Living The Mystery of Life

Title

LIVING THE MYSTERY

OF LIFE

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Sri Sri Publications Trust, India

Copyrights Sri Sri Publications Trust

This digital edition is published by

arrangement with Aslan Business Solutions

Digitally Published By:

Aslan Reads -An imprint of Aslan Business Solutions

Borivli, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Email: hello@aslanbiz.com;

Website: www.aslanbiz.com & www.aslanreads.com

Physical Editions Published by:

Sri Sri Publications Trust

The Art of Living International Centre

21st KM, Kanakapura Road,

Udayapura, Bangalore – 560082

Email: info@srisripublications.com;

Website: www.sattvastore.com

Toll Free: 1800-258-8888

© All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the publisher

ISBN: 978-93-85898-06-8

Layout by: Sri Sri Publications Trust

Contents

Title

I am Space and Eternity

Forgetting One’s Own Inner Nature

Naturalness and Happiness

Presence is the Language of the Heart

Master, God and the Big Mind

Krishnamurti and Spiritual Techniques

Meditation and Love

Love and Happiness

Constant Change and Divine Vibrations

The Heaven of Problems and Distrust

Consciousness Changes the Environment

Ego

The Stars are Crying Every Night

Grace and Gratitude

Prayer

The Evolution from Head to Heart

Is There a Need for Meditation and for a Guru?

Enlightenment is Easy

Atmagyan

The Art of Living & The International Association for Human Values

The Founder

The Art of Living In Service Around The World

The Art of Living Stress Elimination Programmes

The International Association for Human Values

International Centres

I am Space and Eternity

In the world, communication happens at two levels. At one level you communicate through your head, and then you hear through your ears. At the other level, you communicate through your heart. And only then your heart can hear.

To communicate from your heart, you have to become hollow and empty. Any bit of dust, some change of position here or there, triggers the communication in the head.

When you go to sleep there is ‘no other’. There is no rich, there is no poor, there is no male sleep, there is no female sleep. There is no special American sleep or German sleep or Indian sleep. No winter sleep or summer sleep. It is oneness, there is nothing else. Everything merges, dissolves and disappears. When that happens, you get deep rest. Otherwise it can be a big burden.

If you go carrying the world in your head always, you can go mad! If the world is with you only for 12 to 15 hours a day, then you live a sane and healthy life. If the world enters your brain for 24 hours, you would go mad.

In sleep you lose yourself, you have no consciousness. Be aware of that void or that fullness every moment, - that is the Self.

How can we do that? Very simple. In, this whole world, whatever has happened until now does not exist. It does not exist now, you only carry its impression. Drop it, let that impression go now! Until this moment everything has been like a dream. Tomorrow, the next moment, all that would happen in another 20 years, 40 years, will also be like a dream. It will come and go, so what?

What happens inside you is, this world which you have created in your mind starts disappearing and dissolving. The mind sinks into your heart. If the mind becomes heavy, it starts bothering you. Let go of all heaviness – relax and be simple. The mind has a peculiar law, when it becomes light, it sinks and when it becomes heavy, it boils. The sinking of your mind into your heart is called surrender. Surrender is security. Otherwise there is no security. If there is no surrender, there is fear, and isolation. When surrender happens, fear disappears.

What does surrender mean? Love, pure love and trust in the state of Being – expression of love and trust in action. Without that fullness, life is impossible. If one wants to be oneself, to blossom totally and feel that completeness, then one has to become hollow and empty. What happens in surrender? You empty yourself of all craving, clinging, hankering and everything. You simply drop all that has hurt you.

During the course today, I wanted to ask how I can learn to be without doubt when you are not here, as when you are here.

I am not the body. I am there always.

But I feel different when you are sitting there...

This difference will disappear gradually. We connect ourselves with the body so much, but not with the mind, the inner Being. If we start connecting with the inner Being, this is always available, all the time. You may see a body here, holding the beads or whatever; but to me I am not here at all! I am like air, I have gone into everything. I have entered into you, into that room, in the seat, into the floor, into the plants. I am in and out of everything, I am not solid. I am like air, like space. If you sit in meditation, you can feel me inside you. This is what happens: when you really blossom, you become nobody, you disappear.

Why does time exist?

Time exists only in the mind. When the mind disappears, time disappears. In the stillness, one doesn’t feel the time. Then you are in eternity. And you have been like this eternally and I have been like this, - eternal, in this moment.

Do you see eternity? We can sit here for 10,000 years, nothing in, nothing out, dropping everything. All that we try to cling on to makes us heavy. We want to be great, we want to have these powers, we want to have joy, we want to be like somebody else. So what? It stops you from being permanent. Instead of becoming a great healer and putting your hand on somebody to heal them, all these desires pull you down. You are already great, you have everything.

When you become conscious, then you completely let go. Let go all your hankering to be powerful, to be somebody, to be great, to be this and that. Weightless and empty, joyful and smiling. If you have desires? Then you can’t be empty. Once you are empty, that is it.

All wishes are also mine. A wish arises when you are unaware of your capability to do. It is always about what you don’t have. You don’t wish to sit when you are sitting. When you drive a car, you don’t have the wish to learn to drive a car. A thought arises and the action follows.

To be attentive, to be creative – is that a desire or not?

Spontaneous! When I say, Be void of wishes, I don’t say, Be against the wishes. People misunderstand me. In a state of completeness, wishes simply do not arise. Be aware of the fullness. Just like when you are in Marburg, you don’t have to remind yourself every day, I am in Marburg, I am not in Hamburg or in Frankfurt. Do you have to remind yourself? All that is there spontaneously.

Forgetting One’s Own Inner Nature

Very often I feel like I’m in a prison. What can I do about it?

That is a good sign. Many people do not even know that they are in a prison. This is the first step. The next step is to do some practices, inner practice, like pranayamas, breathing exercises, meditation, Kriya, etc. Then you feel how the mind opens up and becomes free from it.

I have followed several techniques for quite some time. Now I feel that I have got stuck and do not proceed any further.

Do the Kriya and see. Sometimes such phases come, but it is just a passing phase.

These days, many young people follow some Guru and become lenient and alienated. They just leave their worldly responsibilities and go away. What are your views on this?

One has to do both. One has to be in the world, live like a normal human being and help people. At the same time one should not just get lost in it. Just eating, drinking, sleeping, and gossiping is not the world, is not life! Life is something more. Being a spiritual person means being more responsible, not irresponsible. Spirituality is not only just loving one’s own family, not caring only for limited responsibilities but also taking more responsibilities – to be able to love more and more people. People go astray in many ways. Some people leave the world using anything as an excuse. People get into drugs, alcohol – they find all sorts of ways to hide. True spiritual awakening will not make people go astray. If people have gone astray, they themselves have used that as an excuse to go astray. It is not because of the spirituality.

What is the difference between your teachings and the teachings of other Gurus? Are they linked somewhere?

Nothing in this world is unlinked, everything is linked. See the electricity in all these different forms, in all these different houses. It is all linked, because it is the same line that runs throughout. The same electricity is in this room, in that room, in this lamp, in that lamp, in that machine and in that house, isn’t it? If you can see the linking factor in this world, then you will know that everything is linked. And it does not matter.

Every one of us is linked with each other. See, our breath! We do not have our own breathing space. Do you say, This is my breath, this is my air? No, the air that goes into you goes to others around you too. Subtler than the air is life energy. That is all pervading, it is everywhere.

Does beauty or good and bad exist in reality?

They exist in the mind. Beauty and ugliness, good and bad, they all exist in the mind. What you call beauty is not there in reality, it is in your perception. It is the same with ugliness. You may say that this cactus is very ugly; however a cactus is also beautiful. It may be thorny but you keep it in the house. It is very beautiful.

If there was no human being to reflect on good and bad, then the good and bad could be removed from the world and chaos would not exist.

It does not exist in the world, it exists in the mind. And the mind is a part of our life, so it does exist at some level. If someone offers you something or someone treats you well, then you say, Oh, this person is good, he talked to me nicely. If someone comes and hits you, then you say, This person has been bad to me, he behaved very badly. We cannot rule out good or bad, as long as the mind, life and society is there, there is a relative good and relative bad.

There is nothing absolutely good or absolutely bad. For example, wood is wood and from one angle everything is wood. The door is wood, the piano is wood, the table is wood, the chair is wood, the floor is wood, everything is wood. But from the point of view of utility, they all have different uses. You cannot use the piano as a door or a door as a bed. That is a relative aspect, and it should be honoured, then life is more orderly. It is all right to have some chaos because chaos also contributes to growth. But if chaos itself becomes too much, then that becomes another order of chaos. So then there is no chaos, the chaos itself has become an order!

But due to a few people or one person there is so much chaos sometimes, like the war in Germany and in many other countries. There was so much suffering.

These situations have been there all over the world. You buy plastic garbage bags from the store, then what you do? You keep them in the shelf. But when you use a bag, you take it out; fill it with garbage and put it in the garbage dumpster, you don’t store it in the cupboard again. It is the garbage inside the plastic bag which stinks not the plastic bag. People have tendency of violence but they stuff it in bags. Violence can be done in the name of a country, in the name of communism, or social system, or in the name of religion.

Religion is not the cause of fighting. The tendency in the mind of people is the real cause of fighting. Stress is the cause of fighting, and fighting can easily be justified in the name of religion. On the surface, it definitely appears as religion. All the fights in the world are in the name of religion, all over the world, all through history.

Yes, I know, but my question is who protects the victims and what is the solution to this major problem?

Who protects? When you ask, Who protects, then you also have to ask, Who destroys? Isn’t it? You can say that intelligence can protect, and it’s the same intelligence which destroys.

When the intelligence is coupled with love, with the heart, oneness, awareness, then that intelligence protects. Intelligence combined with love becomes the protecting factor. And intelligence devoid of love becomes a destroying factor.

What happens in society is, that we teach people to be intelligent; however we do not teach them to be loving or friendly. Take for example your own life. You went to school; you were with 20, 30 or 40 children? You spent five to six years with them. Were you friendly with all those 20, 30, 40 children? No, you had only three or four close friends with whom you were talking, quarrelling, fighting and making