(JAN 4TH 2004 – CANADIAN ASHRAM)Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

The association of a particular sense object, over and over, creates a sense of craving for it. If you’re used to eating ice cream almost everyday (laughter), then you get craving for it. If you’re used to drinking coffee… You were not born with a coffee craze. (laughter) Nobody is born with a craving for coffee, but you have started a habit within you. That habit has created a craving. How did you start? It didn’t happen one day. Even if you ask the addicts, the addiction doesn’t start in one day. Addiction starts with the repeated experience of the same thing. So repeated experience of a particular thing creates an addiction or a habit. The nature of habit is that it doesn’t give you joy but it gives you pain. To leave that, it becomes a pain… in the neck (laughs). But having it is not giving you bliss or ecstasy. This is the definition for habits. So you are drinking coffee, its not carrying you to heaven, but leaving it gives you headache. Similarly alcohol, drugs… all those who are drunk alcoholics you look at their face.

Its so sad and remorse. They are not in such beautiful/smiling or ecstatic state of consciousness. They are not in a state of consciousness filled with joy. In fact they’re other way round. Not a bit of joy in alcoholics face. Even if you squeeze it, not a drop of joy will come out. (laughter) The alcohol has cleanly dried all that stuff from it. The joy with which one is born. The joy/innocence has been robbed away. Washed out. So alcoholism, sex addiction, any other type of… drug addiction. All these are result of repeated experience or association of a particular sense with the object of a sense. So you think about it and you want it more. And in New York prison, a child abuse criminal was asked what is your desire… before his capital punishment he was asked. He said ban all pornography. I would like all the pornographic magazines to be banned. Because that is what one puts their attention to and that is where the craving begins in the system. More and more and more.

It’s a fine line, you know. So with the association, what happens? Desire for it rises. More. To have it. With the desire what comes next? Weather a desire is fulfilled or unfulfilled anger comes. Whenever someone is angry, behind that anger you will see there is a desire. A craving. The craving brings? Anger. So you get angry at somebody. The next step is you get attachment for somebody. And whomsoever you are angry at, sooner or later you’re going to regret. And that regret brings more attachment to that person. Or that situation or that thing. By regretting you don’t move away from that something, about that something. You go more into it. You will see, whomsoever you hate/you are angry at… you think of them more than anybody else, (even) yourself. You know why you should not hate anybody? Do you know why? The reason?

You shouldn’t hate somebody because you become like somebody you hate. You think of someone whom you love, you have such a nice pleasant feeling arising within you. And you think of someone whom you hate, your nervous system undergoes some distortion. There is a tension/distortion happening within your system. That means what? Your nervous system is becoming or assuming the form of the person whom you dislike. And you keep doing it again and again and again. You get all that impression, your system becomes like them. So when you become like them you get drawn to them. And that is entanglement. Desire or obsession. I can’t call it desire. An OBSESSION brings anger. Anger brings entanglement. And entanglement clouds the intellect. Your becomes blurred. Your wisdom is lost, judgement is lost, sharpness of awareness is lost, your accessing the situation is lost. It’s a chain reaction, one after another. And such a subtle manner it happens, you don’t even realize it. The entanglement weather out of like or out of hate can cloud the intellect. And the clouded/distorted intellect doesn’t let you be in peace.

Doesn’t even bring up the emotions in you. Subtle feelings in you. Any feeling you’ll be getting is grossed within that, violent feelings. You don’t feel lighter when there is hatred within you. Have you noticed? When there is worry in your head, do you feel calm? Do you feel a lighter feeling? And you walk around with a load of worries in your head. And it shows up in your face, in your vibrations, it spreads in your entire environment. And nobody likes to come near you or talk to you or do anything with you. (Lady giggles). Your vibration indicates weather there is lead inside you or there is flowers within you. Are you light like cotton candy within? (laughter) Or are you like a stone inside? What’s happening there? This shows up in your vibrations. In your surroundings. Can’t you see that? You look at someone who’s so worried you come to feel oh there is such a sense of heaviness. And heaviness is contrary to joy, contrary to love and contrary to all that you cherish as human values.

With this the memory is lost. Memory of pleasant things are lost. Life has got two sets of memories. One is the memory of unpleasant things the other is memory of pleasant things. Children often have the memory of pleasant things more than unpleasant things. That’s why they keep themselves cheerful most of the time. And as we grow older, as we lose our innocence, our unpleasant memories increase than the pleasant ones. Say again, the spiritual practices/meditation is to put the wheel back. Is to bring back the pleasant memories more and more and more. And unpleasant memories to almost insignificant amount. So when the memory is lost, the memory of who am I? What do I want in my life?

The memory of reality, the truth. Seeing life in context with the universe that’s called wisdom. If that is lost. There is no peace left. And there is no happiness in life. So the practices, meditation… all these things that you do here, is to withdraw the mind and take it to its source. Even for few minutes. And then you see you feel so fresh, light. How many of you feel like that? And most of the world is missing this key to success in life. What people out there do not know is this simple wisdom, simple knowledge of life… of returning back and coming into action. The self, it referral value, consciousness. (Paras note: Didn’t get that line). Which makes it rich, energetic, pleasant, beautiful. Hmmm? What do you say? (Applause)

So again and again. Pull back your attention from the objects of the senses, into the senses and to the source of mind. Source of consciousness. This journey within, gives you that strength/endurance. Makes you endure all different situations in life. How pleasant/unpleasant they are.

See have you ever expressed your displeasure without getting mad or losing yourself? Huh? Ask yourself have you done it? And those are the moments, which are being beneficial even if you were mad. You can get mad I don’t mind, but not that anger in which you are lost, you are shivering/shaking. Showing the anger… I mean in life it’s impossible to deal in all situations without at least sometimes somewhere showing anger. (Paras note: Shiva symbolism at the bottom *) Don’t expect life to be a sort of flat, bland, goody-goody thing. Sometimes you have to show anger. You have to be angry. It’s alright. Its ok. But those moments have you noticed if it is really not taking away your centeredness? Your peace? That is most important. There was a sage, a rishi, was called Durwasa.

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Usually people, when someone is very angry, they say oh he’s like Durwasa. Terrible temper. He was a sage. A saint with so much anger. You know for that saint, that anger was an exercise. To see weather in spite of all that anger that he didn’t lose himself. Lose the centeredness. Was not afraid of anger. Sometimes you know you’re so sacred of your own anger. “Oh I got angry, oh I lost it, oh I’m so sorry, I’m so stupid, all these years of meditation didn’t take me anywhere.” (mad laughter). “I still get mad, I still lose it.” What are you doing? Self-blame culture have started. Nurturing it. “Oh its useless doing all this meditation. All these years of sadhna gone waste. I still get angry, I can’t improve.” This sort of self-criticism you did, you delve into. This is not… you know. Durwasa reminds you. That was only one example of one rishi who used to get angry. And every time he got angry he did something wonderful to the world. (laughs) Said with every anger that Durwasa had, the world rejoiced. Once it so happened, Durwasa he came to town with his huge gang of disciples. (Guruji does funny gestures. Laughter)

And went to a devotees house between the forest. At that time Kings were living in exile. And he went to their home. Said I’m very hungry. And at that very moment all of them had had lunch, washed all their vessels and put everything out. Everyday they would go fetch food and come and cook and have food. They never used to store food at home. So when everybody had finished their lunch… here comes Durwasa. And with a huge gang of people with him. Now the lady of the house, Draupadhi, she didn’t know what to do with Rishi Durwasa. It’s a custom that whenever a guest comes to your home and their hungry, it’s your obligation to feed them. You don’t do it, its not even considered as a decency, courtesy, to say ‘oh there is no food’.

Can’t even say that, not considered decent. And Durwasa if he gets angry, don’t know? (laughter). The drop of a hat he gets angry. So then Krishna was there. She went to Krishna, please tell me, you’re my brother, you have to do something. How do I do? Durwasa has come with his whole gang. (laughs). So Krishna is always tricky. (laughter). He was too intelligent. As a trickster he know how to handle every situation. He went and spoke to Rishi Durwasa and said ‘oh wonderful, what great luck, what a great opportunity you coming here. You have given such a chance to my sister to host you here. But it would be so nice, you need to take a shower and see you’ve come with all these people, such a long distance and so many of you walking. All the dust has come into your clothes and all.

You need to take a bath! (laughter). There is a nice river and wonderful temperature of water. Why don’t you go take bath.’ So Krishna persuaded him and he said ok I’m going to take a bath. So they went to take a bath. Meanwhile Krishna went to his sister and said show me the vessel, if the vessel has even little bit in it… then I will see what could be done. So Dhraupadhi went to the pot and it was already washed and she took one grain of rice. Was sticking to the pot. Coz it was not washed properly. (Mad laughter). Because when she was washing it, she heard the news that Durwasa is coming! (Crazy mad laughter). That frightened her, so it was not washed properly. One grain of rice was sticking to the vessel. And Krishna took that grain and then he made that sankalpa (intention) and he ate that grain. And said by the time they all took their baths and returned they were so full! Don’t cook any food for us we are so full. We are not hungry any more.

This is one version of the story. (Guruji jokes) I think that’s the correct version, I don’t know. (Extra crazy mad laughter and applause. Other version is one grain multiplied into so much and then all the thousands could eat. It’s the second version. But anyway, weather the rice multiplied or without eating they all felt so full because Krishna at it with the intention. So that’s called Akshay Parkroyal/parkruya (spelling). That means a vessel that never diminishes. Always more that comes. And this happens many times, many times in our satsangs it’s happened. People come, very little food, sometimes people bring 2-3 people. 50-60 people have eaten. Has happened not ones, many times. Many of you know also. (Paras note: Sai Baba and other spiritual homies did it too)

So it is that intention. The attention. And manifestation. That’s how the universe functions. Intention>Attention>Manifestation. So wherever you put your attention, that starts manifesting in your life. So you put too much attention on anger then anger manifests. Too much attention on lust, lust manifests. Greed, greed manifests. So you show anger, without intending to get angry. When the intention is love even anger does good. That’s what the case was with Durwasa. So every time he was angry, some great thing happened on the planet. And he did only good. To all mankind. Are you with me? So observe the intention and put your attention where you have to put it. Whatever you want, that to manifest. Focus on love and let love manifest.

Symbolism: Typed this before but couldn’t find it. Ok so you know there’s many forms of Lord Shiva. Neelakanta is his name for the one with a dark neck/blue spot on the neck. Shiva drank the poison and it settled in his neck as he did not take it in. My first AOL guru told me that the symbolism is that when we’re angry… take it out from your neck upward… as in voice it out/show it in your eyes/etc… but don’t let your heart get into it.

Intention, attention and manifestation (Part II) by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar