Ayurveda Initiative For Global Health

Shun bad company. There is a saying by someone, “If you want to Know a person, know him through the company he keeps or the books he reads.” Shun bad company. What is bad company? The company which solidifies your negativity is bad company.  You have some problem, you have a complaint, you go and you talk to someone and they make your beliefs more strong in that negativity that is bad company. And you go to someone else with the same problem, same thought, same negativity.  And they will just make you feel lighter and when you walk away from them you feel that the problem is not as big as you thought it was before. That is the right company. Don't think people who agree with your grievances, with your problems, are your friends. They are not.  Those people who make your negative feelings and your frustrations grow more and more in you may appear to be friends, but they are your enemies. They are bad company. Right company, good company, is that which makes you feel the pr...

Question - Gurudev, why do you always say that one should save their mind at all costs? Can you please throw some light on this? Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar - When our mind is caught up in events it goes on chewing on it like chewing gum which doesn't give nutrition and it also tires the mouth. Entertaining thoughts are as useless as that. The very nature of the world is to irritate us. The ultimate skill is to move through life without letting the daily irritations and conflicts touch our inner core. Just imagine we are walking 'immaculately dressed' on a muddy road on a rainy day. Vehicles are plying up and down splashing muddy drops all the time. How careful will you be to protect your beautiful dress? So how much more care we should take to protect our mind which is more beautiful than beauty itself (Srutwapi Suddha Chaitanyam Atmanam Athi Sundaram). Protect your mind like a Belgian glass. Even a small scratch destroys its beauty. Drop the small mind and be with the B...

Meditation makes you active, not reactive. Meditation doesn’t take away your dynamism, nor does it make you complacent. It keeps you on the right path.  Calm & steady action will help you achieve what you want to, not aggressive behaviour. Aggressive behaviour is a sign of weakness. Weakness doesn’t allow you to achieve something great.  Calm and steady mind is a sign of strength. Only with strength you can achieve anything. Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

Yoga and spirituality are given tremendous respect all over the world today. Regardless of the country, people all over are rapidly adopting and integrating Yoga in their lives. If you go to the city of Tromsø in Norway, which is the last point of the country closest to the Arctic Circle, where the sun shines for just two months in a year, even there, people are practicing pranayama, and meditation. The chants of Om Namah Shivaya are resonating even in such a faraway place. In the same way, the last city in the Southern hemisphere of the Earth – Tiera del Fuego, after which begins the Antarctic Circle; there also you will find thousands of people gathering together to chant Om Namah Shivaya and practicing the Sudarshan Kriya. This is India’s gift to the world. India has made a place for itself in every home in the world (by virtue of Indian Spirituality). Our rishis (wise sages) have said, "krunavanto vishwam aryam". It means, "we will grow and spread glory through the w...

Question - Gurudev, you always have said that our body is a beautiful gift from the divine/nature yet you also have said that we are not just the body and more than that. Is there any reason behind why even after death, a man/woman in the form of a soul keeps on looking for a body. Why is there so much attachment to the body? Please explain Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar - Feeling or experiencing the infinity within this finite body, living the timelessness within the time span of life, uncovering the bliss within the misery, this is what we are here for on this planet and our body is an instrument to experience that bliss. The soul is attached to the body because body is the instrument of carrying out one’s Dharma (one’s duties or karma). It is said, ‘Sharira madhyam Dharma-khalu sadhanam’. It means that if one has to carry out one’s duties or one’s karma, it can only be done through the means of the physical body. Those who are Asariri – meaning without the physical body - cannot do it...

There is one ‘‘I don’t know’’ that comes out of ignorance. But when one goes through knowledge then it becomes a transformed ‘‘I don’t know!’. This ‘‘I don’t know!’’ is wonderful. This is how you can turn every question into a wonder. The difference between a wonder and a question is that a question is associated with sorrow and restlessness whereas wonder is an expression of joy. Purpose of knowledge is to create awareness of the Being. This creation is enormous and infinite. It is a mystery. Mysteries are not to be understood but to be lived. Love is a mystery, sleep is a mystery, your mind is a mystery and all that you see around is a mystery. Your life is also a mystery. Trying to understand mystery is confusion, but living it fully is called enlightenment. What is your life? In the time scale, millions of years have passed and millions will come in the future. After all, how many years are you going to be here on this planet?  May be 60 years, 70 years or 100 years? Your span ...

Often people say behind every successful man is a woman. But I say behind every success, there is the Divine saying “I am behind you”. And Divine dawns in you when you pray and cry for it. You don’t need any special qualifications or abilities to pray. Whether you are wise person or not, whether you are rich or poor, you can pray. Prayer is a vital tool to improve your life. When you feel the obstacle is too much to handle, deep prayer can work miracles. What you can do, you do. What you cannot do, you pray for it! Whatever you do, know that the higher power has the final say and you can tap that power through your prayers. Prayer doesn’t mean just sitting and chanting some words. It’s about being in that serene, calm and meditative state. That is why, in the Vedic tradition, before prayer comes dhyana(meditation) and there is dhyanaafter prayer. When the mind is focused, the prayer becomes far more powerful.  To whom you pray is not important. Whereas religion puts words to the pr...

Head understands head and heart understands heart. The nose can only smell; eyes can only see; ears can only hear. Similarly, the heart can only feel while the head can only think. We try to put the heart in the head and the head in the heart and it doesn’t seem to work. Your heart feels something is beautiful, whereas head says it is beautiful. We cling on to the word in the mind but we don’t feel it. We repeat the word ‘beautiful’ in the head but it doesn’t seem or feel beautiful. Same thing about love, you talk too much about love, you get stuck in the head and it doesn’t rise in the heart. In silence, love emits, radiates.  We experience ourselves in the things we love more.  That is why, when we lose the things we love, we feel hurt; we feel unhappy.  Suppose you love your piano very much and you hear that something has happened to your piano, something gets cut off in you.  Or, if something happens to your car or your dog, you feel a loss. So you are not just l...

We all have experienced the joy and peace of gratitude. Life flows smoother and your outlook is brighter when you feel grateful. Gratitude comes when you feel full. When you don’t feel any sense of lack, then you feel gratitude. You cannot be grateful and feel lack—the two cannot co-exist at the same time. Certainly, you’ve experienced both, but only at different times. When you feel grateful, you also feel full. When you feel any lack, grumbling begins in some corner. With knowledge, you experience gratitude and become grateful. And when you are grateful, the law of nature ensures that the gratefulness increases and that you are given more.If you are grateful, more positive things will flow to you. If you are grumbling, the grumbling and negativity will increase. For those who do not have the knowledge, there is no way out of their grumblings, because grumbling becomes their nature. And once they start grumbling, demand arises, and when the demand arises, everything is taken away from...

Question - Gurudev, Recently I have noticed that all my desires are getting fulfilled.. Why is it happening so? Does it have anything to do with me following the path of Spirituality? Gurudev Sri Sri - When you desire something, you get it. It is but natural. Just like how in a computer, you press a button and it works, in the same way, when you have a desire in your mind, it surely manifests. I think this is the first time someone is asking that why it is getting fulfilled. Have you become so accustomed to your desires being unfulfilled? When you become a seeker and attend to your Sadhana (spiritual practices) regularly, you will see that your desires start getting fulfilled automatically. Then you may ask why it is getting fulfilled and may think it is a bit abnormal. I tell you it is absolutely normal. You will get used to it. There is a saying, "Sattva Vriddhi Karya Siddhi" which means that the more Sattva/Purity rises in your life, the more easily your tasks get accompli...

There are three kinds of love. The love that comes out of charm, that which comes out of comfort, and the Divine Love. The love that comes out of charm does not last long. It comes out of unfamiliarity or out of attraction. In this you lose the attraction fast, and boredom sets in, like most love marriages. This love may diminish and bring along with it fear, uncertainty, insecurity, and sadness. The love that comes out of comfort and familiarity grows. But this love has no thrill, no enthusiasm, joy, or fire to it. For example, you are more comfortable with an old friend who is a familiar person, rather than with a new person. Divine Love supersedes both the above. The Divine Love has ever newness. The closer you go, there is more charm and depth. The Divine Love has comfort, enthusiasm, and familiarity. There is never boredom, and it keeps everyone on their toes. Worldly love can be like an ocean, yet an ocean has a bottom. Divine Love is like the sky which is limitless, infinite. Fr...

Question: Gurudev, my intellect takes time to understand, can you talk little bit about time being spherical... Gurudev: OK. It's a very difficult topic. Whatever happens in 24 hours time during a day, to recollect and remember how much time do you need? Do you need 24 hours? From the time you woke up till you go to bed. These 18 hours so many things happen. To recollect these you do not need 18 hours. You need may be 18 minutes. Even if you slowly recollect every event 10mins is sufficient. So what is time? Now in memory the 10 min is equal to 18 hours. Similarly when you fall asleep, sometimes your dream appears so short, sometimes you experience that which happened 15 years ago. So vivid and clear and sometimes what will happen in future. Do you see now time linear, like a ball. In a ball outer circumference is like 18 hours. But inner which connects to every outer point is only 10 min. The time you take to go round the 18 hours is same you take to go around the inner circle (10...

No matter whether people look at the plant or not, it continues to grow.. Right? Wake up!  Don't crave for attention, approval and appreciation from others.. Know that you are self radiating.. You are full.. You are complete.. Relax! Kick the begging bowl.. Repose in the self.. Things will come to you.. There's nothing lacking in your life.. Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

Bad Antogast December 31, 2022 In life, you need to be both serious and playful. When you are serious you gain wisdom, and when you are playful you use wisdom. Playfulness is not the same as frivolity. Without seriousness, your playfulness is meaningless. Imagine that time is like a river flowing in front of you. It is not always possible to watch from the shore. You will also have to jump and go with the flow, but when a flood occurs, know that you have a shore to rest on. Wisdom lies in knowing when to do what. Wisdom also lies in recognizing how much time you are wasting and moving forward consciously so as not to waste too much. When you fail, ignore it, don't take it seriously, life is a game, be playful. When you succeed, be serious and grateful for everything that got you there. It is difficult to do both, but it is a living wisdom - a balance that is needed. Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

My dear, life is so temporary and fleeting. Your life is short. Where in this short life do you have the time to bother about who said what and why? Why then get stuck in this mess? I tell you, even if God Himself comes and says a few harsh words to you, you should remain smiling and be centred. Think of that as a gift, as a Prasad (blessing or sacred offering). You should make your mind highly centred and unshakeable within yourself, like a pillar. Do not get carried away or troubled by trivial occurrences around you. Otherwise, you get so troubled by trivial and temporary things. Not only do you get troubled, you also trouble others around you. In fact, we end up disturbing others twice or thrice as much. Again and again, you must remind yourself to wake up. Come back to awareness and realise that “I am full and content in every way. God is with me at all times, and whatever is required for me will happen at the right time.” Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

When we do not want anything for ourselves, a unique power awakens within us. We become capable of giving blessings. Only those who are themselves content are capable of giving blessings. If they say, ‘Let your will be done’, it will definitely happen. The blessings of an individual who is content, will manifest. This is the secret behind blessing. Ideally, as we grow older, our contentment should also increase. The more content we are, the more mature we are. There are two kinds of joy: one of receiving and the other of giving. In our childhood we experienced the joy of receiving. If you give anything to children they are always ready to take it. But as we grow older, we experience the Joy in giving. For example, in a home there is a mother or a grandmother; when the grandmother is alone in the house, she does not prepare five different kinds of vegetables and four different sweets for herself. But when children come to the house or guests come, she cooks many different kinds of dishe...

What are the secrets of relationship? How does a relationship develop? First is the attraction. But, if you get what you are attracted to too easily, the charm goes away. However, if it becomes just a little bit difficult to have what you are attracted to, then you develop love for it. What happens when you fall in love? When you love someone, you give yourself to that relationship, and start making demands on that relationship. The moment you start demanding, love diminishes. Then you say, “Oh! I have made a mistake.” Now there is struggle and pain to get out of it. And after you have got out of it, you get into one more, another one, and the story repeats. The golden three The way to make relationships long-lasting is through the right perception, the right observation, and the right expression. Often people say that nobody understands them. Instead, you can say that you have not expressed yourself properly. To express yourself properly, you need proper perception, and that can happe...

Meditation is not an act; it is the art of doing nothing. The rest in meditation is deeper than the deepest sleep that you can ever have. When the mind becomes free from agitation, becomes calm and serene and is at peace, meditation happens. When the mind is engaged in some activity, it gets tired. So any type of concentration, contemplation or any activity in the mind can drain your system. Meditation is that which doesn’t drain you, but just gives you deep rest and we withdraw from all sensory activities like seeing, listening, smelling, tasting. It is almost like sleep, but not exactly sleep. Meditation is not concentration; it is de-concentration, letting go. When can you rest? Rest is possible when you have stopped all activities. When you stop moving around, stop working, talking, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, thinking—then you get rest or sleep. In sleep you are left with only involuntary activities like breathing, heartbeat, food digestion, blood-circulation, etc....

Anything that is natural does not require effort. You bathe in the morning. Do you bathe with a lot of interest? Do you brush your teeth with a lot of interest? No, you don’t. Just because you have to do it, you do it! It’s natural and effortless! Like when you are smiling naturally, that smile is effortless. But if you are asked to smile then that becomes a difficult task. Doing an action that requires effort is aasakti. However, doing work that comes naturally and gives you inner peace is done in nirasakti. If you ask those who prepare food every day, they would be able to prepare it without much effort. However, if the same task is handed to a person who never cooks, he will flip through the pages of a recipe book again and again, to prepare the same food. He will keep tasting the food to check the balance of spices. So wherever effort is applied, the job is done with aasakti, and this leads to feverishness. You being feverish about going to, for example, Mysore is aasakti; and effo...

All around the world, countries have stormy seasons. The tropical countries have their monsoons, and non-tropical countries have their yearly winter storms. The layout of the planet, along with its various climates and weather systems, make it such that there is always a storm happening somewhere on Earth.  The same phenomenon holds true for people. Life is found to be caught up in storms very often, either in some part of the mind or body. You are not yourself when you are in even a small storm. By their very nature, storms take you away from your centre, and you don’t know what to do. All your practices, concepts, ideas, and ideals fall apart during storms. Your devotion, your love, all the beautiful things you cherish in your life simply seem to be missing, or meaningless. These things happen when you are under the influence of a big storm. And even when the storm has subsided, the very memory of it disturbs you even more.  So what do you do when a storm appears overhead? N...

In love, one often feels weak, but truth brings strength. Then why would someone tell a lie to their close ones or to their beloved? Lovers often ask this question. Love cannot stand untruth, and relationships tend to break up when untruths exist. Understanding the paradox of love and truth; allows one to discover the answer to this question. People often tell lies just to save and maintain their love. The fear that truth might damage love, lends to lies told between a husband and wife, boyfriend and girlfriend, parents and children and in other family situations. In love, one often feels weak, but truth brings strength. So, the question that may arise is - why do people prefer love over truth, weakness over strength? Love is that which generally does not want to be sacrificed and so people are ready to give up the truth for love even though love takes the luster out of truth. Also, there are times when truth can make love bitter while in love, even lies appear sweet. For example, when...

Have you noticed what keeps happening in the mind every moment? The mind keeps wondering what is going to happen next. Knowledge is being aware of this phenomenon of the mind; of what is happening right now in the mind. All other information and education can be acquired by reading books. You can open a book on any subject, be it birth, death or dietary habits; there are volumes of books available on countless topics. But awareness of our own mind cannot be learnt by reading a book. What does our mind do? It vacillates between the past and the future. Every moment, it is either angry about the past or anxious about the future. There is another tendency of the mind – clinging to the negative. If 10 positive instances or events are followed by one negative event, we cling to that one negative thing. We simply forget all the 10 positives. To bring about a change in these two tendencies of the mind is the greatest help you can render yourself. Becoming aware of these two...

Anything that is natural does not require effort. You bathe in the morning. Do you bathe with a lot of interest? Do you brush your teeth with a lot of interest? No, you don’t. Just because you have to do it, you do it! It’s natural and effortless! Like when you are smiling naturally, that smile is effortless. But if you are asked to smile then that becomes a difficult task. Doing an action that requires effort is ‘Aasakti.’However, doing work that comes naturally and gives you inner peace is done in ‘Nirasakti’. If you ask those who prepare food every day, they would be able to prepare it without much effort. However if the same task is handed to a person who never cooks, he will flip through the pages of a recipe book again and again, to prepare the same food. He will keep tasting the food to check the balance of spices. So wherever effort is applied, the job is done with ‘Aasakti’, and this leads to feverishness. You being feverish about going to, for example, Mysore is ‘Aasakti’; an...

Sukha (pleasure), dukha (sorrow), logic and feverishness — these four reins pull you backwards. You dream of pleasure; this is so amazing! Even after experiencing different pleasures, you think there is pleasure somewhere else. You are pulled by the rein of pleasure. Every pleasure has been so momentary, has left your hands empty, depleted, drained. Yet one hopes for more pleasure, some unknown, unseen pleasure. Sukha is pleasure and dukha, sorrow or the fear of sorrow. What is the sorrow that you are afraid of? What is going to happen to you? You have gone through many problems. As a child, you cried so many times when a toy broke. But what happened? You passed through that. You have passed through many stumbling blocks in life, which you thought were impossible. Yet you remained untouched by any of them. Nothing could ever shake you. It appeared to have shaken you at that moment, but later on you found that you are as complete as were before. And then there is desire for more, wantin...

All around the world, countries have stormy seasons. The tropical countries have their monsoons, and non-tropical countries have their yearly winter storms. The layout of the planet, along with its various climates and weather systems, make it such that there is always a storm happening somewhere on Earth. The same phenomenon holds true for people. Life is found to be caught up in storms very often, either in some part of the mind or body. You are not yourself when you are in even a small storm. By their very nature, storms take you away from your centre, and you don’t know what to do. All your practices, concepts, ideas, and ideals fall apart during storms. Your devotion, your love, all the beautiful things you cherish in your life simply seem to be missing, or meaningless. These things happen when you are under the influence of a big storm. And even when the storm has subsided, the very memory of it disturbs you even more. So what do you do when a storm appears overhead? Nothing appe...