What Sri Sri says in Guru Purnima 2008

Courtesy from Bawa’s blog … Jai Gurudeva!

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Here is the transcript of Guruji’s talk in the Satsang on Guru Poornima, 18th July 2008 (slightly edited for better readability):

How many of you are thinking “Guruji say something?”…Huh?
What is there to talk?
What is there to talk? Hmm..?
We all are happy & celebrating

Meditation, singing, celebrating on Guru Poornima day is considered very auspicious thing. Certain days in a year when you participate in satsang and meditate it compensates for the other days which you have not done….hahahaha 🙂
That doesn’t mean…that you can take this as an excuse for not meditating everyday.
One of those days is Guru Poornima. In satsang you participate and get the merit of not doing for many days (during the year)….hmmmm

(someone asked Guruji why are you so sweet)
I am made like this….. Apple is sweet, that is how it is made, apple is sweet by nature… isn’t it?
Hmmmmmmmmm
What else?

Yes, today you all can have one wish…whatever wish you want to have…just before going to bed make a wish in your mind, our intentions are powerful and they manifest in the right congenial time, at right place with right attitude, they just click.

All blessings are there for everybody… lots of blessings
Universe is showering blessing. You only have to catch it. Open to it

You know in Sanskrit Guru means ‘heavy’ which is weighty, Guruji is light but words of Guru is weighty and Gravitational force is called Gurutva in Sanskrit.
So many meanings… 🙂
Hmmmmmm

You know our 5 fingers , all the 5 planets are there. Thumb indicates – victory (u win) right!! Who wins? One who fights… who fights? Commander in chief military (this is Mars).   2nd Finger (index finger) is Jupiter is Guru…..its the indicator…when you want to show the way its like this… Throughout the world this is how the way is shown… This is Jupiter…..what do u do with this? Pointer indicates. What does Guru do? He indicates/ points out. So that is Jupiter.  Saturn, one of the farthest planet is Saturn, the biggest, tall, Saturn is servant. You know servant has to good and well built, if the servant is weaker then master then how can he carry the luggage. Servant have to carry the luggage of the Master, king or anybody for which he has to be strong. Tall servant.   Then the king…where do u put your ring? jewels, that is ring finger (this is sun) nobody puts ring here to the thumb, but where do they put the ring? In the ring finger…in fact we call it ring finger. King cannot stay alone but he needs servant along with him. So this is sun cannot stand alone.  The little one is the business one, its mercury. on one side of the Sun stands Mercury- business man and on the other side is Saturn- servant.
 
And Jupiter. So all the planets are in the hand, its indicated when Jupiter and Mars are together meaning the power is together with wisdom in the commander in chief that is called chin mudra.   And when all the king, servant, business man all together its chinmay mudra its higher consciousness in society, cause when wisdom dominates its higher consciousness. And there is beauty, love and abundance.

So whole story is in the fingers.  And children when they are born they put on this mudra, all the babies sleeps in chin mudra , they are so wise. Chinmay mudra. Carefree mind. Joyful mind is chinmay mudra, baby sleeps on that and when they start walking. They suck the thumb u know…is means …now no more in 4 legs….its now 2 legs and 2 arms….so the nature teaches us the whole yoga. Its very good…very good…

See the guru principle is prevalent in all the culture of the society of the world. Even here in America you can’t play soccer without a coach or mentor. You need a guide, even when you need to write P.hd, no body will give you doctorate when you don’t have u guide. Am I correct…? You have to work under some guide.

And word guide comes from the original Sanskrit word Guru. Sanskrit its Guru and in English it becomes guide, so in every field you need a mentor and in a field which is so abstract and subtle like spirituality, consciousness then definitely needs a mentor and that is a Satguru!

Mother is a first guru for everybody and each one of you should play the role of Guru for at least some people in your life. When you want nothing from them other then their own happiness their own progress. Can you be guru like that for some people? Like you become father or mother to somebody you should also be Guru to someone. Don’t have to tell them “I am your Guru”. Now you have to play the role of the Guru. Never, assert that u are a Guru. Be light like a flower that is Art of Living. Do u see what I am saying?

Play the role of the guru in the sense you are caring for them unconditionally. You care for them without expecting what they are going to do for you and what the result is going to be. Unconditional care for someone. Start with few and it can spread to many…that you all can do…isn’t it?

Can everybody be?
 
In fact Guru Tatva it is principal light within us, the light in our heart, the light in our life. Hmmm… Viveka….wisdom that tatva also dawns …ok….

So….when you come here in this path, in this Knowledge you will never go empty handed. Just ask, there is proverb its “Ask and it shall be given!”….that is what Guru Poornima all about…

Definitely!….ask it shall be given…

Lets us sing few bhajans!

QA with SriSri

Don’t make an effort to see the divinity in someone. Divine contains all the qualities. You have a concept of divinity in your mind as someone gentle and nice and then someone is not gentle, you don’t see them as divine. Divinity consists of all the opposites because divinity is totality. So see the whole world as a play, as a drama then you will be able to give a big laugh.

Q:Guruji, tell me what to do with my ego. It is disturbing me so much in my life.
Sri Sri:Just give a big hug to your ego. Let it be there. Why do you worry about the ego? Why do you want to get rid of it? First lesson in art of living is accepting. Whatever you don’t accept will be on your neck….will be bothering you.  Accept and it will stop bothering you. Wake up and look at the whole universe.
Wake up to the fact that time is enormous. Time is infinite and see that in contrast with your life. These 60-70-80 years of your life is so insignificant in this vast ocean of time, then what is ego, where is ego? You are nothing.  You are nobody; you are so insignificant in this planet. The planet will go on. 6 billion / 6 and a half billion people like ants dying and again being born.  So what! Who cares whether you live or die …it’s all finished.
Anyway it’s going to be finished in a few years. Now the environmentalists are even warning you. The word will end in 2012 or 2013. Another five years to the planet. Scientists are saying water is going to go up, sea level is going to rise. Many countries in the world are in danger. Where is your ego? What is your ego?
Wake up and see this whole existence. If you can’t, if you are little sleepy, drowsy then just make friends with your ego. Keep it. Oh I want to have a big one. Let it be there. Grow your ego as much as you want. Don’t fight it. When you wake up and see it dissolves. If you don’t want to wake up, sleep with your ego. Keep it hold it tightly. There is no problem.
In between when you feel you have an ego and want to get rid of it that’s when all the problems come. Just be natural. Being natural is the antidote for ego or agree to be foolish.  Why can’t you be foolish? You’re anyway foolish. When you are not conscious then somebody anyway calls you foolish. Because if there are some people who are more intelligent than you…in their eyes you are anyways foolish.  If you consciously agree to be a fool this trouble of yours will disappear.
I think it’s an important role that everyone should play in their life.  Act being foolish for some time….then you will not be afraid of someone calling you a fool. Biggest armor for ego is it doesn’t want to be called a fool by anybody. So if in your eyes you are a fool the ego has evaporated. That’s it or it has expanded…. limitless.
I think that’s the best thing. In your own eyes….you know in your heart that you are a fool, but you don’t accept. You don’t agree with it. You don’t want to exhibit, show that you are foolish. One day act being a thorough fool. You will see you are free from this ego troubling you day and night. Be a buffoon.
Just for a day and then you will be so natural. No point in being a buffoon in closed doors…out in the streets. There should be hundreds of people seeing you being a buffoon…and call ‘Hey fool’ be a laughing stock of people even for a day you will find yourself at peace.

Q:How can I know when my action is right? Maybe it is better to wait and let things happen in their own time?
Sri Sri:You have a question. You have the answer. How do you know when action is right? Wait for its result. Some results will show immediately. Some results will come in it’s own time.  What all you need to see is whether your intention is correct. If your intention is right, action will always be directed.  But if in the intention there is something wrong, even though the action seems to be good at face value it is not going to yield good results.

Q:Thank you Guruji. I saw you getting out of the car smiling today. At that moment I felt love for life and you.  What to do to feel like that all the time?
Sri Sri:Treasure those moments in your heart. Don’t crave for them. Craving will be an impediment but treasuring those memories will be of real value.  In life you get few moments where the spark gets ignited, where the fountain bursts open, that initial moment when the fountain bursts open is so important so beautiful. If a fountain is running for several hours you don’t pay attention.
Same way moment you jump into hot tub the first moment is really the thrill. If you are remaining for 5-10 minutes you don’t feel it any more. Those initial moments of contrast are so valuable. Those moments are to be treasured.

Q:How can I get courage to reach my goal ?
Sri Sri: First of all, you think you don’t have courage ? You simply have to know you don’t know what you have! If you think you don’t have your trying to have it is not going to work.  Next thing, know you have it. You have the courage. Even then you can’t do it. You have fear.  Know you are not alone. The divine is with you….a greater force is your great strength. Ok?

Q: What happens when people die. Where do we go after that?
Sri Sri:We will take up this tomorrow.

Q: Guruji what is infinity ?
Sri Sri:   <<   >>.  That is it !!!! Where words cannot touch, words and thoughts return that is infinity. That’s why in Sanskrit they said infinity is truth and knowledge ” Satyam Gyanam Anantam”   God is infinite.

Q: Guruji, of the five elements , two are male (fire and air), two are female (earth and water) so what is space ?
Sri Sri: Space is neutral (laughter) Actually this is just one form of understanding. This is beyond gender. Mother earth is represented as female again akash (space) cannot be classified as any gender, but we have to look beyond this. Don’t get caught up with this.

Q: when do we know we are becoming a deciple from a devotee?
Sri Sri: Next !!

Q:Guruji, to ask you an intelligent question, we need to plan. It does not happen spontaniously. How does one balance spontaneity and planning?
Sri Sri: This is spontaneous !!  (laughter) but you can be planned an yet be spontaneous. This intelligence is to be spontaneous and yet be planned. Ignorant one gets caught up in planning and there fore losses spontaneity.

Question : Guruji, when does doubt rise in love ?
Guruji : you know doubting is the nature of the mind. For e.g . when someone says you are too good, we start doubting. When some one says oh you are no good, than you don’t doubth that. You doubt your happiness n=but you dongt doubt your probl;ems. You have to simply understand that life is love and love is not just an emotion, it is your very existence.

Q:Dear Guruji, how to protect myself against negative emotions of other people. I’m very sensitive and quickly overwhelmed by negative emotions of other people.
Sri Sri:Know you are such a positive person that any negative emotion comes you turn it into a positive. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be scared of others negative emotions.  You don’t know. It can come to you anytime…waking, dreaming or sleeping. But it doesn’t affect you when you are sleeping, does it?  Because you don’t know, when you are sleeping any negative emotions from anywhere in the world can pass through you.
You have the ability to transform negativity into positivity. You are much more than negative and positive emotions. Nothing can touch you. A cloud cannot do anything to a rock. Be like a rock. Emotions are like clouds they come and caress the stone and move away.
No rock on top of a mountain is scared of a cloud saying ‘Oh dark clouds are coming. Or white clouds – O I love them!’ Be solid. You are radiating sun. You radiate energy. The negativities are like clouds. Observe it…know it.
Someone is angry and they pass by, their anger catches onto your mind. You feel that anger is welling up inside.. watch it as a cloud.  Laugh at it or take a deep breath and say ‘Hmmmm’. But don’t keep doing it all day. ‘O negative energy is coming so I am going to say Hmmm’. They will send you to a mental hospital. Look at anybody and say ‘Hmmmm’.
You observe….watch. You will see emotions come for a second and vanish.  When they seem to grip you take a couple of deep breaths and sometimes make Hmmm noise you will see it has transformed, vanished. Don’t be scared of others negativities.

Q:Advaita and bhakti we need both in daily life. How can we effectively incorporate this in daily life even though they seem contradictory?
Sri Sri:Life is full of contradictions. …sometimes you eat cold ice cream, sometimes you want hot tea. If you ask me how can I eat cold ice cream and hot tea, both are a part of life. You want both, sometimes this…sometimes that.
In the same way it happens in your life naturally and that’s how it is in nature. On the atomic level there is only one thing “the whole universe is made up of one substance but on the molecular level they are different, there is duality”.
Molecules are a reality. The diversity is a reality. When you go further deep into diversity you find the uniformity. There is union, the oneness of atoms. That is also a reality.
The oneness of sub-atomic particles is a reality and diversity of molecular structure is also a reality….they coexist at the same place, at the same time.  In the same way, Bhakti and love and devotion can co-exist with awareness. It is all one…because bhakti and devotion is not an action. It is a state of mind, not an emotion. Bhakti is the nature of one’s being. It is a pinnacle of emotion and the nature of one’s self, so that doesn’t vanish, though it is experienced in duality more vividly.  As reality it dos not contradict the oneness or Advaita.

Q:If everything is changing what is it that which is untouched, permanent?
Sri Sri:Everything is impermanent. This is what is now…and only then you can know.  It is easy to know, to see that things are impermanent. So when this understanding becomes clear then you see the reference point by which
you see change.  There has to be a reference point which is not changing in order to know everything is changing. If everything is changing, there is no way to know unless there is something that does not change. When you know everything is changing, and then turn inward you will see that there is something so unique…so beautiful that does not change.
It is an indirect experience. Adi Shankara, the exponent of Advaita philosophy called it aparokshanubhuthi – indirect experience. Paroksha means indirect. Anubhoothi – the non indirect experience.  You can’t directly experience and not indirectly. It is neither this nor that, you can neither catch it nor miss it. Nobody can miss it. Yet nobody can catch it. That is the real mystery and that is what life is all about.
[Nobody can say that I have never slept in my life, yet no one can say I know sleep. It is in your experience yet you do not know it. That one thing is sleep…that one thing which causes the sleep, which is in sleep and which enables you to wake up from sleep is the self. That is even more a mystery, without which you can’t exist. There is no existence at all and yet it is not felt or known.  Through knowledge, through grace, that is self knowledge.

Q: Guruji, Why am I not like you?
Sri Sri: This is my wonder too!! But I feel you are like me. If you look from my point of view you will see we are not different. You and me are not separate. Can air be like yours cand mind? Like can you say this is my air and that is your air?!?! No! Sunlight, water, cannot be two. The one which you think is yours and mine actually they are not separate.

Q: Guruji, can you please explain the meaning of Gyatri mantra?
Sri Sri: Oh! Gyatri mantra encompases the whole universe. There are 24 letters that make gyatri mantara. There are 24 vertebra in our spinal cord. One is omkar, two becomes So hujm, then like wise 16 and then 24 becomes Gyatri Mantara. Gyatri Mnatra is the expansion of that one omkar. If one is instructedyou can can certainly chant the mntra. The meaning of the gyatri mantra is let the divinity sink through my intellect. Let our life be purified. But again if you just say Ohm, that also means the same.

Q: Guruji, this mandap is like a Srichakra. Can you explain the essence of Srichakra?
Sri Sri: It is nice no?!?! Then just sit and meditate. Why do you wantto know the meaning and the essence etc!?? I myself don’t know the meaning!! (laughter!!)

Q: Guruji, the imbalances in the body, (vata,pitta, kapha) causes a lot of other problems. How does one handle the vata Imbalance?
Sri Sri: Consult a Ayurvedic doctor, and triphala, it will bal;ance the imbalance. Also drink a lot of water. Eat food on time. Do asanas do pranayama, do Sudarshan Kriya. All this will help.

Q: Swami Ramakrishna had said that Vivekananda will have to go once he comes to know who he was. How did he know this?
Sri Sri: No no that is not correct. It is not like that.

Q: Guruji why does congeneital disorder happen?
Sri Sri: I don’t know. Question continues.

Q: Why did God do this to the children?
Sri Sri: Will put up a complain against God. Sometimes because of improper food this may happen. 

Q: Guruji, when interest starts developing towards devotion, what should one do?
Sri Sri: Good. Very good. But simultaneously you must take care of the responsibilities as well. One should not run away.

Q: Guruji, we are asking you questions everyday. Can you please let us know what have we missed out on asking you!?!
Sri Sri: You should only have one question. “Who am I?” And that question you should ask yourself. That question itself is good enough to get that dive in you to go inward.

Q: Guruji, is it ok to donate some body parts after we die?
Sri Sri: Yes.. yes. It is definitely ok.

Q: (Question asked by a physically challenged person) Guruji, what is moksha?
Sri Sri: Good .. good very good!! The desire to know what is moksha is a good thing. Are you doing better now? Yes! Wow!! How much better do you feel now? 75% Wow!! Very good!!

Q: Guruji, how do you become more disciplined?
Sri Sri: Be less feverish. If you are attached to the benefits then you become feverish. But when you have a commitment, then you automatically become more discipline.

Q: Guruji what is prarubdha?
Sri Sri: I have spoken about it in ‘Intimate note to a sincere seeker’.

Q: Guruji is it necessary to go to temples periodically? Does not worship happen when we are doing seva and meditation?
Sri Sri: Yes yes seva is a form of worship.

Q: Guruji, can you tell us about the swami who is sitting next to you?
Sri Sri: Swami yogananda ji is 99 years old. He does wonderful yoga. His teeth, his eyes, his stomach, everything is perfect. He has been with Bhagat singh, during those times.. He wants to live for more 100 years.  Ask him what he eats, and he will tell you, you should eat only once.  (laughter!!)

Q: Guruji you have given so many techniques. Are techniques important to pursue in the path?
Sri Sri: The root meaning of the word technique is ‘tantra’ these techniques are there to help one overcome obsession and other things in the mind It is not just a way of life.

Q: Guruji, we have so many profound experiences. What is its significance of experiences in our life?
Sri Sri: Don’t spent so much on your experiences so much on your experiences. Commitment is more important. There is a connection between the mind and the mood etc. Like the moon waxes and wanes you experience feelings accordingly. Pleasant feelings come and go, unpleasant feelings come and go Who cares how you feel? Love is your very existence. Love is not just an emotion. Don’t get caught up with feelings. Become strong. Your smile should be so strong you know. How many of you feel really strong? Many of you could not relate to the person who you were before? Is n’t it?

Q: What should be our goal in life? What does this hall (Referring to Vishalakshi Mantap) signify?
Sri Sri: Goal in life? Good question. Its good for you to ponder. This hall (laughter!!) Tell me something, you come from the city how do you feel after coming inside this hall? You feel energetic, yeh you feel good right? That’s the objective. That’s the significance of this hall.

Q: Guruji, we are always smiling since the time we met you. How do we spread this smile around?
Sri Sri: You have to talk to people. Bring people to knowledge.

Q: Guruji what is the difference God and Guru?
Sri Sri:God is like space, and space is everywhere. Inside you there is space, inside me there is space. God is the space ok let me put it in this way. There are electromagnetic waves. But you cannot actually see them right? But you can experience through television. Do you see what I am saying? The electromagnetic waves manifest in the form of television. You can only see the sky through the window. You cannot see the sky if there is a closed wall!! Can you? No. We are all made up of love and the guru is the embodiment of love. That’s why they say, God, atman, Guru, self are all one and the same. That means we don’t have to worry about anything. You simply become compassionate and spread love.and smile.]

Q: How to get out of entanglements?
Sri Sri: By doing pranayamas, sudarshan kriya, meditation. Because when you do these your vision expands and the smaller things drop away.

Q: Around the Guru, there are always distractions. How to overcome these?
Sri Sri: The moment you recognize that you have got distracted, then you have started coming back to the source. So when you are here for meditation and you feel like doing something else, know that you are moving away from knowledge, the Guru.and when you recognize that, you become focused again.

Intention, Attention, Manifestation

– Talk by SriSri on Aug 24th 2007, Bangalore Ashram

Our life runs through intention. Everything we do has either a desire or intention or unconscious habit attached to it. Whether you want to drink a glass of water, take a walk or sit and watch TV, first an intention arises in the mind. If you want to call it desire, as ‘a desire arises in the mind’, I have no objection. But there is a difference between intention and desire. People don’t understand this. Even if you say ‘I don’t want any desire”, it is a desire. “I want to be enlightened” is a desire. Better job, more wealth, live happily… die peacefully is also a desire!

Why some people desire gets fulfilled, others don’t? This is a question in many people. How many of you have this problem? <Some people lift their hands>. It is very few in Art Of Living!! Somehow by hook or crook, or fluke, you got the skill to attend to your desire. Desire is a feverishness attached to a wish or a thought. The feverishness kills. If you have noticed people who are getting all this Emmy awards, Filmfare awards – prestigious awards in the world, they can’t contain their happiness. They get sick. They get panic attacks!!

Desire when fulfilled still leaves you empty. If not fulfilled, they make you miserable. This whole hippy movement happened because all desire were getting fulfilled. It all seemed futile, nothing to hold on to. Because desire doesn’t seem to be bringing fulfillment.

Unfulfilled desire gives a void. Fulfilled desire gives a greater void. It creates such feverishness, you can’t have a good night’s sleep. If desire is the mother of sorrow, then shouldn’t we desire? I am saying “I don’t want any desire”. If that is also a desire, what to do?!!

Here comes the knowledge, the secret knowledge of desire and intention. For example, you want to go to Mysore – a 3 hour journey. You sit in a car, drive, on the way stop, drink tea, coffee, whatever, and you reach in 3 hours. This is an intention. An intention is a thought that arises in you, remains with you and translates into an action – whether today, tomorrow, next year.

And desire is sitting in the car and being feverish, repeating “I want to go to Mysore, I want to go to Mysore”. You will not go to Mysore, you will go to mental hospital.

Most of the people in the world do not know the difference between intention and desire. Ancient people knew the secret. They called it sankalpa. Take an intention and leave it to the universe. Today if you go to temples, even in the west, or where there is a fountain, they say ‘make a wish and drop it’ – drop the coin.

An intention has to be dropped. Have an intention, have an attention and consciously drop it. It will start manifesting. If you hold on to the intention, intention becomes desire and desire causes heartache.

See your life in the bigger context. With intention in your hand, what do you do? See how many billion years have passed, how vast this universe is. With this vastness, the mind expands. This is what is sankalpa – so many billion years have passed, among all the billions of stars, among all the milky ways, in this small planet, in this small country, state, I take this intention; and drop it!!

When you do this, a phenomenon is happening within you. Mind, consciousness expands and this expanded consciousness recognizes what you need to be happy. Attention on the magnanimity of the creation <did He mean magnitude here?> and intending what you want to manifest is an art in itself. Instead, what we do? We put our attention on what we don’t have!!

My grandmother would say “Chocolates are full. I have to go to to chocolate shop!”. She will never say ‘it is empty’. She would say ‘chocolate is full’. Even in language, she wouldn’t use the negative word – don’t have. She would say angels are floating around and all they say is ‘let it be’. You say ‘I don’t have money’, they say ‘let it be’!! It was like that for her, you know – always smiling, cheerful, positive state of mind.

Intention, attention and manifestation. They are linked. The go together. But if our attention is always about something negative… Your attention goes to fights, to problem. If someone is doing good work, your attention doesn’t go there. Create a scandal and see your interest! Unless you know all about that, you don’t feel comfortable. If your mind is clinging on to negative, that’s what is going to grow. If you tell your child, ‘you are stupid’, he will remain stupid. Because your attention is on foolish, stupid.

People don’t understand this. They sit and visualize – I am becoming rich, rich! Instead of attention, intention they turn the intention into a feverish desire and become depressed. In positive thinking, you suppress, suppress and somewhere it all becomes negative.

This is a skill. You know, there is a certain group that tells people to wake up in the morning and sit and tell “I love myself, I love myself, I love myself”. And they get sick!! See, you know you are in Bangalore. You don’t have to repeat you are in Bangalore. You keep affirming, you keep saying “I am strong”, somewhere you think you are weak, so you have to keep affirming.

Intention is not fighting with a stream of thought that is coming in the mind. Intention is beyond fleeting positive and negative thoughts. In your mind, you get so many thoughts, but not everything translates into action. Why? Only those thoughts that translates into intention becomes action.

Let us see the distinction between desire and intention.

Intention has a purpose
Desire has feverishness.

Intention has a goal.
Desire’s goals are really not good because desire is always linked to happiness and no event or object can bring you to the happiness you really want.

If your attention is all the time on the negative, switch it to positive. Just being aware of it, it already switches. Then give the time for it to manifest.

Some of you have this habit. Saying Always. “I always have pain”. That is what is going to happen. In Bible also there is a saying, “Those who have more shall be given to them, those who do not have what they have will also be taken away”. The feeling of abundance, feeling you have abundance and abundance will grow. You put your attention on lack and lack will grow.

A gentleman got 1 million dollar in a lottery. He became so sad. Previous day, he had seen a house that cost 1.2 million! “Just 0,2 million and I would have got my house!”. Even though he won a lottery, he became depressed. Desire is never with what we have here and now. It always gallops – leaves your legs tired and hands empty. And meditation is the skill in which you learn how to drop the intention and relax, let go!

You know there is a saying – ask, and it shall be given. We never even attended to it. Your attention is not there. You never put your intention on it and you say it didn’t manifest. Many people who say “I am poor” do not put their intention and attention on it. It’s not enough to say “I want money”. You have to be specific – who do you want to be wealthy? In the temples, they say “this child born on this day, this grand child born on that day”… after or before meditation, you put your intention. I want this much money, this to happen, this to be solved – and drop it.

Many times you do not really enjoy what you wanted. Kids, it happens. They want something, get it and they don’t want it! Clarity comes only through depth of meditation and meditation cannot happen when mind is feverish with desire.

Bringing desire to intention, putting attention and allowing time to manifest is a really intelligent way to deal with desire. When you are sick, you put an attention on it “I am sick, I am sick”… I am not saying, you put an affirmation – “I am healthy, I am healthy”.

In Bali, Indonesia, they greet “Swasthirasthu”. Swa means self. Swasthi means ‘established in the self’. Swasthirasthu means “may you be established in the self”. Swaastha means not just physical health. Physical, mental and spiritual health is ’swaasthya’. In India, nobody greets that way. But in Bali, they greet that way. ‘Om swasthirasthu’ – of course in festivals, pundits chant that. But others don’t understand!!

Question: If you drop an intention, how can it convert into action?

Sri Sri : Just like you want to go to Delhi, and drop it, it automatically converts into an action. If you hold on to it, what will happen to you?? <<Everyone says Mental Hospital!!>>

Intention should go with a feeling. It is not reading, “Oh, what is the intention I should have today?”. Intention is a need that comes within you. There is a deep yearning for it. Then it becomes an intention. Like someone wants a car or transportation, they really need a car, then you just put an intention, sankalpa – I really need this.

One is fantasy – it is not a real need, your heart, your soul is not longing for it. Like someone else has a car, I also want a car. Someone has a bigger house. I also want. This is not a need. It is not going to happen. If you say “I’m so tired of moving houses, and more people are coming and I need a bigger hall”, then it is an intention. And then you add the clause “Anything better than this is ok”. “This or anything better than this, I can accept”.

But if you have not kept your commitment, you are not sincere, you are cheating, nature will know that. It will also cheat you! Nature will also not give you the power to manifest what you intend!

In Yoga Sutras, Patanjali says there are five yamas one has follow before asana.

Ahimsa – Non-violence. What do you get by being non-violent? In your presence, everyone else will lose their violence. One who is established in non-violence, in their presence others will also lose violent tendencies within.

One of our teachers in Botswana, a young woman – she was kidnapped by 5-6 gunmen. How many of you know this? You should hear from her own words. They took her in the car. She was laughing and she said “If you do any harm to me, your family will not be happy!”. She said, “see, I have a Guru!”. They said, ‘what is a guru’ and then she gave them an intro talk!! She spoke to them half an hour and they left her. Then they gave her the passport back. You listen to her own story. It is very funny! And the terrorist said sorry to her! They tried to push her, she said “It’s paining, don’t do that”. They said “Oh sorry madam!”.

We don’t know the power of yoga, meditation. How 6 terrorists in Botswana, it has never happened in history, they have left just like that and given the passport back!

Another teacher from India, went to Moscow. Four men came and started speaking in Hindi and then told him “You have five hours. Lets go have some tea”. He went with them innocently and they took him and locked him. He broke the door. They have guns and this gentleman without any weapons could face and get away from them, unhurt! They also gave him money to get to the airport!

Couple of other stories are there, in Calcutta, they kidnapped and brought him back.

If you have the conviction, if you are established in non-violence, in your presence, surroundings, violence drops. Violence turns into non-violence. This I have seen again and again. Why should you follow truth? Because that will fructify your actions. That much enough for today.

Question: Sarvasreshtha gnaan kya hai?

Sri Sri : Jo haath mein hai, who kya hai? Jo nahin hai, usko sarvasreshta maanke… dhoondthe reh jaaoge.

Haan se huddath, nahin ki talaash
Isi liye poori duniya hai udaas.

< Roughly translated it means, Indifferent to what you have, searching for what you don’t have This is why the whole world is miserable>

Question: About Varlakshmi Vratham and what it symbolises

Sri Sri : They take a pot, put rice, crown it with a coconut, invoke the Divine and feel the abundance. Not just for me, for everybody. They say, give me enough, so whoever comes to my house will not be hungry. Grant me the wish for abundance. Wanting abundance for whose sake/ Not for oneself, so that I can help everybody! They feel Lakshmi has already come home. Lakshmi is invited to every home and stays at every home. There is enough for everyone in this planet. Don’t be greedy, don’t be selfish. There is abundance in every life.

Sit quiet for a few minutes and feel the abundance. Close your eyes and feel you have abundance of everything – good qualities, money, health everything.