*Chapter 4 - Contentment*

In the earlier days, it would take many years to build a house. It would take many generations to build a temple. An example is the Brihadeeshwara temple in Tanjavur, Tamil Nadu. 

It took nearly 3 generations to complete its construction around 300 years? It is so surprising that it took 300 years to build a temple.

The task started by one has to be completed by somebody else. In the same way, if the father is an astrologer, the son continues as an astrologer. 

If the father is a doctor, the son becomes a doctor too. The one, who continues the task started, is known as disciple, son or progeny.

It is said that children should give ablutions to elders, it implies that the elders should be made contented first. 

If the elders wanted to do a task and if it is incomplete, then completion of the task was giving them ablutions. Completion of the task itself is equivalent to giving them ablutions. 

If you have to give ablutions to

elders, it means that you have to make them contented. This is because they have a lot of faith in you. 

Their faith is that the future generation will take the world forward, that they will uplift the society, strive for uplifting the country and continue the family tree. 

Fulfilling this faith of the elders in you is giving ablutions. Just offering sesame seeds and water is not ablution. We have to get contented and give them knowledge. 

Contentment can only be got through knowledge. That is why it is said that even if one or two people in a family meditate and practice samadhi.

Then seven generations before

you will get contentment. The karmas of the seven generations before you will be destroyed and their minds will be purified. 

There is so much power in meditation. It is not an exaggeration. It is mentioned in the shastras (scriptures). Tarpan is telling the departed that we are contented here and that they should be contented where they are. 

We have to be contented before we make them contented. Therefore in every satsang, meditation and knowledge session you attend, feel that you are contented. 

The more our consciousness expands with love, the more the Gods are contented.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Waves of emotions

When you rejoice in beauty, the entire creation rejoices with you.

*Chapter 14 - Pride, Humility & Luck*

We need to look deeper into pride. Often we think it is arrogance and those who have arrogance think that it is their pride.

They take pride in it but there is a clear distinction between the two. Arrogance is insensitive. When there is no humility or awareness in pride, it turns into arrogance. 

When there is no love or service along with pride then, too, it turns into arrogance. It is a knife. 

You can either cut the butter or hurt your finger. There is just a little twist to it. You become insensitive and get lost in your joy and your pride. 

Pride also brings joy. In joy there is pride, but without humility and awareness it turns into arrogance. 

This is exactly what is happening in today's world. Arrogance goes with the small mind. The small mind, being unaware of the magnitude of existence, thinks it is the greatest, the biggest, and the highest. 

But pride is the very awareness of goodness and beauty and of one's luck. Luck is the language of the heart. It is the heart that decides if something is lucky or unlucky. 

Lucky or unlucky means - beyond one's capability, beyond one's capacity, beyond one's mind, beyond one's abilities and beyond the smallness of mind. 

You call something lucky that is

far or enormous. The heart always makes everything big. Poetry comes out of the heart.

The mind knows only the facts. Poetry is exaggeration and beauty is nothing but exaggeration. There is no fact in beauty.

If you try to analyse beauty, you will be lost and the beauty, too. It is the language of the heart. It decorates, it elaborates, it exaggerates, and it's 'airy-fairy'.

When you read poetry, when you sing a song or when you describe something, it's always from the heart. 

Analysis and explanations are from the mind, from the head. Justice and equality is from the head. From the heart comes uniqueness and speciality. 

Everything is made special. But

what do you often do? If there is any negativity, you deal with it with the heart and if something is positive, you deal with it with the head.

If there is a problem, you exaggerate it - suffering, mistake or misery. You blow it up beyond proportions. 

Right from the childhood, a small scratch would become a problem and misery. We eternalise and exaggerate it.

All newspapers thrive on this. They exaggerate the negativity. They see it from the heart. But when something beautiful and wonderful is happening, you look at it with the head. 

We need to switch. Even if you see one beautiful quality, decorate it, exaggerate it and make it very big. So and so is great, excellent and marvellous. 

See the negative quality in a person through your head and your mind. Analyse it. Reason out their behaviour considering that, maybe, they are tensed and stressed.

Analysis of negativity brings compassion in you. Exaggeration of the good brings waves of beauty. Whether a person is beautiful or not, it makes you more beautiful. 

The one who praises becomes more beautiful. Have you seen the faces of people who are always praising? There is a beauty in them. 

The bodies of those who exaggerate positive qualities get filled with it. The body which is nothing but space gets filled with that praise, and when the body gets filled with praise, divinity dawns. 

That is beauty. That is what a gopi is. It means being drunk with knowledge. Their whole being is drunk. But can you be drunk if you are complaining?

People who are drunk, don't complain. They are so happy. Everything is blissful. The mind shuts off and the heart takes over. That is what a gopi is. 

One who deals with the heart - gopi. Make this shift. If you see one good quality in somebody, catch hold of it. Exaggerate it. 

You will see that your word, your thought and your intuition has power. That person will become the way you think. You create your world with your word. 

When you see a negative quality, analyse it. Ask yourself what that person wants? And how he can get rid of it? Try to see what is behind it. 

Don't see negativity with the heart. Otherwise your heart will become sore. You will have it and become miserable. 

Life is very short. Time is running on. Why, should you be worried and bothered in this short period of time? 

Look at your life with a broader vision, a wide angle lens. It will give a bigger picture. Then life rises in waves of beauty. If you are a small pond, shallow waves will not rise. 

There will not be even a ripple. But you have great depth. Take out all the extra silt and you will see you are so deep, so beautiful.

There is nothing much to be done. That is the power of knowledge. Praise the Lord. God will not become greater by your praise but by that praise you become beautiful. 

Each hollow and empty space in you gets filled with it. Whenever you have felt a sense of great beauty, that's when you have reached your home. 

That's when you have been in touch with yourself, because you are so beautiful. Whatever beauty you see here and there, is only a projection of the self. 

You get a glimpse of the self. A little shower comes from the self and that's why everything in the world looks beautiful. 

In the experience of beauty, all 5 senses merge and whichever is dominant, that projects a little bit more. 

Example - if you're hungry the moon may remind you of pancake or cheese. All the 5 senses come together in the experience of beauty.

Beauty is beyond the senses, beyond the mind. Beauty is beyond the intellect. It is in your very being. When you rejoice in beauty, the entire creation rejoices with you.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Waves of emotions

I would say that you should own all the wisdom in the world as yours.

*Chapter 12 - Loss*

Do you really own anything in order to lose it? It was never yours in the first place. Everything comes to you, including your body. 

How long do you think you will have your body? The body belongs to the earth. It belongs to the creation. It is part of it. 

However hard you try, you cannot hold on to it for too long. When you have to let go of your own body, then what can be said about other bodies, however near and dear and beautiful they are. 

They are all so separate. Understand that everything is separate but one thing is not - the spirit. It is never away from you. 

It is part of you and whatever is part of you can never be away from you. Life is such a mystery, you cannot understand it in a linear way. Truth is not linear. It is multi-dimensional. 

You cannot question mysteries. You can just wonder about it. Pleasant things do not happen always. Unpleasant things also happen in the world. 

It's part of the whole set-up. What you can do is to reduce the unpleasant as much as possible. This can be done by spreading love, knowledge and education.

There is crime in the society because of lack of education or wrong education. One thinks that one is a 'somebody' - a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian, a Jewish etc. 

Whatever I identify myself as,

I eliminate the others from me. If I identify myself as a Muslim, I eliminate the non-Muslims from me. 

I don't have a sense of belongingness with them and even if I die it does not matter. I have to identify myself as a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Christian, etc. This is an ego trip that is happening in the world today.

People say that the Bible is great, not because they feel that it is great, but because they are Christians. 

Some may feel that the Koran is great and the last word of God, that it is final because they are Muslims. They want to say that they are great.

Instead they say that the Koran is great, the Bible is great, their religion is great or their country is great. If they are not great, then something that they possess is great.

If you realise that you are great you don't have to hook on to something else to prove your greatness. In the world people are on a trip to prove they are great. 

They don't find anything great in themselves. So they hook onto their religion or politics or countries or whatever and die for it. This is because of lack of education. 

Identifying yourself with race, religion, culture, nationality, etc, limits your awareness, limits your humanness. First and foremost, you are part of the Divine and then you are a human being.

If you can understand and attend to this truth within you then you can bring lot of peace in the environment. I would say that you should own all the wisdom in the world as yours.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Waves of emotions

More meditation, satsang and kriya can change habits

*Chapter 13 - Habits*

When you are pained by a habit very deeply, then you don't justify it. Usually you justify your habits. 

Without justifying, if you really feel the pinch of the habit, then its pain becomes rare to you. At that moment the habit drops. 

If you go to the extent of intensity of feeling the pain and dropping the habit, it leaves you. 

More meditation, satsang and kriya can change habits. Proper company, restrictions in your attitude or keeping yourself busy in some creative work will also change your habits. 

Do you know that chain smokers smoke less when they have a lot to do? When they have nothing to do, they smoke continuously. 

If you keep totally busy, then your habits will drop. They will also drop if you are pained by them. 

If you really feel the pinch and want to get over it then the surrender and prayer wells up. When prayer comes up, it changes your chemistry.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Waves of emotions

*Chapter 14 - Pride, Humility & Luck* 

The very purpose of so many varieties in creation is to somehow bring you back to yourself. 

You are beautiful, you are beauty and in that bliss, all that you need, all that you would want, simply keeps happening. 

Adi Shankaracharya describes it so beautifully - "There is a wish-giving tree in a small island right there in an ocean of milk.

In that island is a beautiful house called chintamani gruhe (awareness) or house of wisdom. In that ocean surrounded by the wish giving tree, is the bed - the couch of Shiva. 

O Mother you are sitting there smiling. And who would worship you? If someone is not lucky, he cannot. Who can love you? Only those who are lucky."

Even to experience beauty you need to be lucky. Don't think of luck in terms of justice or in terms of the analytical mind. 

It is just an expression of the

heart. You realise that you cannot do it with your mind, your abilities or your capabilities. 

It is beyond your comprehension and wildest imagination, then one calls it luck. You can find out 1000 reasons why you are lucky. 

You could be lucky because you are not a frog. Or you are not a fish about to go into the frying pan, then into somebody's stomach, then through the intestine. 

You could feel you are lucky that you are not a lamb. There are innumerable reasons to be lucky. 

Reasons are peripheral, the sense of feeling lucky is primary and vice versa. You could also go on feeling or enquiring why you are unlucky. 

Don't you see this gives a new direction to look at things? Amidst plentitude is the wish-giving tree. So when you feel a lack, then it is a desert. 

But when you feel plenty Jesus also said more will be given to those who have there is abundance. The ocean is a symbol of abundance, meaning everything is present there. 

The consciousness is always referred to as an ocean of milk. In our own consciousness when there is abundance, amidst it is the wish giving tree called siddhis. 

Before you need anything, things keep coming to you. In the midst of that is - knowledge, wisdom, discrimination and sharpness of intellect.

It's not completely spaced out. There is total awareness, aloofness, discrimination and sharpness of intellect. 

In that is house 'shivaakare manch', in that bed which is Shiva innermost innocence, inside wisdom.

Often people who have a lot of wisdom become crooked. There is no innocence. The more one is wise, the more he starts thinking, plotting and manipulating. 

In that bed of innocence, of purity, of transcendental bliss, lies the power of creation, the secret of spiritual glory. The shakti resides in that innermost core. 

And who can worship? If you are not lucky, you cannot be here at all, you could not even do the Sudarshan Kriya. You cannot experience the joy. it is out of question.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Waves of emotions

If we do it consciously, it is mediation. It is much more powerful than sleep

*Chapter 7 - Alignment Of Planets*

There is a story in the Puranas. There was a couple who did not have any children. So they prayed and it is said that God came to them in a dream and asked them what kind of son did they wanted.

A stupid son with 100 years of life or an intelligent one with only 16 years of life? They opted for an intelligent boy with only 16 years of life. 

Of course they got a son and they believed that when he was 15 years old he would die in one year. He was extraordinary, brilliant, and a genius and naturally the parents didn't like the idea of losing such a wonderful son. 

So they prayed and it is said when the death call came, the boy sat in deep meditation and prayed and recited some mantras. He was granted another 16 years. 

Today, people still recite the mantra made by this boy when there is some danger to life. It is well known in India. 

One can remedy the effects of the planets by going beyond time, going beyond body consciousness and the breath consciousness, like in sleep. 

When you sleep, you are not aware of the body, you are not aware of the breath and you are not aware of the world around you. You transcend these. 

You make a shift. It gives you rest and refreshes you. It brings back more life energy into your life. Most of our illnesses are healed just by sleep. 

This is because, in sleep we go beyond time and space, but we do it unconsciously. If we do it consciously, it is mediation. It is much more powerful than sleep

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Waves of emotions

In Sanskrit the word for health is Swastha. It means the one who is in the Self.

*Chapter 6 - Coping With Fear*

Often you think you are a slave of your feelings. If you feel terrible, why do you feel so? You know you have the key and the capacity not to feel terrible and to come out of it. 

This is because the core of our existence is much more powerful than our feelings. It is connected with the infinite energy, the source and the field that we are. 

Then this - our very consciousness - the presence by which our body has grown in the womb and from childhood to adulthood also has the power to heal. 

Our body has everything needed to repair it. Of course from time to time you can take some herbs, vitamins, medicines and food. All this will help. 

There are four sources of energy. They are food, sleep, breath and meditation. You take help from these. 

At the same time know that,

it is the consciousness that is healing, and keeping you healthy. Just close your eyes for a moment. 

Consider who is looking at what's happening. Of course you see with the eyes and listen with the ears. 

But what is that - that mind, that 'I' that 'You', behind those eyes and ears. Just consider the mind behind the senses.

You may be sitting on a chair. Do you need any external aid to know that you are sitting? You don't. You know you are sitting. How do you know? 

Just feel yourself. Feel the mind through which you sense things. Now, open your eyes. The mind is seeing through our eyes. 

The same mind is hearing through the ears. Take your attention back to the source, to the 'someone', the 'something', which is instrumental in gaining all the information.

The mind, the I the memory that registers it, compares it and judges it. This will bring health. In Sanskrit the word for health is Swastha. It means the one who is in the Self.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Waves of emotions

Karmas are impressions in the mind and Love can eliminate all karma

*Chapter 8 - Karma*

Karmas are impressions in the mind. If you watch box office movies, 10 times in a month, then even when you are somewhere else and you look at the sky or close your eyes.

All the box office movies that you saw, roll through your mind. They may come to you in a dream too. These are deep impressions in the mind and they are the karma. Sometimes they get released. 

Sometimes they get reinforced again and again. So we have to make a little effort to release them and the best way is with love. 

Love can eliminate all karma. The second is with breathing. The breath will eliminate it. The third is with meditation, which can also eliminate karma. 

The fourth is with service - any kind of service where you do something good to someone else. And when the soul in that body gets relief, there is a blessing that comes from that soul which brings you good karma. 

The soul of someone who is suffering and to whom you give some relief, will bring blessing to you. Of course, if you are

doing service in order to get some good karma then it is not a service. 

Service is done when you do it as your nature, not even thinking you are doing it. All this is included in love.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Waves of emotions 

Loneliness can only be filled by being alone

*Chapter 10 - Loneliness* 

Someone's company cannot get rid of your loneliness. Even if it does so, it is very short-lived. In spite of being in company, you can be lonely. 

So loneliness can only be filled by being alone. If you can be comfortable being alone for some time, then you will not feel lonely. 

When you don't feel lonely you can spread joy around you. You will not be a boring person. If you are lonely then you can be boring to others and that will make you lonelier. 

If you see that you are bored with your own company then how much more boring must you be for others? There is something common between boredom and love. 

Have you thought about it? It is repetition. When you are in love you repeat. It doesn't make any sense but you go on repeating. 

Have you seen people sending cards on which they write love, love, love,' so many times. If it is written once, it is enough.

But the mind does not get satisfied. It wants to write so many times. Repetition. Repetition brings boredom too. 

So it is a cycle. If you're bored and get more bored and then a spring of love opens up within you. That was the purpose of the rosaries people used. 

When you use a rosary you get so bored, saying the same word a million times. You are so bored that the boredom simply bursts out. 

And then something happens, a fountain of energy rushes through you. Then you come to love.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Waves of emotions

Why do we have depression? We have depression if we don't do any service,

*Chapter 11 - Depression*

Why do we have depression? We have depression if we don't do any service, if we keep thinking about ourselves. 

If you want to get depressed, just sit in a corner and think only about yourself. It is the best way to get depressed. 

Go out into the world. It needs you. Anyway, you are going to die. Before you die at least make this breath and body, useful to people around you. 

If you do so, there is no way that you can get depressed. You get depressed because you are seeking love, joy and comfort somewhere out there. 

Knowledge of the self is just the opposite. It turns the whole thing around. The sign of enlightenment is an absence of depression, because there cannot be darkness in light.

So, the first step is to understand that you are going to die anyway - maybe in another 10,20 years. You

may mark it on a calendar. 

You know the scale may move up and down. This is going to happen anyway. But, feel that you should be of some service to people before it happens and do so. That is something that will really give you a high.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Waves of emotions