Sri Sri: Definitely. Meditation and Seva are together, they have to be done together like watching television and listening to it. Otherwise you are watching a television muting it. That’s no good.
Q: Gurudev, when things are so easy, why does Spirituality seem a little difficult initially?
Sri Sri: You have said it correctly, it just seems, but it is not so. It is just in your mind. Spirituality is not difficult. Spirituality is very easy, it’s absolute comfort. What you may find difficult is your let go of those habits which you anyway want to let go. Got it? Smoking, difficult to leave, drinking, difficult to leave and junk food and all those food which are not good for you, difficult to leave. That difficulty you think ‘Oh, you are going away from spirituality.’ Spirituality is not at all difficult.
Q: Gurudev, is giving charity or money to a beggar right or wrong?
Sri Sri: You should see, you know begging has become a business. When this demonetization happened, a beggar had some crores of rupees with him. Then I think you should not encourage such begging. And if really someone is needy then it’s okay, you can help them. But I would not encourage beggars as profession, they are healthy, they can definitely earn, they can do some job, and it is a self-imposed poverty. Why do you want to support such self-imposed poverty, easy way of getting money? We need to support poor kids, children who are going to work, we need to support them.
You know, Art of Living is supporting 53,000 kids in India alone. In different schools, in different states, 453 free schools are being run and then we run another 100 schools from Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Vidya Mandir (SSRVM).
So, doing work like that is better than to just giving money to someone who just comes on street to exploit.
Q: Gurudev, of the many metals, why is gold considered to be sacred in India, it is very fascinating?
Sri Sri: No, nothing like sacred, who said gold is sacred. Everything is sacred or nothing is sacred. You know whatever is rare commodity, anything that is a rare commodity, the price goes up. That’s it. In fact, gold has little use for you, iron is much more useful to you. If you have iron deficiency in your body then that’s it, you can’t even walk. And whatever is most essential for you is freely available, so is God. Air is most important, it’s freely available. Iron is most important, it’s easily available. But you don’t need ruby so it’s rarely available.
Q: What are the top 5 things a parent should teach a child?
Sri Sri: Sharing, compassion, truthfulness, sincere, loyalty. Any child who grows up with these values will have a beautiful, strong foundation, and the parents have done their job. These qualities will help them be liked by everyone everywhere. Keep them away from addictions of any sort - alcohol, smoking.
