the ashram web log

8 November, 2007 10:20:04 AM
Q & A with Guruji!

Q: How can I be assured of salvation and a perfect life on this planet?
Sri Sri: You need a warranty on the spiritual path also, don't you?!
Examine how much time you spend on the spiritual path...
Evaluate the seva (service) you are doing...How much are you
meditating? There should be a balance between seva and meditation.
Those who do a lot of service get burnt out, if they don't make time
for meditation, and those, who only meditate, become 'dry', if they
don't make time for service. So you need both - service and
meditation.

Q: What is the best way to reach bliss?
Sri Sri: What is the best way? - One is, by meditating, and the other,
is by serving the people around you - by getting into some service
activity. You know the technique to get depressed is to sit and only
think: "What about me? What about me?" - all the time! That's good
enough to get thoroughly depressed! Seeing God within you is
meditation. Seeing God in the people around you is love, is service.
They go hand-in-hand.

Q: How to pray? I was raised in a non-religious environment.
Sri Sri: Meditation is the best form of prayer. In meditation you
surrender, you say let thy will be done. You may light a candle, chant
Om Namaha Shivaya.

Q: What is more important - career or family?
Sri Sri: When you watch TV, what is more important - the scenes or the
sound? Both! One supports the other. Similarly, when one has no
family, what is use of a career? Career is for supporting one's
family. To support oneself, a career is not required. Likewise, when
one has no career, how can one support one's family?

Q: How can we change our karma?
Sri Sri: By experience and wisdom, and some karma you just have to
overcome it and work through it. Strange are the ways of Karma. The
more you understand it, the more amazed you become. It brings people
together and separates them. It causes some to be weak and some to be
strong. It makes some rich and some poor. All the struggle in the
world, whatever it may be, is the bondage of Karma. It cuts across all
logic and reasoning. This understanding will lift you from getting
stuck to the events or personalities and help you in your Journey to
the Self.

Q: So a thief can say it is my karma to steal?

Answer: Then the police have the karma to catch him too!
Only human life has the ability to be free from Karma. And only a few
thousands aim to be free from it. Only through Grace can the bondage
of Karma be burnt. Performing actions cannot eliminate Karma.

Q: How to overcome homesickness?
Sri Sri: See, I consider that every tree in the planet is in my
garden. When the whole world is your family, there can be no
homesickness. Feel always at home -- it is all your attitude.

Q: Are faith and belief the same?
Sri Sri: Belief is a little diluted, faith is little strong, more
concrete. Our beliefs can change, faith is firm. Faith is yogurt,
belief is buttermilk. Like a child has faith in the mother, the child
does not make the mother into an object of knowing. The child does not
try to know the mother, it simply has faith in the mother. When you
have faith, what is the need to know it? You cannot make love an
object of knowing, if you try to make love an object of knowing, if
you try to know it, it will disappear.

In the same way you cannot make Self, or God an object of knowing.
God, love, sleep, and Self are beyond knowing. If you try to analyze,
doubt comes in and faith will disappear. So whatever you want to have
faith in, do not want to know it or analyze it. The moment you make
something an object of knowing then analysis starts and then doubt
follows. Analysis creates a distance, synthesis brings it together.
Faith is synthesis, knowing is analysis.

Q: Why bad people are happy and good people are suffering?
Sri Sri: This is an illusion. It appears that the bad people are
enjoying. But I tell you it is temporary. Good people need not be
foolish. They can be intelligent. If someone says I put my finger in
the fire because I was so good, I tell you it is foolishness. Good
merits will give good result one day be sure of that.

Q: Which is better, to thank deeply or superficially?
Sri Sri: No, superficially. Thanking needs a separation. Thanking
means there are two. If you are deeply thankful, it means you deeply
feel the separation. Deep within there is no need to thank, because
there is one-ness. But superficially you can thank. Thanks are like
ripples on the surface of the water.

When you say "Thank you," you complete something. You are finishing a
transaction, a relationship, a process. "Thank you" is like "good
bye." You can complete all transactions at a surface level, but deeper
inside is only one-ness.

Thankfulness always exists in relation to something else. You don't
thank for nothing at all, you thank for something. But in this case,
something is less than nothing!

At the deepest level, thanking has no meaning. Does one hand thank the
other hand? The deeper you go, you see there is no "other" to be
thanked.

Q: How come enlightened masters come from the East, especially India?
Sri Sri: It seems to happen like that. There is no reason. There was a
time that lots of merchants came from Europe. And there was a time
that lots of Scientists came from west. In America, there are lots of
Oak trees. If we ask why, what can we say? It seems to happen that
way. East seems to provide Enlightened Masters. But an Enlightened
Master himself doesnt belong to East or West. He belongs to the whole
world. His knowledge is universal !

Q: What is difference between Skill and Manipulation?
Sri Sri: That is a good question. In manipulation, there is
bad/horrible intention. In skill, there is good intention. In
manipulation, there is guilt. In manipulation, you are not honest to
yourself. When skillful, you get a pat from your heart "Go ahead...".
You are honest, when skillful. In skill, your heart will not prick
you. But finally, ONLY YOU know whether you are skillful /
manipulative.

Jai Gurudev
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(Contributed by :Jyothsna)

Thanks Jyothsna, :-)

Posted in: on Thursday, November 8, 2007 at at 4:29 PM