Tag Archives: sri sri ravi shankar

Are you happy? By Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

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Are you happy? By Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
What is your commitment in life? You may say you are committed to happiness. Every living creature wants to be happy. Whether it is money, power or sex, you get into it for the sake of happiness. Some people even enjoy misery because it gives them happiness!

To be happy, we seek something. But despite getting it, we are not happy. A school-going boy may think that if he goes to college, he will be more independent, free and therefore happy. If you ask a college-going boy whether he is happy, he feels that if he gets a job, he will be happy. Talk to somebody who is settled in their job or business, you already know what he will say! He is waiting to get a perfect soul mate, to be happy. He gets a soul mate, but he now wants a kid to be happy. Ask those who have children if they are happy. How can they relax until the children have grown up and have had a good education and are on their own? Ask those who are retired, are they happy? They long for the days when they were younger.

All of one’s life is spent in preparing to be happy someday in the future. It’s like making a bed all night, but having no time to sleep. How many minutes, hours and days have we spent our life being happy from within? Those are the only moments you have really lived life. Those were perhaps the days when you were a small kid, completely blissful and happy or a few moments when you were surfing, swimming or sailing or on a mountain top, living in the present and enjoying it. There are two ways of looking at life. One is thinking that, “I’ll be happy after achieving a certain objective.” The second is saying that “I am happy come what may!”Which one do you want to live?

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Live in the moment by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

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Live in the moment by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Life is 80 per cent joy and 20 per cent misery. But we hold on to the 20 per cent and make it 200 percent! It is not a conscious act, it just happens. Living in the moment with joy, alertness, awareness and compassion is enlightenment. Being like a child is enlightenment. It is being free from within, feeling at home with everybody, without barriers.

Don’t judge and don’t worry about what others think of you. Whatever they think, it is not permanent. Your own opinion about things and people keeps changing all the time. So why worry about what others think about you. Worrying takes a lot of toll on the body, mind, intellect and alertness. It is like an obstruction that takes us far away from ourselves. It brings us (worry) fear. This kind of fear is nothing but lack of love. It is an intense sense of isolation.

This can be handled by relaxing and doing some breathing exercises. Then you will realise that, “I am loved, I am part of everybody and I am part of the whole Universe.” This will liberate you and the mind will take a complete shift. You will then find so much harmony around.

To find harmony, it is not as if you have to physically seek it by sitting somewhere for years and practise. Whenever you are in love and feel joyous, your mind is in the present. At some level, to some degree, everybody is meditating without being aware of it. There are moments when your body, mind and breath are all in harmony. That’s when you achieve yoga. The art of living lies in the present moment.

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Stumbling Into Infinity: An Ordinary Man In The Sphere of Enlightenment by Michael Fischman

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A story of Michael as he moves from learning TM (Transcendental Meditation) to being a devotee of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and all the ups and downs in-between. First of all big up Ameet for hooking me up with a pre-publication version. From the first few pages I was already getting some answers to questions that had been brewing and stewing for too long. I could identify with Michael on nearly everything… apart from all that crying. I guess in the presence of Guruji you can help yourself so I’m not judging ;o) I not only identified with his love for writing and spirituality but also acceptance issues with folks and especially the ego. In fact he talks about his ego and insensitivity in the book but while reading it you don’t really need to be told… especially a when it came to talking about other cultures. The Caribbean one took the cake… wont mention what he said but sounded like one person judging a whole nation and their lifestyle.

The book takes you on so many journeys and I couldn’t tell if I could identify more because I’m in Art of Living so I’ll skip the obvious AOL bits. I can’t believe how fortunate this guy is as he was there as a pioneer with Guruji spreading the knowledge and techniques. He got to meet some amazing people on the way and have experiences of hanging in there no matter what health or emotional issues come up to falling in love and not getting the girl. It was like an AOL version of Karate Kid. Oh and the miracles… he mentions seeing blue light coming out of Guruji’s hands and nostrils. See these were bits I didn’t get… for his personal issues he’d write paragraphs about but something like seeing the light… I wanted to know more about that. But yeah… lots of healings with the techniques or with Guruji tapping roses on people. One new thing I learnt was that if you have violence in the ashram they have to do some yagya thing called Rudram Abhishekam to clean the area codes from violence. I’d say the book started out great and then when down mostly because I’ve already heard stories like these from other devotees, disciples… and Guruji fanatics that I like to call ‘gurupies’ (mix of groupies and gopis). Big up Michael though for sharing experiences a devotee would die for and Ameet again for hooking me up just when I needed it.

Contents
- Prologue

- Part One
1: The Disappearance of Faith
2: The White Album
3: A Taste of India
4: The Dharma Hunter

- Part Two
5: When the Student Is Ready…
6: Journey Into Stillness
7: The Alchemy of Doubt
8: Sitting Close
9: First AIDS Course
10: Teacher Training
11: Surrender & Samadhi
12: The Diamond Cutter
13: Siddha, Buddha & the Amazing Tiger Swami
14: The Heart of Desire
15: A Fight at the Ashram

- Part Three
16: The Caribbean King
17: Coming Home
18: The Way of Grace

- Epilogue
- Acknowledgements
- Further Exploration

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Friends by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

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Friends by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
When you’re with good companions and you have to part you will feel lighter from knowledge, helpful things… basically good companions will make you feel lighter with constructive and positive things. Bad company makes you feel heavy, dull, dense, angry, jealous, competitive… basically negative stuff. Once you realize duality then you can let go of good and bad and realize company is just that. It went something like that… hopefully I find that one again.

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Fear by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

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Fear by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Because fear is love standing upside down, everything that can be interpreted with love can also be interpreted with fear. A child clinging to its mother can be understood in both ways – the child clings out of love or out of fear. This primal instinct of fear can be totally transformed through awareness of Divine love. Fear is an impression of the past reflecting the future of the present. When people deny fear, they become egocentric; when they recognize and accept fear, they go beyond it – they become free from it. Total lack of fear is possible only in utter chaos or in utmost orderliness. Neither a saint nor a fool has fear, but everywhere in between there is fear. Fear is essential to preserve orderliness in the world. It is a primal instinct.
- Fear of death preserves life.
- Fear of wrong maintains right.
- Fear of sickness encourages hygiene.
- Fear of misery makes you righteous.
A child has a pinch of fear so it is careful and alert while walking. A pinch of fear is necessary to keep things moving smoothly. Do not try to eliminate fear. Just meditate and know that you are nobody or that you belong to someone special.

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Freedom by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

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Freedom by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
We usually do only that which is purposeful, useful and rational. Everything you see is seen through the rational mind. But intuition, discovery, new knowledge go beyond the rational mind. Truth is beyond the rational mind. The rational mind is like a railroad track that is fixed in grooves. An airplane/balloon can fly/float anywhere. Some people step out of the rational mind in order to rebel against society. They want to break social law for the sake of their egos. They do it out of anger, hatred, rebelliousness and to attract attention. This is not stepping out of the rational mind, though they may think it is. We step out of the rational mind when we do something that has no purpose. Accepting that, as an act, makes it a game. Life becomes lighter. If you are stuck with only rational acts, life becomes a burden. Suppose you play a game without a thought to winning or losing, just acting irrationally. Performing an act without any purpose attached to it is freedom, like a dance. So just step out of the rational mind. You will find greater freedom, an unfathomable depth, and you will come face to face with reality. Reality transcends logic and the rational mind. Until you transcend the rational mind, you will not gain access to creativity and the infinite. BUT if you perform an irrational act in order to find freedom, then it already has a purpose and meaning. It is no longer irrational. It has already spoiled its own possibility. (Confused? Hehehe that’s the whole point of knowledge… keeps you asking questions.)

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