THUS SPOKE
SRI SRI RAVISHANKAR
ART OF LIVING
(QUOTES)
Sri Sri Raviashankar is
indeed a very rare Guru,always smiling, always full of energy, always making
people energetic with his words and always making them useful to humanity and
to themselves. His words propel his disciples into humane action – and keep
them joyful in that service. Here are some of his latest quotes. I have put some words in BOLD, so that the action part (needed in us) is clearer to us , to
reap the full benefit of his words.
1.
Usually what happens is - when your passion for something goes down, you
feel bad, as if you lack something, and wonder what to do. Just relax. See, passion should also have a little bit of
contentment. Sometimes, when contentment comes, passion does go down. Contentment should also have a strain
of passion; otherwise it can slip into lethargy and complacency. So to prevent
contentment from slipping into inertia, you need a little passion. And for
passion to not become too feverish and make you restless all the time, you need
contentment. This will give you the right balance.
2. When you love
something, it becomes alive. With love, the whole creation becomes
personal. For children, everything is personal. Children make each toy come alive.
Even a tree has a face, even the sun laughs, and even a stone attracts
reverence when it becomes personal. In love, you raise even objects to life. If
there is no love, even people become objects.
3. There are some who justify their actions all
the time, and some who find fault with themselves all the time. Both will
create a sort of imbalance. Take a middle path, where you can look into your actions to see how you can
improve and at the same time, look forward.
See what you want to do, move forward and drop the past. Don't go on doing a
post-mortem of the past all the time.
4. You can come
home happily and say with a smile, "Everything that I did today
flopped!" You should have the guts to say "I am much more than events
or circumstances. Everything comes and goes, but I continue in all
situations."
5. Success is an attitude, it is not a phenomenon.
When you agree to be bogged down, that is a sign of failure. Resist getting
bogged down. You turn a lit candle upside down, the flame always goes up, it
never goes down. In the same way, if we can have the enthusiasm to say, ‘I can make it’, that is what I
consider a sign of success.
6. Live your life well. If you are useful to people all your life, there
will be hundreds and millions of people to take care of you.
7. Do not speak any harsh words, do not hurt with your words, for the
Divine dwells in every heart.
8. Whatever you revere becomes bigger than you.
When you have reverence in all your
relationships then your own consciousness expands. It is the reverence in
every relationship that saves the relationship. Cultivate the skill of having
reverence every moment in your life.
9. Become God to each other. Do not look for God somewhere in the sky, but see God in every pair of
eyes, in the mountains, water, trees and animals. How? Only when you see God in
yourself. Only Gods can worship Gods.
10. Feel grateful for your very existence, your very body, all that you have, and all the
love you have received. And this gratefulness will bring you a flood of
prosperity, joy and happiness.
11. Wake up and see, are you really in control? What are you in control of? Perhaps a
tiny part of your waking state! You are not in control when you are sleeping or
dreaming. You are not in control of your thoughts and emotions. You may choose
to express themselves or not, but they come to you without your prior
permission. Whether you realize it or not, when you let go of your sense of
control, that is when you truly relax.
12. When you face difficult situations in life, the
peace and stability in you depends on the amount of faith you have. Not having
faith itself is misery; faith gives instant comfort. While reasons keep you
sane and grounded, no miracle can happen without
faith. It takes you beyond limitations. In
faith, you can transcend the laws of nature, but it needs to be pure. Faith
is realizing that you will always get what you need. Faith is giving the Divine
a chance to act.
13. Don’t think there is no place for romance or
romance is against spirituality. No, it is not. Promiscuity is against spirituality.
Spirituality is against any type of corruption. In the name of romance, if we
are getting into lust and exploiting people, that
is not right. Romance is 'I am here for
you. I want to share whatever I have with you.' It should come from a space
of giving rather than grabbing. That
romance is spiritual.
14. God will dance in our life when the day dawns
in laughter and love. Don't just laugh outside but from deep inside too. True laughter is true prayer. In
nature, everything is waiting for you to laugh. When you laugh, all of nature
laughs with you. When things are alright, everybody can laugh, but when
everything falls apart, then if you can laugh, that is evolution and growth.
15. Do not tell a person a mistake he knows he has
committed. Only point out the mistake of a person who doesn't know, but who
wants to know. A magnanimous person doesn't pick on the mistakes of others and
make them feel guilty. Instead, they correct
others' mistakes with compassion and care, not through words but through
their attitude.
16. Know that you are a student forever. Knowledge may come to you from any corner. Each
occasion teaches you and each person teaches you. The world is your teacher.
When you are always looking to learn, you will stop underestimating others.
Humility will dawn in your life.
17. We need to develop the habit of sharing our joy with others. If you are happy, infect
others with your happiness; don't just keep it to yourself. Any action done
with this idea is service and the best form of service is uplifting someone's
state of mind.
18. Only if there is alertness and presence of mind
can your life improve. For this, cultivate the habit of listening. Most of us are not good listeners. The
speaker's first sentence triggers some conversation within you. To cultivate
the habit of listening, you have to go to a place where everything
is beautiful. And where is this place? Within you! When you come here, then any
place is beautiful. Then, wherever you go, you add beauty there.
19. Someone's company cannot fill your loneliness.
Even if it does, it is very short-lived. You can still feel lonely in spite of
being in company. In a real sense, loneliness can only be filled by being
alone. If you could be comfortable being alone for some time, then you will not
feel lonely. When you don't feel lonely,
you can spread joy to people around you.
20. Make your smile cheaper and anger expensive. Have a sense of humour. You are endowed with
certain naughtiness as a child. Keep it alive. Humour will grease all tough
situations. One who has humour can sail through any conflict. Humour is the
buffer that saves you from humiliation. Humour is not just words; it is the
lightness of your being.
21. Everything is changing in the world. People who
say, ‘I cannot live without you’, later say, ‘I cannot stand you!’ This happens
so often. When we go in search of friends in the world, we find that we don’t
get a good friend. Search inside, make friends with your own Higher Self, with
your inner Spirit, you find that friendliness comes out of you naturally. When you are friendly, the whole world
becomes your friend. Everybody turns to you.
22. Just examine why your spirits go down? More
often than not, it is because somebody said something stupid to you. And why
did they say a stupid thing? Because they had some garbage and they needed to
throw it out; and you were there, ready to catch it. And once you have caught it,
you hold on to it so passionately. Wake
up! Don’t let your smile be snatched away by anybody!
23. A person with authentic love feels obliged to
the person who accepts his love. They could have rejected it! When you start giving love with a deep sense of
gratitude to all those who accept it, you will be surprised to know that
you are no longer a beggar knocking on every door for love, you have become an
emperor. Love belongs to the world of emperors, not of beggars.
24. Every Day Is Valentine’s Day : In the ancient
times, they never said, ‘This is Father’s Day’, or ‘This is Mother’s Day.’ They
never dedicated one day in a year to fathers and mothers, but they said,
‘Everyday you must dedicate some time to your father and mother.’ As soon as you wake up in the morning, spend
a few minutes in the first hour as father’s minutes and mother’s minutes.So, in every home, children should think, ‘This is
my time with the parents.’
Children should start spending half an hour or one
hour with their parents’ everyday in the morning or evening. If everyone shares at least one meal
together, then you would have successfully celebrated your Father’s Day and
Mother’s Day. Similarly, when you wake
up and see the whole creation is my valentine, the country is my valentine, the
Divinity is my valentine, knowledge is my valentine then Valentine’s Day will
never end for you. All 365 days is Valentine’s Day. That is how I feel – everyday is Valentine’s
Day.
25. Anything you do with patience, you are not wasting that time. Anything you do
impatiently, with a restless mind, know for sure you are wasting time.
26. Think of someone you love... When they progress in life, you feel good and happy - you
feel as if it's your own progress. Why don't you have this feeling for
everybody? Why don't you take everybody as your own?
27.When you rejoice in beauty, the entire creation
rejoices with you. The very purpose of so much variety in creation is to
somehow bring you back to yourself - that you
are beautiful, that you are beauty!
28. When you want to do something, look at your strength. Your weakness is
that you start looking at others' strengths! When you are running, you can only
look at the track below, not at who's next to you. Like a horse with blinders,
you just look at your path and let anybody do whatever he/she wants.
29.Beauty is the language of the heart - it
decorates, elaborates, exaggerates. When you read poetry, sing a song or
describe something, it is always from the heart. Analysis or explanation is
from the mind. Justice and equality are from the head. Uniqueness is only from
the heart. The heart makes everything
special!
30. Life has five dimensions of five senses. There
is one more dimension, and that is feeling - feeling the Presence. Light cannot
be heard, it has to be seen through the eyes. Sound cannot be seen, it has to
be heard by the ears. Likewise, Presence
has to be felt by the heart. Human life is enriched only when we can live this sixth sense of existence!
31. Know that humiliation does not weaken you, it
strengthens you. The more egoistic you are, the more humiliation you feel. When
you are childlike and have a greater sense of kinship, you do not feel
humiliated. When you are steeped in love with the Existence, with the Divine,
nothing whatsoever can humiliate you.
32. Sorrow simply means that viveka
(discrimination) is overshadowed. Viveka means knowing that everything is
changing. Your body, your emotions, the people around you and the world -
everything is changing. Time and again you have to awaken to this
reality. You are often fearful of change. You know there is a need for change
to improve your life, but you feel secure in the old pattern. So, use your
intelligence and have the courage to
implement changes whenever it is necessary.
33. The technique
to get depressed is to sit and think “what about me, what about me” all the
time. To reach the state of bliss, meditate.
And, serve people around you. Seeing
God within you is meditation and seeing God in the people around you is love or
service.
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True inspiration:)
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