Satsang on 13/5/2012 with SriSri

Buddha, Sangha and Dharma

Buddha, Sangha And Dharma

On the spiritual path there are three factors: Buddha, the master or the presence of the enlightened, sangha, the commune or group, and dharma, your true nature. Life blossoms naturally when there is a balance between the three.

The Buddha is a doorway, and the doorway needs to be more charming than what lies beyond so that people come to the doorway. If you are out in the street and there is rain and thunder, or scorching weather, you feel the need for a shelter. You look and find a doorway. Have you noticed that then, the doorway is more inviting and joyful than anything else in the world?

Similarly, the closer you get to the master, the more charm, newness and love you feel. Nothing in the world could give that much peace, joy and pleasure. It’s like depth without a bottom. This is a sign that you have come to the master.

Once you enter the door, you see the world from there, from the eyes of the master. Then in any situation you will think: How would the master handle this? See the world from the eyes of the master and the world looks so much more beautiful as a place filled with love, joy, cooperation and compassion.

Looking through the doorway there is no fear. From inside your home, you can look at the storm and the bright sun too; yet you can be relaxed as you are in the shelter. Such a sense of security, fullness and joy comes. That is the purpose of having a master.

Sangha is charming from a distance, but the closer you get, it pushes all your buttons and brings out all the unwanted things from within you. If you think a group is good it means you are not yet completely with the group. When you are totally part of that group, you will find that some bickering will come up. But you are the one who makes the group so if you are good, your group will also be good.

Sangha has a reverse nature to Buddha. Buddha makes your mind one-pointed; sangha, because it is of so many people, can scatter your mind, fragment it. Once you are used to a sangha, it loses its charm. This is the nature of sangha. Still, it is very supportive. If it were repulsive all the time, then nobody would be part of sangha.

Buddha uplifts with Grace, love and knowledge, Buddha pulls you up from above, and sangha pushes you up from below.

Dharma is to be in the middle. Avoiding extremes is your nature to be in balance, to smile from the depth of your heart, to accept entire existence totally as it is. Often you crave for Buddha and are averse to sangha, and you try to change; but by changing sangha or Buddha, you are not going to change.

The main purpose is to come to the centre deep within you, which means to find your dharma. A sense of deep acceptance for this moment, for every moment, is dharma. All problems and negativity are generated from our mind.

The world is not bad; we make our world ugly or beautiful. So when you are in your dharma, your nature, you will blame neither the world nor the Divine.

Dharma is that which puts you in the middle and makes you comfortable with the world. It allows you to contribute to the world, be at ease with the Divine, to feel part of the Divine. – Sri Sri

Happy Buddha Purnima

Bhagavad Gita

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sri-sri-ravi-shankar/the-bhagavad-gita_b_1178149.html

Terrorists are cowards. Whenever terror has struck in any part of the world, we have heard people say that it is an act of cowardice. A coward runs away from action but harbors all negative feelings and does it surreptitiously.

This is exactly what happened to Arjuna. Arjuna was angry, upset, sad and wanted to run away. In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna said not to be a coward. So, it is an antidote to terrorism. Lord Krishna said, “Bravery is the way — face the war when it is inevitable and do your duty.”

A terrorist is stuck in his identity. He hides it — has no rationale and inflicts pain. Whereas Bhagavad Gita helps one transcend one’s identity, encourages reason and infuses wisdom. In this sense, it could be called the antidote to terrorism.

The duty of a policeman, a soldier or a king is to be impartial for the sake of the nation, whether it is their mentors or relatives. But terrorists are never impartial.

A soldier is brave and a terrorist is a coward. A soldier is protecting and preventing violence and a terrorist is inflicting pain and suffering. The Bhagavad Gita is the scripture of bravery in both realms of physical and metaphysical.

Terrorism is deeply steeped in hatred. An act without hatred is what Bhagavad Gita propounds. The Bhagavad Gita epitomizes the correct action — of righteousness, of upliftment of spirit and an action or duty that ought to be performed even in the most compelling situation.

In the last 5149 years of the existence of the Bhagavad Gita, there is no evidence of someone becoming a terrorist after reading it. In fact, Mahatma Gandhi wrote commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita and it was an inspiration for his non-violent movement. The Bhagavad Gita is a unique scripture which caters to the entire range of human evolution, comprising every level of this vast existence.

Bhagavad Gita stands for poise and equanimity and for performing one’s designated duty. Lord Krishna does not encourage everyone to take the weapons and fight but a soldier cannot sell bananas in the market. He has to take his weapon to bring security to his people.

If Bhagavad Gita is a terrorist scripture then all military academies in the world are nothing but terrorist organizations. Doesn’t this sound strange? Would the courts ban Lenin, Marx and Mao Tso-Tung, who to stay in power inflicted terror on millions?

A terrorist or a coward hides and inflicts pain on others whereas a soldier sacrifices his own life to bring security and peace to people. They both may take the gun but their intentions are poles apart.

The Bhagavad Gita encourages reasoning and dialogue while terrorists are blind to any reasoning and are closed to any form of dialogue.

Interestingly, in any military training all over the world, the soldiers are asked to see the enemies as dangerous objects which need to be eliminated. The psychology behind indoctrination of such an idea is that when they think the enemy is a human being the soldiers are unable to raise their arms. There are many such survival tactics where the army men are desensitized.

A similar situation happened to Arjuna. Lord Krishna went step by step to deal with Arjuna’s emotions, ego, mindsets and concepts. He finally touched on the nature of his spiritual being; revealing him the highest knowledge and making him realize his eternal nature. This brought him enormous strength and then propelled him to perform his worldly duties. A doctor cannot be taken as a dacoit just because he opens up the stomach of the patient.

Lord Krishna says “no sin begets him whose intellect is unattached and free from cravings and aversions, even if he kills the whole world.”

Now, the condition of an intellect free from cravings and aversions itself counters terrorism. Terrorism is done when the intellect is deeply attached and is hateful. The metaphors and the high standards of humanism exhibited in the Bhagavad Gita are unparalleled.

Jesus had said, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.”

In the Quran, there are many verses which talk about striking terror in the hearts of the infidels and cutting off their fingers. By these standards, if you still call Bhagavad Gita a terrorist scripture, then you have to precede such statements by the Bible and Quran.

The fact is that it is not the scriptures that inflict terrorism; it is the misinterpretation of an ignorant and stressed mind which justifies their actions quoting scriptures.

This piece has been written in light of a Russian court case against the Bhagavad Gita. The case ended with the Russian court rejecting the ban.