REVERANCE

Adulation shows the magnanimity of the one who adores, rather than the one who is adored!Adulation indicates that the ego has become transparent; the best antidote for ego is adulation.Adulation works in three ways: If it is for someone else, it is not palatable to an egoistic person. If it is for you, it boosts your ego.If you adore somebody, it dissolves your ego and makes you magnanimous. Unanimous chorus : When Guruji is adulated, E V E R Y O N E adores it! (laughter) Adulation indicates the magnanimity of the person who is adoring. And the one who is great, does not get swayed by adulation. So the test of the greatness of a person is that he is not shaken by any amount of adulation.A desire for adulation is a sign of immaturity.Aversion to adulation is small-mindedness.Lack of adulation in life is dryness and boredom.A healthy mind would always like to adulate, to elevate others.An unhealthy mind would like to pull down everything.Adulation indicates the trust, enthusiasm and richness in a culture.Lack of adulation is a self-centred, small-minded, fearful and culturally-impoverished society.Being indifferent to adulation when it comes to you and being magnanimous when it is to be given, is the way of the wise! - Sri Sri Jai Guru Dev

PADMANABHA-----THE LOTUS NAVEL

PADMANABHA -- THE LOTUS NAVEL

Different organs of our body are governed by different devas. The solar plexus is connected with the sun, that's why it is called "solar" plexus. When the first rays of the sun fall on the solar plexus, it is very good for your body. Doing Surya Namaskar ("sun salutation") yoga asana in the early morning is very good. The solar plexus has a profound impact on the central nervous system, optic nerves, stomach, and what we usually call "gut feeling." It is the second brain in your body. Usually the solar plexus is slightly bigger than an almond. Studies have shown that with the practice of yoga, meditation, and Sudarshan Kriya, the solar plexus can become as a large as the size of the palm. Then it performs better. It balances the body functions. When the solar plexus expands, the intuitive mind works better. The mind becomes clear and focussed. When the solar plexus contracts, one feels horrible, sad, depressed, and all the negative feelings come.Krishna was called Padmanabha, meaning "whose navel is the size of a lotus flower." If you become Padmanabha, you become absolutely creative. Brahma, the Creator, is born out of a blossomed solar plexus.These days, the solar plexus remains small, but the tummy keeps getting bigger.

Jai Gurudev.

Facing Tomorrow

Sri Sri's interview with Dan Shilon President Shimon Peres' Presidential Conference 'Facing Tomorrow' Oct 21 '09, Jerusalem　 Dan Shilon: You must be very disappointed with this age. Sri Sri: Do I look disappointed?Dan Shilon: The world is not going your way. Sri Sri: I have patience and perseverance and I know it will come right. Dan Shilon: How old are you? Sri Sri: I am a little over half a century but I still have a few more years. You know everybody wants peace. Peace is the innate need of people but they don’t know how to get rid of the negative emotions, tendencies, anger and frustrations. Education is needed in the world today to teach people how to let go of the negativity, let go of the past and move on to the future. Dan Shilon: Your quote on how to measure your success by your smile, how does that relate to the world. The world is not smiling anymore? Sri Sri: I know there is a lot of work that needs to be done. There is work for the reformers, work for the doctors. The doctor’s job is to treat the patient but if the doctor falls sick there is no hope for patient! So if we lose our smile we cannot bring a smile onto the face of others. We need to be centered; we need to work hard to bring the smile back onto the faces of the people. Dan Shilon: When you say lets stop the world for an hour, for 10 days. What do you mean by that? Sri Sri: Stopping our mind, stopping the racing mind. It is always thinking about the past or it is always thinking about the future. We are angry about the past or anxious about the future. To take a fresh look at the world, the situation, you need to wake up and see, - as Mahatma Gandhi used to say never look back. He would say lets see what we should do now and for the future. That gives a lot of energy, encouragement, enthusiasm, and lifts you up from the ashes even though there are ashes around you. Dan Shilon: And all this starts in India? Sri Sri: Exactly, perhaps it may be in other parts of the world as well. Dan Shilon: I wonder why so many of our children are going to India. Why are they so fascinated with this place? Sri Sri: India has a long history of spiritual upliftment. When you see that everything is collapsing, all doors are shut, and there is no hope and depression sets in, India gives a vision of something higher. The power of your thought and mind can create your reality, your world and allow you to move in that direction. You may not be successful immediately or tomorrow but the vision and the mission will always take you forward. Dan Shilon: You are the one who tries to form a bridge between the business world and political world. Is it bridgeable at all? Sri Sri: Basically we are all human beings. There is humanness in everybody and I feel the reformers, the rulers and the providers they all have to work together only then can society really come together. Dan Shilon: Are you a little concerned about this mixture between politicians and business leaders? Sometimes it brings corruption. We know it is in this country and in other western countries? Sri Sri: It is everywhere; even in India there is corruption. Corruption begins when the sense of belongingness ends. If you draw a circle of belongingness around you corruption only begins after that. Politicians need to be more spiritual. By spiritual I mean, have a sense of belongingness towards people. Mahatma Gandhi is an example of this, in this century. He was a spiritual person and at the same time he was a politician too. He had the sense of sacrifice. ‘I want nothing for myself but I want it for my people’. That spirit is going down somewhere along the line. That is why there is corruption and all sorts of unethical businesses have sprung up. We need to inculcate those value systems again, both in politics and in business. Trust is the backbone of business. From what we’ve seen in last 10 months, it took 10 years for communism to collapse, it took less than 10 months for capitalism to collapse, and the reason is that we have ignored our value system and ethics in business.We have ignored the human values of caring and sharing, of dedication and devotion. If we can somehow re-inculcate these values in our youth, I tell you the youth are ready for it. They want this because they have seen the older generation just running. It is like running on the treadmill that is going nowhere. Dan Shilon: What is wrong with the current leadership in the world and perhaps our visionary leadership? Sri Sri: I would say that the sense of belongingness is shrinking. There is a more self-centered, self-serving attitude rather than a sense of sacrifice for the cause. The vision and mission is really lacking. Dan Shilon: You once said that forgiveness is a cure. Is forgiveness the formula to make peace between Israelis and Arabs? Sri Sri: Let go of the past and find a new future. From independence to inter-dependence. That is what we have to understand. Independence was a slogan of the past era. Everyone wanted to be independent so that they could be prosperous, but today prosperity does not come from independence it comes from understanding the inter-dependence. This needs to be educated to people. There is also an identity crisis. A person thinks ‘I am a Muslim’ or ‘I am a Christian’ or ‘I am a Hindu’ or ‘ I am Buddhist’ and those who are not, do not belong to me. They look like an enemy.They need to shift this type of thinking to: - first and foremost, our identity is that we are all human beings. Then, we belong to a certain gender of either male or female. The third identity is that of religion and then finally to a particular nation. If the priority of identity is in the right place I think conflicts can be resolved very quickly. Dan Shilon: How would you like to see the stereotype of the future leader? Sri Sri: I feel through education we can change and unite the hearts and minds of people. This cannot be done by the people who are in power. People who are in authority cannot unite the hearts and minds of the people. It is the voluntary organizations, social workers and reformers that have to bring about this change in the mindset and bring the hearts and minds of people together. Dan Shilon: Are you optimistic like Jimmy Wales? Sri Sri: I am realistic. Optimism is just hope but when you see it is possible it is practical then I think I am realistic. It is going to happen. People cannot stand tension or stress for too long, somewhere one has to give up. You cannot hold a fist for so long at some point you have to relax and when you relax you see the whole sky is in your hands. This has already begun in the world. Take a look at France and Germany, and in Western Europe. There were so many conflicts in the previous era but now the borders are gone. It has become one currency yet it was unthinkable in the 19th Century. So in the same way I am sure the Middle East crisis could be solved through educating people with a multicultural, multi-religious and broader spectrum of knowledge. Jai Gurudev　

Love And Lust

Guruji's Knowledge Sheet: Love & Lust Doubt cannot come where there is a sense of closeness. Doubt needs a distance to appear. You never doubt something that is dear to you, close to you. In love even an object gains life. Stones speak to you, trees speak to you, the sun, the moon and the whole creation becomes alive, Divine. In lust even a living being becomes a mere object. You want to use even people like objects. Here are some salient attributes of love and lust. They are so different yet so close! If you find more you may add to the list. Lust bring tension. Love brings relaxation. Lust focuses on the part. Love focuses on the whole. Lust brings violence. Love brings sacrifice. In lust you want to grab and possess. In love you want to give and surrender. Lust says all I want you to have is what I want. Love says I want you to have what you want. In lust there is effort. Love is effortless. Lust causes feverishness and frustration. Love causes longing and pain. Lust imprisons and destroys. Love liberates and sets you free. Lust demands. Love commands. Lust gets you mixed up and confused. In love you are focused and spaced out!! Lust is only dark and monotonous. Love has many modes and colours. If someone's lust is interrupted they get angry and start hating. Hatred in the world today is not out of love, it is out of lust. Love is playfulness and in lust there is cunningness and manipulation. Shiva, the embodiment of innocence and love was meditating. His meditation was disturbed by an arrow of flowers from the lord of lust. As soon as Shiva woke up he opened his third eye and the lord of lust, Manmatha (one who churns the mind) was reduced to ashes. Everybody celebrated by throwing colors on each other realising that life is full of colours. We play many roles in our life. If all the roles get mixed up it becomes dark, like when you mix all the colours. The wise play each role distinctively side by side, like colors displayed side by side form a rainbow. JAl GURU DEV

Neagtivity Needs An Anchor

Guruji's Knowledge Sheet: Negativity needs an anchor Negativity cannot remain without a support. Positivity, happiness can be without any reason. The mind goes on trying to find support for its negativity. It looks for a hook to hang its negativity on - if not this person, then that thing or that person and so on. This perpetuates the maya! The creeper of negativity needs a support in order to grow. But negativity or a version for even one person can guarantee a one-way ticket to hell - you need nothing else! All negativity is a pointer to move to the centre and broaden the vision to the cosmic intelligence. Instead of focusing your attention on support for your negativity, look at the seed of negativity. With meditation, silence, kriya, the source of negativity is nipped at the root. Jai Guru Dev

Each One Of You Is A Light To Yourself

Each one of you is a light to yourself ---- Sri Sri Ravishankar,Oct.17 '09, Germany

Today is the festival of lights. Diwali means the festival of lights. Each one of you is a light to yourself. This festival is celebrated throughout India, Nepal, Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Mauritius, Suriname, Trinidad, and South Africa. People wish each other ‘Happy Diwali’ and exchange sweets.During Diwali, we let go of all the past burdens in the mind. Whatever is suppressed in the mind, you light firecrackers and let it go. Like crackers, the past is gone, all burnt out and a fresh new mind begins. This is Diwali.One candle is not enough. Everyone has to be happy and light up. Everyone has to be happy and wise. The light of wisdom is lit. Symbolically, we will light the light of wisdom and celebrate today. What do you say? The Diwali message is: Let go of the past. Celebrate life with wisdom. Without wisdom it is not true celebration at all. The wisdom is in knowing that the divinity is with me. Today is the day that you also look at all the wealth you have. You remember you have so much wealth and feel the abundance. Otherwise the mind is always in the space of lack, - ‘oh! This is not there, that is not there, sorry for this, sorry for that’. From lack, move on to abundance. The ancient custom is to put in front of you all the gold and silver coins. You bring all your wealth in front of you nd say, ‘look God has given me all this. I am so thankful! ‘ The Bible says,’ those who have more will be given to them; those who do not have, whatever little they have will also be taken away’. Feeling that abundance, you recognize you have been given plenty. Then we do Laxmi Pooja. The Goddess of wealth and prosperity is worshipped, and Lord Ganesh – that impulse of consciousness that removes all the obstacles in our path to happiness – that chanting is done today. For each country we will light one lamp. There are 27 countries in Europe. We will light one lamp for each country.Then we will meditate for a few minutes. When we meditate we thank the Universal spirit, power for giving us in abundance. We also pray for more so that we can serve more. Yes? Gold, silver is all just an outer symbol. The real wealth is deep within us. There is so much love, peace and joy. What more wealth do you need than this? Wisdom is the real wealth. Your character, your peace and confidence are the real wealth. When you move with a connection to the divinity there is nothing that is richer than this. That rich feeling comes inside you when you feel connected to the divinity, connected to the infinite. When the wave remembers that it is connected to the ocean, that it is part of the ocean, that strength is enormous!

Jai Gurudev

Diwali Message

Diwali Message---- Sri Sri Ravishankar

Diwali is lighting:

The lamp of love in one's heart;

The lamp of abundance in one's home;

The lamp of compassion to serve others;

The lamp of Knowledge to dispel darkness

Every lamp that you light is symbolic of a good quality. There are good qualities in every human being. Some have forbearance, some have love, strength, generosity; others have the ability to accept all as one' own, yet others have a scientific temperament that will uplift humanity; and others have the ability to unite people from all religions. A latent talent is a lamp. When latent talents awaken, that is Diwali. Don't be satisfied with simply lighting one lamp; light a thousand. Eg. If you are a good sevak, don't be satisfied only with that; light the lamp of wisdom in you. Acquire knowledge. If you are interested in acquiring knowledge, don't limit yourself only to that. Take an interest in the creative arts, in dance, music etc. Do you know why we do aarti? It is so that light of our life always rotates around the Divine. Do you know why we burst crackers? We suppress many emotions within ourselves; cravings, aversions, hatred or too much attachment and we reach bursting point.When there are a lot of worries, people say, "I feel my head is going to burst." If there is a lot of sorrow, people say, "My heart is going to burst." Knowing this experience, the ancient people said that when you see an explosion outside, you feel similar sensations within you as well. Along with the explosion, there is so much light. Similarly by lighting the crackers, when there is an explosion outside, you release the suppressed emotions and become hollow and empty. You become free and are able to celebrate the festival and distribute sweets. The darkness is dispelled, light has come into the house, and joy spreads. This is a festival of joy. It is said that for the fool, Diwali only comes once a year. But for the wise man, Diwali is every moment and every day. I would like you all to be wise and to celebrate Diwali every moment and every day of your life.

Jai Gurudev

WHO CONFERENCE KEY NOTE ADDRESS

WHO Conference Key note address [verbatim] by H.H. Sri Sri RavishankarOct.6th, '09, Sri Lanka Om shanti shanti shanti.Honorable Minister, His Excellencies and Dignitaries on the dais, friends and distinguished guests.As I was listening to our Honorable Minster of Health speak about mental well being, it came to my mind, you know the word for health in Sanskrit is Swastha that means one who is established in oneself, Swa means self Stha means one who is established in self. If you go to Bali island in Indonesia they greet you with OM SWASTHI RASTU – (may you have health), meaning well being, mental, physical, emotional, it includes everything, total well being. In the east, as it was being earlier mentioned that 2500 years ago we have had this education, common masses, I would take it even further back 5110 years it was in Bhagvat Gita concept of well being, social well being is mentioned and even earlier Maharishi Patanjali made this whole treatise on yoga and how you can be happy physically, mentally and socially. If someone is obsessed with hatred, anger and jealousy they are not considered to be socially well ; of course it is an ancient concept to have this mind which is a container of all knowledge, which is a container of intelligence, emotion and life force as such cleansed to keep it healthy and to get rid of this jealousy, hatred etc.If you analyze today's problem there is hatred in society, there is greed, there is fear and because of this, depression sets. It was appalling to hear that depression will be the Number 1 disease in the coming decades in the world. In Europe nearly 30% of the population suffers from mental depression, 30% of the population!!! I was invited to address the psychiatrists in Europe and they said you know "we expect this rate of mental depression to go up to 48% in the coming decade'' and you can't feed half the population Prozac or other anti- depressant, you need other ways, you have to change life styles, bring certain changes in our life styles and educate our self, what I would call as mental hygiene, you know dental hygiene, oral hygiene we teach people how to keep their teeth intact but we are not teaching how to keep our mind sane or behavior pattern sane.I am happy that the World Health Organization has taken up this project now. It should have been taken a few decades before. We could have saved our planet from so much of this terrorism, hatred, ethnic conflicts, religious strives and emotional upheavals, traumas, but never the less we are now taking action. It has to take a fast track -educative and preventive programs throughout the world, even if one small pocket of the planet is left uneducated about mental well being you are not in a safe world. Terrorism is one such example of extreme mental sickness. So, in this august meeting, we will all have to sit and think of how we can reach sanity to every nook and corner of the planet. One idea is to bring the spiritual knowledge, ancient knowledge we have in this part of the world, bring a more secular, scientific attitude or temperament so that spirituality is accepted by all sections of society. It has to be free from dogmas. Scientific and secular spirituality is what we need, that would give to the world a mind which is healthy which can take any stress or pressure that the modern society is posing in front of us. It is unfortunate that in some countries yoga is banned. Yoga is a very simple way to keep your system free from stress, to keep happy, to keep contented. I think it is just because of lack of education. If the World Health Organization takes such a role to convey to the people, countries, and the health ministers of the various countries where they are trying to ban or partially ban yoga and yogic practices, to realize the importance of it.And usually we say there are 4 sources of energy, 1st source is food that everybody agrees and we all know and there is lot of education on nutrition today and the 2nd source of energy is sleep, you give someone enough food and you don't let them sleep they go mad, they go insane. A good amount of sleep, not too much and not too little, someone sleeps 10hrs everyday they get duller and duller day by day. So the right amount of sleep 6 to 8hrs of sleep would give you enough energy not less. 3rd source of energy is breathing as our honorable guest from Thailand emphasized on the breathing. I would say most of the illness can be handled through breathing exercises. Proper breathing can improve the blood circulation, neurological health, physical health and mental health - breathing is very important for energising our system. 4th source of energy I would say is a happy mind, meditative mind.A meditative mind gives you so much energy. You might have experienced in your own life you know, when there is a function at home and you have to work 16-18hours a wedding or housewarming ceremony or any new project which is very emotionally dear to you, you work 18hours, 20hrs you don't get tired but in the office you are asked to take 2 more hours to work you feel exhausted, so the mind plays an important role. The commitment in the mind, the focus in the mind brings lots of energy too. So meditation is the 4th source of energy. So you need to educate the population on this, and all the 4 different sources of energy so that they can benefit by attending to them.Mental well being to me is improved perception, improved observation and improved expression. Like, the body grows from the time you are born to the age 21, 22 and then the body starts deteriorating, our mental age, our mental well being should grow simultaneously from childhood we need to keep improving our perception, observation and our expression this has no age, usually psychologists say 50 or 40 it stops, middle age our mental observation, expression starts deteriorating. I say if you are practicing yoga or meditation this doesn't happen. There is no decay of your mental well being. You know the other day a psychologist came to me, he has opened a clinic and says ''Guruji, please give me blessings ''. I said ''what?!!’’, I don't get patients, please bless me so that I get at least 3-4patients, I can break even, I can make some money”. Asking me to give blessing so that patients come to them, probably the psychologist would be happy to hear that there is one suicide every 40second so that there is dearth for patients. There is a taboo about mental well being, it is not that there no mentally sick people but unlike going to a doctor if you have some other illness, if you are mentally not well you go to a doctor then that is taboo, there is stigma attached to it, so you feel very down, the family and the society looks down upon you. We need to correct this through education, educating people you know it is ok to go and see psychiatrist / psychologist and it is normal. In some countries it is a fashion, at least one member in a family goes to a counselor in Argentina, if you go to Buenos Aires you find lot of people go to psychologist even though they are well, they have no mental illness. It is a sort of fashion to go to a psychologist / psychiatrist / counselor, to talk about how you feel and what's your problem in your life, but in South Asian countries you have big taboo about it. We have to get rid of this stigma , we have to get rid of the stigma no doubt, also, we have to educate people in our own ways of meditation, of yoga, breathing techniques, of spirituality of community living, community service, singing, dancing, participating in social activities, games, all these can help in the mental well being.You know, I heard that a very well know industrialist in India, he would call all doctors at his house, anyone says he is a doctor he would invite him / her and give them the fees, take the prescription whatever they give and then get all the medicines as well ! So his attendant asked him,'' why do you call all these doctors?'' , he replied,'' so that they will live, make a living'' Then the attendant asked, ‘why do you buy all the medicines they prescribe - Unani, ayurveda, alopathy, homeopathy- why do you buy all the medicines sir ???''. He replied,'' so that the pharmaceutical companies can live''. ''But sir, you don't take any of these medicines??''...he replied,'' So that I could live myself! ''(laughter). You know the irony is medicine is not the answer for all this, placebo effect has demonstrated to the world over and over that it is not just swallowing pills that you can get well or taking more and more of these vitamins and minerals that you are going to be better. You need to attend to lifestyle, you need to attend to your food habits, you need to attend to how you interact with people, what are you taking from every interaction.As I am speaking, see if you observe the mind, mind is saying ''yes or no'', mind is accepting that which it already agrees and knows, or every few minutes mentally we go for a cappuccino or a cup of tea, or presence of mind is not there! And this is a problem in our schools and colleges, children say we study for whole day but nothing remains in our mind, retention power has become so less, you ask today's youth to narrate one movie or story he has seen, you know he can't do it completely he will mix it up with 2/3 movies that he has seen, because the stimulus bombardment to our mind is so high we are not recuperating that energy, that mental energy, a sense of well being. We are not attending to the container; we are simply dumping things into the container. Information is being pumped into the container; we are not expanding the capacity of the container or attending to its cleanliness. Mind is our container, container of our life, we need to expand it and this happens through a few moments of silence, few moments of meditation, few moments of deep relaxation and I am so glad that this breakthrough has happened in the world today through the World Health Organization recognizing this mental well being. Recognizing that the people's behavioral pattern had to be attended to, otherwise they are not healthy. You know in many meetings people sit and talk for hours together and argue and counter argue really not being aware of what they are saying. I would like you to ponder on this, - come up with practical solutions, and create teams, combined efforts of NGOs, governmental agencies, civil society, everyone together, religious bodies, religious institutions should get on to this project, a combined effort of all of us, of this different aspect of society, to make society, the world, a better place, a better human being for the coming generations. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Jai Gurudev

Preciousness Within

Preciousness withinObjects will gain value and lose value, but space will never lose value. When you buy a cup, what do you give the value for? Do you give money for the space inside, or for the outer material? Have you ever thought about it? If you have a lump of clay in your hand, is there any value for it? But when the lump of clay is made into a cup, you give value for the space. And that value will never diminish. The purpose of the space is always served. Whether it is a stainless steel glass, stainless steel cup, or glass, or china clay, or silver cup, the space inside the cup is what really serves, isn't it? That is what really matters. Space can never lose its value. So what is precious? Whatever you think is very precious is very costly, very expensive. The most expensive things are least used! They are least useful. How do you put value on something ,“ by its utility, or by its rareness of availability? If something is available in plenty, you don't value it more. Why do you value gold so much, or diamonds so much, or any precious stones so much? It is because they are not easily available. If diamond is just found on all over the street or if the mountains are just diamonds, everywhere, who would value diamonds, right? So what is more valuable? It is that which is useful. Take, for example, iron and gold. Gold is more expensive and iron is basically essential and useful. Without iron, you will collapse. Your body needs iron every second to survive. Iron is valuable, because it is the most useful thing. And whatever is most useful, what is most valuable for your life is available in plenty. Water is most essential in life. You value water, air etc which are so essential in life, and they are available in plenty. Isn't it? Now which is precious “ iron or gold? You can live without gold, but you cannot live without iron. We have a whole wrong system of evaluation in the world! We value useless things a lot. A piece of stone, red, or yellow, or pink, or whatever, is very rarely available and so we want it even if it is so expensive! We put all our earnings, all our money into it. But that is not essential to life at all! To have that diamond, emerald or jade etc, people breathe in all the polluted air all the time, work day and night, earn a lot of money, and put them in the jewellery. Is this not utter foolishness? What is most precious, your health, you are destroying. You are not breathing in good air, but you are buying diamond and what not,all those precious stones! This is lack of education! There are two types of sadhaks or seekers. 1 : The first type of seekers is those having the capability and capacity to digest knowledge, and act according to knowledge. 2 : The other type of seekers are those who make mistakes, knowingly make mistakes and feel sorry for them later on. To repeat, the second type of sadhaks is those who make mistakes but who are pained by their own mistakes. Even then, you are on the path of devotion, because the pain of not having done something that you should be doing or should have done will make you deep. If you cover your mistake, you will not even feel bad about it deeply. If you feel deeply bad about it, you feel your helplessness, your weakness, that weakness itself can make you a prayerful seeker. And then you will see whatever that was bothering you will fall away from you. Whatever habit you don't want to have, you'll feel that it has fallen off from you when you cry for help. It is said, the Divine dawns in you when you cry for it, when you sing for it. When you sing, very quickly the Divine love comes back to you, dawns on you again; it comes to one's experiences. This is for sure! The Divine is only waiting for you to dig a little deeper into yourself; that is all. Because it can then fill you with much more nectar! The deeper you are, you'll be filled with more nectar. Divine is waiting to give you more. It wants you to create more space in you. Cry from your soul for help. This is for those seekers who are weak. Those seekers who are strong, for them, with the power of knowledge they can sing with that joy of what they have achieved! Sing with the gratitude in your heart. Sing the glory of the Divine. The moment you sing in gratitude, in glory of the Divine, it immediately dawns in you, and fills you up again. There are two aspects. 1 : One is a seeker who is grateful for all his growth and all that he has received, so grateful with the knowledge. 2 : The other is so helpless and weak due to own weakness. And both will be helped. And both can grow when they both sing. Because in that singing, either with pain or with joy and gratitude, the Divine dawns and the experience happens, for sure! Of all the truths in the world, Divine love alone is the supreme. Because anything else you do, be it a righteous action, if it has no love behind it, that action is worthless. Suppose you have knowledge and the knowledge does not create love and totality of awareness in you, that knowledge is useless! How can you even have the knowledge if there is no love? If you love astronomy then you will go more deep into it. Of the eternal truth, only love stands, and it is the most important. And what is Love? Love is not just an emotion,Oh, I love you so much. That is not love. Love is seeing that there is no difference. I am you, you are me. You are part of me, I am part of you. Feeling that oneness is love. And it's not just an intellectual understanding, but coming in the level of experience and living that. Living life as joy and ease is spirituality. Spirituality is not some ritual, or doing something. It's a very pleasant, uplifted state of your being and seeing that the whole world is all spirit or consciousness. Seeing that there is one Big Mind among all the human beings, animals and all the life in the world is spirituality, and that Love is the essence of Life.

Jai Gurudev

Our Layers Of Existence

OUR LAYERS OF EXISTENCE-------- Sri Sri Ravishankar

If you are thinking only of the ground reality then no creativity will come and if you are only on imagination, then too there is no creativity. A balance is needed. See, life is also like that — a balance between our intellect and our heart, or feeling, or intuition. Listening to our gut feeling, developing that intuitive ability within us is another aspect of creativity. So, when such blocks come into us, there is a way to eliminate them. How? By studying our own seven layers of our existence. I call science as a study of “what is this” and spirituality as a study of “who am I?”. They are not at loggerheads at all, they go hand in hand. So study about yourself, your seven layers of existence. What are they?

1. The Body.

2. The Breath — are you all breathing now? See, many times we are not even aware that we are breathing. That something, which keeps our body alive, we don’t care to look into it. Our breath has great secrets to offer.

3. Then comes the Mind. Mind is perception, observation and expression.

4. Then is the Intellect — the judgement, the arguments, the agreement or disagreement that happens within us is all part of our intellect.

5. The Memory — if you observe the memory, it stores the memory of unpleasant things much more than the pleasant. We take the insults and preserve it in our memory much more than the pleasant events. This is the nature of memory.

6. Then comes the Ego — the more we study, the more learned we become; we become so stiff. We lose our smile, we lose our innocence, we lose our friendliness. Learned people get a sort of an ego — that I am much better than the other, more learned, I know better than them — this ego of “I know better” takes away certain beautiful things from your life. One should have a sense of belongingness with everybody, naturalness. Ego dampens one’s personality. Today, what we lack is really good examples of personality. Knowledge is there in all the libraries — but what the books cannot transmit is the personal charisma, the vibration a person emits. The friendly and warm atmosphere a person carries along with him/her.

7. The seventh layer is the Self. Self is that something that is the reference point of all changes in life. We notice that everything is changing in our life — our body, our mind, our thought, our environment, and our behaviour. If everything is changing then how do we know the change? Because there is a reference point, something that doesn’t change, we are able to notice the change. And this reference point, the non-changing something that is in every one of us, I would call the Self.

The scriptures would call it atman.A little bit of knowledge about these seven layers of existence makes a big, big difference in our lives. It brings cheer, freshness, and we become so alive and childlike. If you are cheerful, you will be creative.

Otherwise you are so dull.

Jai Gurudev !

Life And Love

Life and Love......"Sri Sri Ravishankar" If you just look into all the pleasures or joy that you get in life from the world, from anything---they all come with a tax. You have to pay a tax for them. And this tax is sorrow. The direction of life is towards one thing: that is love. You be prosperous and have no love, that prosperity has no value. You are on spiritual path but you don’t experience love, then that spiritual path is no path, it is very dry. When we express love too much, then also it disappears, dies out. It’s like when you keep the seed on the surface of the soil, not a little deep inside, it doesn’t grow.All these different desires for experiences, for living, for knowing -- they arise and they get fulfilled and they move. Is there anybody who has not fulfilled any desire? Or is there anybody who has fulfilled all the desires? Is there any end for it? Want, or desire, arises when you are not happy. Have you seen this? When you are very happy then there is contentment. "Contentment" means "no want." To your very dear and loved ones, you say this: "If you need me, I am here. I am here for you. I am here to make you comfortable." Those are the moments that you have really lived your life. There is no way---not by any action or by words---that you can ever convince anybody that you really love them. The more we try to do it, the more we are doing the contrary. When you tell somebody you love them, make sure you are not saying it out of your "vasanas," your own cravings, your own impressions, your own craving for some joy.If you make someone feel guilty about their mistake, then you have not forgiven them. That guilt itself is a punishment. See a mistake as a mistake , not as "my" or "his" mistake. "My" mistake means guilt over oneself ; "his" mistake means anger towards the other person. Someone else throws a garbage and we are ready to take it all in. Someone got hurt and they are thro wing all anger, frustration; and you hear [them]. You say, "Oh, why did so-and-so say such things!" And you immediately grasp those things, and you store it in your mind. Now not only that person has been in misery, you have shared that misery with that person, taken it on you.Why ? The question mark is like a hook. That means you hook the past. So you ask, "Why did it happen?" and you hook the past, hook with a question, and you go on grumbling and grinding and grinding in your mind. If you are against someone, you have no freedom from them. If you find fault in someone, and your mind is set against them, know that you are stuck with them, glued with them! Super glue! See the nature of mind: if there are ten good qualities and one negative, the mind clings on to that one negative. Ten compliments and one insult, the mind will forget all the ten compliments. It hangs on to the one insult and goes on and on and on about it. To break free, you have to totally surrender. There is no freedom at all without surrender, and when you surrender you get infinite freedom. The greater your surrender is, the greater your freedom, that much the load is taken off of you. The greatest power is in surrender---surrender to the Divine. How can we not see this? That everything in the body is happening by itself. Everything in creation is happening by itself. The flowers are blossoming, the leaves are becoming green, the petals are becoming yellow, the sun is rising, setting---how could one be so blind not to see an "unseen hand" behind this whole creation? If a flower does not remind you of the eternal Truth, then it has not fulfilled its purpose.Life begins when we step out of the small chattering mind. How do we do that ? Through samadhi ! When you meditate, you are not just bringing a harmony within yourself, but you are influencing the subtle layers of creation, the subtle bodies of all the different levels of existence in the creation. The very purpose for being in this body, for every one of us, is to live and rejoice in that virgin area, that untouched, pure and ever green, blissful area of our Self. Bondage is not anywhere outside. It is in the mind, in the consciousness. The transcendental principal, the fourth state of our consciousness, rules over all the other influences of all the planets or cosmic rays. So, if you could meditate, you nullify all the undesirable effects of the cosmic rays, the cosmos. Singing, chanting, meditating can eliminate all those undesirable effects.The purpose of every practice — spiritual practice, meditation,breathing techniques, and kriya, all this — is to uncover something that blocks the expression of Divine Love. Let go of all your efforts, searches and desires, for God can be felt only in deep peace and stillness.Our senses have a limited capacity to enjoy, but the desire in the mind to enjoy is infinite. This is where opposition begins: the mind wants to enjoy, but your body is too tired to enjoy. You sit and think; you sit and feel. Do you think that feeling just remains with you? It reaches far beyond this Universe. Your intentions, your feelings get spread much faster than the radiation. It is spread all over this globe and far, far beyond.When you see this whole flow of events in life as temporary, as nonexistent, then, even when someone scolds at you, you smile.The Divine is only waiting for you to dig a little deeper into yourself, that is all. Jai Gurudev !