Sri Sri Ravi Shankar - Clare Agius Malta - Interview Dec 09 ..PART 3
To Watch The Video Goto http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDi5-AUuDwQ
Clare: People like to relate to others depending on where they are coming from and what were the similar things rather than the differernces between one culture and the other. What was your chilhood like?
Guruji: You know, my childhood never ended. It is still continuing. Today Iam a child who refuses to grow up. I think we all have the child likeness within each one of us. Somehow it all gets covered up with our conditioning. I saw to it that I dont get conditioned by anything else and perhaps that is the education and support I got from my parents and teachers and the general spiritual atmosphere I grew up. So my childhood days most of the time I spent with all the wise people, elderly people and now that Iam getting o0lder Iam spending time with the children. I would like everyone to be a child again. To me child is the teacher because the child teaches how to be in the present moment, how to accept people and things. If you observe a baby anywhere in the world from the time it is born to the age of three, it will do all Yoga postures. Every posture of Yoga the child does, the way the child sleeps with all the mudras. Perhaps the founders of Yoga must have observed the child and also all the species of the world and how they integrated one's body, nind and spirit into exercises, processes which would uplift you, make you feel light from within and loving and caring everyone. I think this switch we need to make today in the world otherwise there is no hope for the world. Today when there is so much of greed, so much of terrorism, fear and uncertainity, broken families, domestic and societal violence, we have to come back to human values. We have to come back to spiritual values where we honour each other and where we create a sense of belongingness for each other and make the work as one family. I often say technology has shrunk the world into a global village. It is spirituality that connects it as a family.
Clare: That's true. People who are listening Iam sure are saying it is true we may practice but we still have to go to work, we still have to take the children everywhere, pay the bills. So how is the integration of practise in our life, real practical life go to make it different?
Guruji: See, this is the difference between Art Of Living and other spiritual practices and exercises because you can do some practices, exercises, meditation in your room and then when you come out you are the same person as you were before. It doesn't integrate with your work place. But here what I say is you have to take responsibilty at your work and how much enthusiastic, energetic and creative you are in your day to day life depends on how clear and compassionate you are deep within yourself. So they are complimentary, very much complimentary. The more responsibility we have the more pressure we have, the more we need to take time to do this exercise and thats the main thing about Art Of Living. It is not like running away from responsibility. It is to gain abilities to fulfill your responsibilities much better.
Clare: What is that you tell people who ask you but how can I be calm and not angry when I was educated like this? Educated to fight back. I know you have travelled the world, spoken with many people who are suffering. How can we sent the message to the people who dont know otherwise?
Guruji: But they need to know how to manage their mind, how to manage their emotions. Once you know how to manage your own mind, your own emotions, then you simply dont react but act consciously. You act with awareness. You act after thinking about it. Not just act and then think later. That's one of the major benefits. Second thing is it improves your immune system. It boosts your immune system. You see 90% of the impurities in our body goes out through our breath and we have not learnt anything about our breath. So these few hours of lessons in breathing and in exercising and in meditation brings such a transformation in life. And you will see and you have seen in yourself nobody can easily upset you. You are able to smile through the day, you are being able to be energetic ev en in the late evenings and at the end of the night. That energy increaces many times.
Clare: Something that you reminded me of when you were talking about children is something that Jesus said " to enter the Kingdom of my Father you have to be like a child." So may with this relation to Jesus, what, how does Jesus symbolise in your life? What does He mean to you?
Guruji: You know as a child in India we used to celebrate all the festivals of other religions though we are Hindus. We didn't consider it as another religion because we used to keep Jesus picturre in our home, we used to go to Church on the Christmas day to greet the Father there. So there was very good harmonious inter faith culture that we all grew up with. In Mahatma Gandhi's satsan everyday, Mahatma Gandhi's prayer meetings he used to recite prayers from all the religions. Lord Krishna in the Upanishads has said what we need to is to bring into our educational system is our global wisdom. Otherwise when the child grows up thinking my religion is the best in the world is is the only way for salvation they don't connect with other people. That leads to terrorism. As long as even a small pocket of world is left with this ignorance that only my religion is the best everything else is bad they are going to create problems for the world. Thats what is happening in Afganistan. Because they are not embracing the wisdon of the world. Because it is part of the whole world. Any wisdom anywhere in the world belongs to you.
Transcribed By Lakshmi Ravishankar
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