Faith (Continued)

Los Angeles, California,

United States

7th August 1996

Chapter 1 - The You That You Want To Change

Day 63 - Faith (Continued)

A particular knowledge brought faith, yet when the knowledge

changed, then the faith also changed. The knowledge and faith of science is from an isolated ‘happening’ instead of from a fully blossomed knowledge of life. In spirituality, faith is first and knowledge comes later. 

Just as in Sudarshan Kriya, yoga and meditation, first you have faith and then knowledge follows. If you do pranayama faithfully, then you get the knowledge of the prana, life energy. If you do your meditation faithfully, the knowledge of consciousness follows. Even an illiterate person, through faith, attains deep knowledge. 

Science regards life as matter and spirituality regards even matter as life. Science sees even human beings as matter, and spirituality considers even the earth to be a mother, even rivers and mountains become living beings. If you think your faith in God does God a favor, you are mistaken. Your faith in God or your guru does nothing for God or guru. Faith is your wealth. 

Faith gives you strength instantly. Faith brings you stability, centredness, calmness and love. Faith is your blessing. But here is a paradox, if you lack faith, you have to pray for faith. Yet to pray, you need faith. People put their faith in the world, but the whole

world is just a soap bubble. 

People have faith in themselves, but they do not know who they are. People think they have faith in God, but they do not really know who God is. There are 3 types of faith -

1. Faith in yourself - Without faith in yourself, you think, “I cannot do this. This is not for me. I will never find freedom in this life”. 

2. Faith in the world - You must have faith in the world or you cannot move an inch. You deposit money in the bank with the faith that it will be returned. If you doubt everything, nothing will work for you.

3. Faith in the Divine - Have faith in the Divine and you will evolve. All these faiths are connected. You must have all 3 for each to be strong. If you start doubting one, you will begin to doubt everything. 

Someone in the audience asked, Atheists have faith in themselves and faith in the world, but not in God. Then they do not have complete faith in themselves. And their faith in the world cannot be constant because the world is always changing. Lack of faith in God, the world or yourself brings fear. 

Faith makes you full, faithful. Having faith in the world without having faith in God does not bring complete peace. If you have faith and love, you automatically have peace and freedom. People who are extremely disturbed should only have faith in God.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

Celebrating Silence 

Faith

Delhi, India,

29th March 2000

Chapter 1 - The You That You Want To Change

Day 62 - Faith

False securities do not allow your faith to grow. Faith grows only when you have dropped your securities. False security is keeping faith where it does not belong. It is the illusion of security in having a job, a house, friends. Even if you have all the material securities, without faith, you will still reel in fear. 

When you buffer your life with securities, you keep faith away. Faith is your greatest security. Faith brings perfection in you. Keep the money in the bank or in the pocket, not in the mind. Keep friends and family where they belong, not in the mind. You must let go of all possessions in the mind. Keep the house where it belongs, not in the mind. 

The Divine is your only security. Your body belongs to the world. Your spirit belongs to the Divine. Faith is realizing that you always get what you need. Faith is giving the Divine a chance to act. Have faith in sound and then move on to have faith in silence. Have faith in sound when it is pleasant and have faith in silence when sound is unpleasant. 

People seem to have more faith in chatting and gossip rather than in chanting and knowledge. When someone says something bad, you immediately believe it and your mind becomes more disturbed. Believing in an unpleasant sound creates turmoil in your mind. In that situation, shift your faith to silence. 

Have faith in sound like the chanting of mantras. Have faith in knowledge. Have faith in silence. Faith is the subject of the head, devotion is the subject of the heart and meditation connects them both. A mature intellect is devoted, a mature heart is full of knowledge and meditation matures your intellect as well as your heart. Head puts more faith in matter and the heart puts more faith in the abstract. 

It is nearly impossible that an intellectual person has total lack of faith or total lack of devotion. In science knowledge comes first and then faith follows. In spirituality faith comes first and then knowledge follows. The knowledge that pesticides and chemical fertilizers are good for plants came through science. 

Based on this knowledge, people had faith in pesticides and fertilizers and they were used all over the world. Then a different knowledge came that these were not good and faith shifted to organic farming. The same with antibiotics.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

Celebrating Silence 

Dispassion (Continued)

Lake Tahoe, 

California,

United States

15th July, 1998

Chapter 1 - The You That You Want To Change

Day 61 - Dispassion (Continued)

Question - Our work is very stressful. We don't get enough time for the family. What should we do?

Gurudev - If you spend quality time with your family? Even if you spend half an hour, are you cordial and fully attentive to the needs of your family?

It is not the length of time you spend with your family that matters. What matters is the quality of time that you spend with them. Thinking you need rest makes you restless. Thinking you have to work hard makes you tired. Thinking you have worked hard brings self-pity. Hide your dispassion and express your love. 

Expressing dispassion may bring ego. By expressing dispassion you lose enthusiasm in life and by not expressing love you feel stifled. Hide dispassion in your heart like the roots of a tree and express love like a ripe fruit. When you are in the grip of feverishness over the results of your actions, what should you do? Have faith and confidence that the results will be much better than you can ever imagine. 

With faith you can rid yourself of the feverishness of action and achievement. Feverishness can be a hangover from overactivity. Sleeping, listening to flute music and bathing in cold water can help. When you are doing something very important, take a moment to do something totally irrelevant and insignificant. For example, while decorating your house, take some time to mow the lawn or go shopping. 

Drop whatever you are doing and do something completely irrelevant. This enhances your creativity. Relevant action keeps you bound to the action. Irrelevant action makes life a game. Have dispassion. Know that the whole thing will be over one way or the other, and that it does not matter. Meditation and breathing can calm you down.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

Celebrating Silence 

Dispassion

Vanprastha Ashram, 

Rishikesh, India,

9th March, 2000

Chapter 1 - The You That You Want To Change

Day 60 - Dispassion

The Divine can come only in deep rest, not by doing. All your spiritual activities are to help you become silent. You will go further when you do not stop to enjoy the bliss or the peace, otherwise cravings may arise. If existence wants to give you peace and bliss, then fine, your true nature is bliss. 

But by trying to enjoy the bliss, you step down from “am-ness’to “I am something”- “I am peaceful”, “I am blissful” this is followed by, “I am miserable.”. it takes courage to simply say “I am period” I am” is dispassion. Dispassion means welcoming everything. You can be anywhere and be dispassionate. 

Dispassionate and centeredness brings energy, a spark. Indulgence in bliss brings inertia. If you are dispassionate, the bliss is still there. When the freezer is full of ice cream, you need not bother about it. Dispassion takes away the sense of scarcity. Passion is a sense of lack of abundance. Whenever everything is in abundance, dispassion happens. And when dispassion is there, everything comes in abundance.

Question - What do we do when we catch ourselves indulging in bliss? 

Gurudev - Just this understanding creates a shift. There is no effort. Knowledge is better than action to make you free. Activity and rest are two vital aspects of life. To find a balance in them is a skill in itself. Wisdom is knowing when to have rest, when to have activity, and how much of each to have. Finding them in each other activity in rest and rest in activity is the ultimate freedom. 

More tiring than the work itself is the memory of hard work. Thinking you have worked hard interferes with the quality of rest. Some people take pride in working hard without any results. And there are others who crave for a long rest without knowing the true rest is in non-doership. 

It is the quality of rest, even if it is short, that helps you to recuperate. When rest is needed, your body will automatically take it. Resting without thinking about the need for it, is more restful. Dispassion and samadhi are the deepest rest.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

Celebrating Silence 

The Changing World

Bangalore Ashram, India,

9th May, 1996

Chapter 1 - The You That You Want To Change

Day 59 - The Changing World

When you are ahead of time, it drags and is boring. When time is ahead of you, then you are surprised and shocked. You cannot digest events. In deep meditation, you are time and everything is happening in you. Events are happening in you like the clouds that come and go in the sky. 

When you are with time, you are wise and at peace. When you are happy, the mind expands, then time appears too short. When you are unhappy, the mind contracts, then time appears too long. When the mind has equanimity, you transcend time. To escape from time, many resort to alcohol or sleep but when the mind is dull or unconscious, it is unable to experience itself. 

Samadhi, no-mindedness or timelessness, is the real peace. That is the greatest healer. A thought is nothing but a ripple in this moment of time. This moment also has a mind of its own, a big mind which has infinite organising power. Before you fall into slumber or as soon as you wake up from sleep, in the moments of twilight of consciousness, experience the timelessness beyond mind. 

Life is a combination of form and formless. Feelings have no form but their expressions have form. The self has no form but its abode has form. Similarly, wisdom and grace have no form but are expressed through form. Discarding the formless, you become inert, materialistic and paranoid. Discarding the form, you become a dreamer, a lost ascetic, or an emotional wreck.

Ref

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Celebrating Silence

Unbelievably beautiful or joyful, you wonder if it is a dream.

Bangalore Ashram, India,

4th November, 1999

Chapter 1 - The You That You Want To Change

Day 58 - Maya (Continued)

When something is unbelievably beautiful or joyful, you wonder if it is a dream. Often what you perceive as reality is not joyful. When misery is there, you never wonder if it is a dream. You are sure it is real. This is knowing the real as unreal and unreal as real. 

In fact, all the miseries are unreal. A wise man knows that happiness is real, a quality of your very nature. Unhappiness is unreal, as it is only an affliction of memory. When you can see both as a dream, then you abide in your true self.

Question - What about nightmares?

Gurudev - A nightmare is mistaken as a reality only while you are dreaming. Keep wondering whether your waking reality is a dream and you’ll wake up to the real. Illusion is an error of perception and knowing illusion as illusion is knowledge. 

Our experience of the world is based on perception that is erroneous, so our experience of the world is an illusion and each experience leaves a hangover that clouds the intellect.

The experiencer is the only reality. Look for the seer, the experiencer, in between experiences. Wake up this moment. Shake your head of all past experiences and look at the pure Being that I am and that you are.

Question - How do you distinguish the experience from the one who experiences?

Gurudev - Are you really here? Are you listening? Now close your eyes and see who is listening, who is questioning, who is sitting, and who wants what. Who is confused? You may not get any answer but that is fine. Never mind.

Ref

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Celebrating Silence

Maya

Big Sur, California, United States,

21st June 1995

Chapter 1 - The You That You Want To Change

Day 57 - Maya

There are 5 aspects to your self :

Asti - is-ness

Bhaati - knowledge or expression

Preeti - love

Nama - name

Rupa - form

Matter has 2 aspects - name and form. Consciousness has 3

aspects : asti - it is, bhaati - it knows and expresses and preeti - it is loving. This is the secret of the whole universe. Maya - ignorance or delusion - is not being aware of the three aspects of your consciousness and getting caught up in names and forms of matter.

Question - Why are we imperfect?

Gurudev - So that we can grow to perfection. Life is a movement from imperfection to perfection. A seed contains the tree but to become a tree it must cease being a seed. The seed is not a tree. A sapling is not a tree. So in life you can either see imperfection at every step, or you can see movement from one perfection to another perfection. Wherever you put your attention, that will grow. If you put your attention on the

lack of something, the lack will increase. 

How can you always be happy? Forget about "always" - then you will be happy. In always wanting to be comfortable, you become lazy. In always wanting perfection, you become angry. In always wanting to be rich, you become greedy. Fear arises when we do not realise that only life is for always. 

This projection of the nature of Self - which is "always" - onto the temporal - which can never be "always" - is called maya. All ways do not lead you, only one way leads you. If you remove "always" from your dictionary, then everything is "all right". Drop "always" and all will be right - that is intelligence.

Ref

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Celebrating Silence

When you love something, it becomes alive

Bangalore Ashram, India,

17th September, 1997

Chapter 1 - The You That You Want To Change

Day 56 - Love (Continued)

When you love something, it becomes alive. With love, the whole creation becomes personal. For children, everything is personal. Children make each toy come alive. Even a tree has a face, even the sun laughs, and even a stone attracts reverence when it

becomes personal. In love, you raise even objects to life. 

If you remove love, even people become objects. Violence is removing love. How could a person kill another? Only when they see them as an object, not as a person. People who see God as impersonal do not progress. The impersonal cannot attract your love or reverence.

Question - When we personalise something, we make it real. So then, what is reality?

Gurudev - You are the reality. You are not the thoughts, you are not the emotions, nor the actions. You are not even a person. There are 3 kinds of love - the love that comes out of charm, the love that comes out of familiarity, and Divine love. The love that comes out of charm does not last long. 

Out of unfamiliarity you are attracted, then once you become familiar, you quickly lose attraction and boredom sets in, like most love marriages. This love may diminish and bring along with it fear, uncertainty, insecurity and sadness. The love that comes out of familiarity grows. You are more comfortable with an old friend who is a familiar person,

rather than with a new person. 

But this love has no thrill, no enthusiasm, no fire in it. Divine love supersedes all other love. Divine love is ever new. The closer you come, the more charm and depth is there. Divine love has comfort, familiarity and enthusiasm. There is never boredom and it keeps you on your toes. Worldly love can be like an ocean, yet an ocean has a bottom. 

Divine love is like the sky, limitless, infinite. From the bottom of the ocean, soar into the vast sky. Beyond an event is Knowledge. Beyond an object is infinity. Beyond a person is love. Knowledge is beyond events. Every event colours your awareness in some way, pleasure, pain, joy, sorrow, anger, jealousy. Each event gives you a false notion of what reality is.

Truth is beyond all the colours of particular events. Behind every object is infinity. Objects are limited and changing, yet they exist in infinite space that never changes. Reduce any object to atoms, you will find that within each atom is contained infinite space. Beyond all objects is infinity. Beyond each person is love. A personality changes. 

A body, a mind, a complex of behaviours is always changing. Beyond each personality there is unchanging love, love is what you are. When you lose your self, you’ll find your self. 

The event behind the event is Knowledge. The object behind the object is infinity. The person behind the person is love. Maya delusion is when you are stuck in events, personalities, or objects. Brahman divine consciousness is seeing beyond all these. See? Just a little shift.

Ref

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Celebrating Silence

Love always change?

Delhi, India,

5th November, 1998

Chapter 1 - The You That You Want To Change

Day 53 - Love (Continued)

Question - Gurudev, must love always change?

Gurudev Sri Sri - Love is your very nature. What is your nature cannot change. But the expression of love changes. Because love is your nature, you cannot but love. A mother has total love for her child. Sometimes she feeds the child, sometimes she is strict with the child. "Come on, sit and write". 

She does this out of love, and these are all different modes of love. So the expression of love changes. But love itself does not change, because love is your nature. When someone expresses love to you, what do you do?

- You do not know how to respond.

- You feel obliged and bound.

- You shrink or shy away.

- You feel foolish and awkward.

- You try to reciprocate even though it is not genuine.

- You doubt the love expressed and you doubt your own worthiness.

- You are afraid of losing respect because love does not allow distance and respect tends to keep a distance.

- Your ego hardens and does not allow you to receive and reciprocate.

The ability to receive genuine love comes with the ability to give love. The more you are centered and know by experience that you love, the more you feel at home with any amount of love being expressed in any manner, for deep inside, you know love is not an emotion. It is your very existence. Joy is love for what is. Sorrow is love for what is not. You feel love for someone and they do not accept it. What do you do?

- Get frustrated.

- Turn the love into hatred and wish for revenge.

- Again and again remind them how much you love them and how little they love you.

- Become fussy and cranky.

- Throw tantrums.

- Feel humiliated and try to protect your respect.

- Resolve never to love again.

- Feel hurt and mistreated.

- Try to be aloof and indifferent.

But you have seen that none of these work, they only make the

situation worse. What is the way out of this ? How do you maintain your lovingness?

- Have patience and change your expression of love.

- Be centered and limit your expression of love. Sometimes expressing too much love puts people off.

- Take it for granted that they love you too and just accept their style of expression. Like a mother with three kids -

- No one child talks, one child does not talk, one child throws tantrums - her love for each child is constant regardless of their behaviour.

- Genuinely acknowledge whatever love they have for you. This will turn your demand into gratefulness and the more grateful you are in life, the more love comes your way.

- Know that hurt is part of love and take responsibility for it. Realise that when you move away from your center, you will get hurt and the nature of worldliness is misery.

Ref

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Celebrating Silence

Inspires and brings confidence.

Jaipur, India,

13th November 1997

Chapter 1 - The You That You Want To Change

Day 54 - Love (Continued)

An example inspires and brings confidence in the application of

knowledge, and the visible sign of it is an undying smile. The self knows neither sorrow nor death, yet in it flow all the relative events. It is easy to be detached when you are not in love. 

Being in utter love and yet undisturbed, caring yet not worried, persistent yet not

perturbed, are all the obvious signs of the self shining through. Let love be. Do not give it a name. When you give love a name it becomes a relationship, and relationships restrict love. 

There is love between you and me. Just let it be. If you give love a name, such as brother, sister, mother, father, Guru - you are making it into a relationship. Relationship restricts love. What is your relationship to yourself? 

Are you your wife, brother, husband, Guru? Let love be. Do not give it a name. When love glows, it is bliss. When it flows, it is compassion. When it blows, it is anger. When it ferments, it is jealousy. When it is all 'no's', it is hatred. When it acts, it is perfection. When love knows, it is me. With whom do you feel really comfortable and at ease? 

You feel comfortable with someone who does not question your love, someone who takes for granted that you love them. If someone doubts your love and you constantly have to prove it. This becomes a heavy load on your head. They start questioning you and demanding explanations for all your actions. Explaining

everything you do is a burden. 

Your nature is to shed the burden, so because you do not feel comfortable. When you question the reason behind an action, you are asking for justice for yourself and you create a distance. Your whole intention is to come close, but by asking for justice you create a distance. 

When someone asks for an explanation, they are speaking from doership and are imposing that doership on you. This brings discomfort. If someone is just there with you, a part of you, they do not question you. They are like your arm. There is a closeness and unity that goes beyond all demands and questions. 

Neither demand an explanation nor give an explanation. You are the eternal witness. You are as mucha witness to your own actions as you are to someone else’s actions.

Ref

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Celebrating Silence

Who has renounced can love

Montreal Ashram, Quebec, Canada,

9th July, 1997

Chapter 1 - The You That You Want To Change

Day 55 - Love (Continued)

Only who has renounced can love. To the degree you have renounced, to that degree will you have the ability to love. Often people think those who renounce cannot love, and those who love cannot renounce. This is because renunciates do not seem to be in love, and so-called lovers are possessive and needy. 

True love is not possessive, it brings freedom, and renunciation is nothing but freedom. Only in freedom can love blossom fully. When you are in love you say, “I want nothing, I just want this”. Renunciation is, “I do not want anything. I am free”. In love there is no other need. Renunciation is having no need. Love and renunciation, although appearing to be opposites, are two sides of the same coin.

Question - Gurudev, does this mean the lover renounces his beloved?

Gurudev - You renounce the attachment, the possessiveness. Renunciation doesn’t diminish love, enhances it. Only renunciation can sustain love and joy. Without renunciation love turns into misery, possessiveness, jealousy and anger. Renunciation brings contentment and contentment sustains love. 

Without renunciation one gets discontented, frustrated, sad, fearful, suspicious, analytical and the whole soap opera begins and this is what we find in society don’t we? So-called renunciate have run away from life frustrated and disappointed. Real renunciation is born out of knowledge and wisdom, knowledge of life in the background of time and space and in the context of this magnanimous universe. 

You have to rejoice in the means. You have to love the means. Love is the goal but the means must also be lovable. Love springs forth when there is no effort, when all activities are shunned. Love is your nature. When love finds an expression, you often become ensnared get caught up in the object. 

Your sight is caught outside. To return to your nature, you need insight. Pain is the first insight. It takes you away from the object and turns you towards your body and mind. Energy is the second insight. A bolt of energy brings you back to your self. 

Divine love is the third insight. A glimpse of Divine love makes you complete and overrules all relative pleasures. Ecstasy is the fourth insight. An elevation of consciousness and partial awareness of the physical reality around you is ecstasy. Non dual awareness, that everything is made up of one and only one, is the fifth insight.

Ref

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Celebrating Silence

Love

Highway 25, Between Boulder & Denver, 

Colorad, United State

23rd July 1998

Chapter 1 - The You That You Want To Change

Day 51 - Love

I chant the name of my beloved in every breath. The beloved is

faultless, perfect. But being in love I have lost my reputation. When there is so much love, you take total responsibility for any misunderstanding. For a moment you may express dismay on the surface but when you do not feel that dismay in your heart, you

arrive at a perfect understanding. 

You are in a state where all problems and all differences slide away and only love shines through. Usually we are stuck in our differences because we have lost sight of ourselves. In the name of love we try to manipulate and control the other person. It is natural that when we love someone, we want them to be perfect. 

You can never see the holes in the ground from the top of a hill. From an airplane the earth looks so smooth. So also from a state of elevated consciousness, you do not see the pitfalls in others. But if

you come to the ground you always see the holes. When you want to fill the holes, you have to see them. 

You cannot build a home being airborne. You cannot till the land without looking at the holes, filling them, removing the pebbles. That is why when you love someone, you find faults in them but finding faults destroys love and instead of helping to fill the holes, we run away. When you love someone and see their faults, stay with them and help them fill the holes. This is wisdom.

Why do you love someone? Is it because of their qualities or

because of a sense of kinship or intimacy? You can love someone for their qualities and not feel a sense of kinship. This type of love gives rise to competition and jealousy. Such is not the case when love arises out of kinship. 

If you love someone for their qualities, when the qualities change or you get accustomed to their qualities, your love also changes. However, if you love someone out of kinship, because they belong to you, then that love remains for lifetimes. 

People say, “I love God because He is great”. What if God is found to be ordinary, just one of us? Then your love and God would collapse. If you love God because He is yours, then however God is, whether. He creates or destroys, you still love Him. The love of kinship is like love for yourself.

Question - Why do so many people have no love for themselves?

Gurudev - No. It is just the opposite. They love themselves so much that they want better qualities and a better appearance for themselves. This love of qualities makes them hard on themselves.

Ref

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Celebrating Silence

That love is not stable

Bangalore Ashram, India,

12th February 1999

Chapter 1 - The You That You Want To Change

Day 52 - Love (Continued)

If love is based on the qualities of a person, that love is not stable. After some time the qualities change and the love becomes shaky. Loving someone because of their greatness or uniqueness is third rate love. Loving someone because they belong to you, great or otherwise, is unconditional love. 

Knowledge, sadhana, seva and satsang, spiritual practice, service and coming together in celebration help to bring about a sense of belonging. When love springs from a sense of belongingness, then the actions and qualities do not overshadow the love. Neither qualities nor actions can be perfect all the time. Only love and a feeling of kinship can be perfect. 

Here are the signs of love. When you love someone you see nothing wrong with them. Even if you see a fault in them you justify it in some way “Everyone does that, it is normal”. You think you have not done enough for them and the more you do, the more you want to do for them. They are always in your mind. Ordinary things become extraordinary. 

A baby winking at its grandmother becomes an extraordinary event. You want them to be yours exclusively. You get hurt even over small things. When you love someone, you want to see them always happy and you want them to have the best. You wish someone what they don’t have, right? 

When you say, “Best wishes”, you imply that they are not best. Now, I tell you, now is the best. If you realise this, tomorrow can only be here are some who long for change. Feeling that every thing is stagnant in their lives, they want to change partners, careers, dwellings. There are some who are afraid of change. They feel security in the way they are. 

There are some who see change, but do not acknowledge it out of fear. There are some who do not notice change at all. There are

others who do not think there is anything to change. There are some who realise that everything is changing, yet see there is something that is non changing. Those who recognise the non changing amidst the change are the wisest of all.

Ref

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Celebrating Silence

Compassion

Montreal Ashram, Quebec, Canada

18th June, 1997

Chapter 1 - The You That You Want To Change

Day 48 - Compassion

There are 2 types of compassion. One is the compassion of the wise,

one is that of the ignorant. An ignorant person’s compassion is towards the fruit of an action to alleviate the sickness or suffering that he witnesses but a wise person’s compassion is toward the lack of knowledge to remedy the underlying reason for sickness or suffering. 

Compassion for suffering shows ignorance. Suffering comes because of karma and if you believe in karma, where is compassion? You reap the fruit of your actions. If a judge has compassion for offenders, then the jails will be empty. But are judges cruel to offenders? No. 

The judge’s compassion is for the lack of knowledge he sees, not for the suffering of the criminals. It is the criminal’s karma. Often people think compassion is an act, an action. Know that compassion is your very nature. Then you will see that karma and compassion are not contradictory but rather complement one another. 

Suppose two people come to a hospital. One is suffering from starvation, the other is ill from overeating. What type of compassion should the doctor have toward each of them? This is a riddle for you to solve.

Ref

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Celebrating Silence

Karmas

Bangalore Ashram, India

15th September 1999

Chapter 1 - The You That You Want To Change

Day 49 - Karmas

Some karma can be changed and some cannot. When you prepare a dessert, if sugar or ghee is too little, you can add more. If some other ingredient is too much, it can all be adjusted and repaired. But

once it is cooked, it cannot be reversed. 

Milk can become sweet yogurt or sour yogurt, and sour yogurt can be sweetened but neither can be reversed back to milk. Sanchita karma can be changed and adjusted by Spiritual practices. Prarabdha karma cannot be changed.

Satsang burns the seed of all negative karmas before they are given a chance to sprout. Strange are the ways of karma. The more you understand it, the more amazed you become. Karma brings people together and separates them. 

It causes some to be weak and some to be strong. It makes some rich and some poor. All the struggles in the world, whatever they may be, are the bondage of karma. It cuts across all logic and reasoning. This understanding lifts you and keeps you from getting stuck in events or personalities and helps you in your journey to the self.

Question - So a thief can say it is my karma to steal?

Gurudev - Yes, and then the police have the karma to catch him, too. Only human life has the ability to be free from karma and only a few thousand aim to be free from it. Performing actions cannot eliminate karma. Only through grace can the bondage of karma be burnt.

Ref

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Celebrating Silence

Mercy

Bangalore Ashram, India

24th April, 1996

Chapter 1 - The You That You Want To Change

Day 50 - Mercy

Mercy indicates lack of intimacy, a distance, a lack of belonging. You do not have mercy on your loved ones. You do not hear parents say, “I have mercy on my children”. You have mercy on those whom

you think are not yours. Mercy indicates anger, judgment and

authority. 

When you ask for mercy, you are self centered. You want to be excused from the law of cause and effect. It indicates lack of courage and valor. At times, mercy is an impediment to growth. Mercy, of course, brings some comfort and relief, but it can impair any transformation. 

If the leaves were to ask for mercy from falling, they would not be transformed and then what would happen to the tree? Two of our devotees, high on bliss, did not stop at a stop sign, so the police mercilessly gave them a ticket. Victoria said, “Thank you,” but the police woman told her to go to court and beg for mercy. 

You only ask for mercy if you think that God is angry and judging you. This is the small mind superimposing its nature on the Divine mind. The Divine is all knowing and all loving, there is no chance for mercy. When you know and trust the process of creation, you will simply rejoice. Do you know I have no mercy? When there is intimacy, there is no place for mercy.

Ref

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Celebrating Silence

Indebtedness

European Ashram, 

Bad Antogast, Germany

31st July, 1996

Chapter 1 - The You That You Want To Change

Day 45 - Indebtedness

Question - God is all abundant, all full and we are connected to God. Then why are we in debt? Why do some have while some do not? Is it only money you lack? When you say you are indebted, that means you have received something.

Gurudev - Otherwise how can you be indebted? Those who have received should feel indebted. Be thankful for having received. The more abundance you have, the more indebted you will feel. And

when you feel indebted and grateful, more abundance comes to you. 

Feel indebted and grateful and then abundance grows. Abundance and indebtedness coexist. You think you are indebted, but really you are not. Yet it is better to feel totally indebted, because every bit of what you have, including your body, does not belong to you. 

When you are infinitely indebted for your body, for Knowledge, for things you have received, and for your own life, then you bask in the abundance of the creator.

Ref

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Celebrating Silence

Gratitude

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada,

28th October, 1998

Chapter 1 - The You That You Want To Be

Day 44 - Gratitude

Which is better, to thank deeply or superficially? Everyone in unison, deeply. No, superficially. (Everyone is baffled). Thanking needs a

separation. Thanking means there are two. If you are deeply

thankful, it means you deeply feel the separation. Deep within there is no need to thank because there is oneness but you can thank one 

superficially. 

Thanks are like ripples on the surface of water. When you say “thank you”, you complete something. You are finishing a transaction, a relationship, a process. “Thank you” is like “goodbye”. You can complete all transactions at a surface level, but deeper inside there is only oneness. 

Thankfulness always exists in relation to something else. You do not thank for nothing at all, you thank for something. But in this case, something is less than nothing. At the deepest level, thanking has no meaning. Does one hand thank the other hand? The deeper you go you see there is no “other” to be thanked.

Question - So we should thank superficially and feel deeply?

Gurudev - Feeling is also superficial. If you think the feeling is the depth, then you have not gone deep. Feeling is deeper than thinking. But feelings change. Whatever is the deepest doesn’t change. So thank superficially, not from the depth. Deep thanks indicate deep separation. 

Today is a gift from God, that is why it is called the present. Are you grateful? If you are grateful, you do not belong to me. When someone gives you something, you are grateful, that means you feel separate. You do not feel grateful to yourself. 

Gratefulness means you do not feel part of the Master. When you go beyond gratefulness, then union happens. No. “I” no “you” remains. You are part of the Master. You are just one being with a thousand heads and a thousand arms, but with one heart. Gratefulness is inevitable. 

You have got to be grateful on the path, but you have to transcend gratefulness. Better stop being grateful. You are not grateful to your own hand that feeds you. It is better to stop being grateful. 

When you are grateful then you become the centre of attention, you feel more important. When you are grateful to God for having received something beautiful, for example, eyesight, who is important? You or God? You. Your gratitude indicates ego.

Question - So you are not grateful?

Gurudev - I’m simply great and I am full. Don’t be grateful just be great and be full. This Knowledge could be dangerous without devotion.

Ref

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Celebrating Silence

Appreciation

Bangalore Railway Station, India

24th February, 2000

Chapter 1 - The You That You Want To Be

Day 43 - Appreciation

When do you appreciate someone? Don’t you appreciate them when they do something that is unusual, not ordinary, something that is not their nature? When a wicked person fails to cause problems, you appreciate them. 

Or when someone you think is not good performs a good deed, you appreciate them. When a good person does something extraordinary, you appreciate them. If a child makes you a cup of tea, you appreciate it, but if a mother made the same cup of tea, you are less likely to appreciate it because it is anormal act for her. 

In the same way, you appreciate getting a ride from someone you do not know, but you may not appreciate it from a bus driver. In all these cases, the acts you praise are temporary, out of character, or not in the nature of that person. So when you appreciate someone for something, you imply that it is not the way they usually are.

Question - What if a person wants to be appreciated?

Gurudev - That means that the act is not in their nature, and that is why they want to be appreciated. If it is not coming from their nature, it is an imposed act. So when you appreciate someone you imply that it is not their nature, that it is not the way they usually are. It is a rare act or quality. Appreciation implies a sense of separateness or distance, so watch out when you appreciate someone.

Ref

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Celebrating Silence

Praise

European Ashram, 

Bad Antogast, Germany

4th August 1998

Chapter 1 - The You That You Want To Be

Day 42 - Praise

Often when you praise, you praise in comparison to someone else. In order to praise one person, we put down someone else and when

we want to point out someone’s mistake, we praise another. Some praise too little, and some are too shy to praise. Some are not accustomed to praising and just forget to do so. 

Some praise with motives, and some praise just to elevate. Others praise themselves in order to hide their low sel esteem but real praise dawns in a blossomed state of consciousness. The praise that comes out of an elevated state of consciousness simply arises from the nature of consciousness and is quite different. 

Normally praise comes out of craving and pride. Praise that comes from a heightened consciousness always comes out of fulfilment. Praising can elevate the consciousness and bring enthusiasm and energy. But at the same time it can bring arrogance. Praising is a skill. When someone praises you, do you take it without shying away? Accepting praise withut shyness is also a skill.

Ref

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Celebrating Silence