?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Yes. They are linked with hormones in the body and they are also linked with time, age and so many other factors.


Q: Guruji, when are you going to come to my city?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Oh, don’t ask me when I will come. I have everything in abundance, except time. I want to go to many places but time is very short. I have not gone to many places in a long time. I have not visited Africa in a long time. I have not been to England in the last five years. I have to go to Gaza; never been to Portugal, never been to Ukraine. I have invitations from so many places. From South America, they are asking me every day. What to do?!


Q: Guruji, where do souls come from?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Where do all these planets come from? Where do these flowers come from? Where do animals come from? Where do you come from? It is amazing how in the universe there are so many types of people, so many flowers, so many fruits, so many animals, so many mosquitoes, so many viruses; my goodness! It is such an amazing world, right?!


Q: How can I have more confidence?You are in the right place. Keep doing these things, asanas, pranayama, meditation will bring up the confidence.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: You are in the right place. Keep doing these things; asanas, pranayama, meditation will bring up the confidence.

Q: Dear Guruji, God created this world but who created God?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: I will answer this question but first you should tell me, where is the beginning point of a tennis ball?
We have linear thinking, which means everything has to begin somewhere and end somewhere. Something begins and something ends. So the creation happened and one day everything is going to end. This is linear thinking.
But in the East, there is no linear thinking, it is spherical thinking.
They say three things are uncreated and they will never die or never end. What are they?
One is the Divine Energy which you may call God. It is not created and it is never going to end, like space. Can you tell me which is the beginning point of the space and where does it end? No!
Similarly, matter or this whole universe. The universe is ‘Anadi’, means without a beginning and ‘Ananta’, means without an end. So also the souls, the life has no beginning and no end. It appears to end but it is going to begin again. It is like the waves in the ocean. One wave comes and it appears to end, but it is coming back again. The same water goes and comes back again. So, souls have no beginning and no end, the Divine or God has no beginning or no end and the universe has no beginning or no end. In fact all three are one.
So if you want to see God you should stop seeing the world.

You know in what sense? Like a quantum scientist. If a quantum scientist had to see this flower, he would say there is no difference between the leaf, the flower and the stem because everything is made up of atoms. There is no difference, it is all one. Any one point anywhere on the flower will work. Similarly, a quantum physicist says, to find out your DNA just a drop of your saliva is good enough, or just one pinch of skin. It is all the same, this is what a scientist would say.
This is quantum science.
But on other hand, the petals are not stem and the stem is not the leaf, they are all different. So if you want to see God, just see the whole Universe as energy and that is it.

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© The Art of Living Foundation

Meditation is a journey from sound to silence

Germany, 1 January 2012
It is so nice to be back in Berlin.


So today we are talking about meditation, right!
What is meditation? Why do we want meditation?
In order to go deep within ourselves, to understand ourselves or to learn anything about ourselves we need to be in a cordial and homely atmosphere. A formal atmosphere is not congenial.
Do you all feel at home? Why don’t you take just a moment to greet the person on either side of you and behind you.
Now tell me, how many of you think that meditation is concentration? No! You will be disappointed, meditation is not concentration. It is de-concentration.
To do any work, you need concentration but to relax and expand you don’t need concentration. Relaxation is the mother of concentration and so if you relax well, you are able to concentrate better. Isn’t that so?
Now how do we relax? That is what we will see this evening.
As I am speaking, do you notice what is happening in your mind? Just notice, your mind says, ‘yes’, or ‘no’. Do you see a dialogue happening within you? It is very important to notice this dialogue.
So there are simple principles that we need to understand about meditation. Before we go into that, let’s see what the benefits of meditation are.
How many of you would like to know the benefits of meditation?
The first benefit of mediation is it improves the bio-energy in our body; in our system.
Have you noticed, sometimes you meet someone and for no reason you don’t want to talk to them. Whereas with some other people whom you have not met so often, still you feel some sort of closeness with them and you feel comfortable. This is because of the positive energy.
Meditation creates positive and harmonious energy around us.
The second benefit is it improves health. There are number of researches on how meditation helps in hypertension, diabetes, heart problems, skin problems, nervous system problems and a number of other problems.
Third, meditation can help one to keep a pleasant mood. It is a big help in preventing many of the mental illness and physical illness.
Apart from the health benefits, meditation improves concentration. It helps one to be in the present moment. The mind vacillates between the past and the future. We are either angry about the past or anxious about the future, all the time. So meditation helps keep the mind from swinging between the past and the future to be more in the present.
Meditation is a journey from sound to silence, from movement to stillness. I would say that meditation is food for the soul.
Music is food for emotions; knowledge is food for the intellect, entertainment is food for the mind and meditation is the food for our soul or spirit.

So let us do a short meditation. Let’s nurture our emotions with music first and then we will learn a little more.
(A short meditation followed)
There are a number of meditations in CDs that I have made. In the beginning you can put on a CD and meditate. Later on you can do it by yourself. And some breathing techniques, pranayama and Sudarshan Kriya will all help you go deep in meditation.

Do you have any questions? I will take some questions.

Read more at What Sri Sri Said Today

© The Art of Living Foundation