Ravi Shankar Quotes

Love is not an emotion. It is your very existence.

Human evolution has two steps - from being somebody to being nobody; and from being nobody to being everybody. This knowledge can bring sharing and caring throughout the world.

Faith is realizing that you always get what you need.

Today is a gift from God - that is why it is called the present.

I tell you, deep inside you is a fountain of bliss, a fountain of joy. Deep inside your center core is truth, light, love, there is no guilt there, there is no fear there. Psychologists have never looked deep enough.

In always wanting to be comfortable, you become lazy. In always wanting perfection, you become angry. In always wanting to be rich, you become greedy.

Difference between motivation and inspiration - Motivation is external and short lived. Inspiration is internal and lifelong

Life is nothing to be very serious about. Life is a ball in your hands to play with. Don’t hold on to the ball.

If you can win over your mind, you can win over the whole world.

Wise is the one who learns from another´s mistakes. Less wise is the one who learns only from his own mistakes. The fool keeps making the same mistakes again and again and never learns from them.

Activity and rest are two vital aspects of life. To find a balance in them is a skill in itself. Wisdom is knowing when to have rest, when to have activity, and how much of each to have. Finding them in each other - activity in rest and rest in activity - is the ultimate freedom.

Life works on strange laws of nature (Karma). One never knows when a friend turns enemy & vice-versa. Rely on your Self; self-reliance

When you share your misery, it will not diminish. When you fail to share your joy, it diminishes. Share your problems only with the Divine, not with anyone else, as that will only increase the problems. Share your joy with everyone. Listen to others; yet do not listen. If your mind gets stuck in their problems, not only are they miserable, but you also become miserable.

why can't we control our anger? because we love perfection. make a little room for imperfection in our lives.

Worrying doesn't make any difference, but working does and spirituality gives one the strength to work

Knowledge is a burden if it robs you of innocence. Knowledge is a burden if it is not integrated into life. Knowledge is a burden if it doesn't bring joy. Knowledge is a burden if it gives you an idea that you are wise. Knowledge is a burden if it doesn't set you free. Knowledge is a burden if it makes you feel you are special.

Have "eternal wait," infinite patience. When you have infinite patience, you will realize God belongs to you. Either through awareness or through practice you reach the same spot.

If something can bring you great pleasure, it can also bring you pain.

Have this faith that someone is there to take away your weaknesses. Ok, you slipped once, twice, thrice. It does not matter. Keep moving ahead. People take vows never to commit mistakes again. Breaking the vows makes it worse. Surrendering is better

Don't Fall in love, Rise in Love!

Teachers can be a living example to their students. Not that teachers should look for students to idealize them. One who is worth idealizing does not care whether others idealize them or not. Everyone needs to see that you not only teach human values but you live them. It is unavoidable sometimes you will be idealized -- it is better for children to have a role model, or goal, because then the worshipful quality in them can dawn.

Nothing in the world can bother you as much as your own mind, I tell you. In fact, others seem to be bothering you, but it is not other, it is your own mind.

In true love there is no heartbreak. A broken heart means broken demands, broken expectations, broken hopes.

There is no use getting angry at something that has already happened.All you can do is your best to check it doesn't happen again.

But joy is never tomorrow; it is always now.

Creativity can only come from silence. If we maintain two minutes of silence every day, then we will see that a whole new dimension of life opens up.

I say, drop all your defenses. Anyone can make a mistake — even you. Do not defend your mistakes; just accept them and move on. When you are totally defenseless, that is when you will be completely strong.

The path of love is not a tedious path. It's a path of joy. It's a path of singing and dancing.

Longing itself is divine,” writes the Hindu spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. “Longing for worldly things makes you inert. Longing for Infinity fills you with life. The skill is to bear the pain of longing and move on. True longing brings up spurts of bliss.

We should not exit from this world without finding out who we are and where we have come from. This is very important.

The third one is culturing the mind. One who has never meditated has no right to even touch the book of Ashtavakra.

Sadhyojata means “creating every moment anew, knowing every moment new.’ We are used to a certain dimension, so this may go beyond you.

Infinity means it is permeating all the finite things,

As I write, My fingers tap tap the keys the way Ravi Shankar's fingers pluck and strum the strings of his sitar.

Your desire for pleasure or happiness makes you unhappy.

There are four sources of energy — food, sleep, breath and a calm mind.

Your comparison with your own performance is better, is healthy, but if you start comparing with others, in all probability, you will feel jealous.

Dissolving the name is awareness. Dissolving the form is meditation. The world is name and form. Bliss transcends name and form. Bangalore Ashram, India September 24, 1997

You need to see your life in context of time and space — how vast creation is, how big the universe is and how small your life is, relative

I feel it is very important to teach our children and our people how they should handle their negative feelings and emotions such as anger, jealousy and hatred.

You accept food and music from every part of the world without reservation, don’t you? You don’t have to be Danish to eat Danish pastries or Italian to eat pasta and pizzas. You don’t have to be a German to enjoy Beethoven or an Indian to listen to sitar music. Why then, when it comes to wisdom, do we become so narrow-minded?

I didn’t sleep at all that night. Soon after leaving the station, the lights were out. It was just an old passenger train from Dixie to the Midwest, with no amenities of any kind. No lights, no reading, nothing to do but make friends with the sounds of the night train. The wheels on the track made endless patterns, and I was caught up in it almost at once. Years later, studying with Alla Rakha, Ravi Shankar’s great tabla player and music partner, I practiced the endless cycles of 2s and 3s that form the heart of the Indian tal system. From this I learned the tools by which apparent chaos could be heard as an unending array of shifting beats and patterns. But on this memorable night, I was innocent of all that.

Life without wisdom is incomplete, Wisdom that does not give rise to feelings is incomplete, Feeling that does not transfer into action is incomplete, Action that does not give rise to fulfillment is incomplete, Fulfillment is returning to self.

This temporary world is of death. Here, everything dies and everything changes. Do you recognise that subtle field of energy, that subatomic level of energy which does not change? Objects disintegrate, but atoms remain the same. Atoms and molecules disintegrate, but the sub-atomic particles are the same. All these human bodies are different, but there is one field of energy, the mind, that flows through everybody. Do you realize that there is one thing that is in everybody? Do you recognize the one consciousness?

There is some virtue to be learnt from every part of the world — teamwork from Japan, precision from Germany, marketing and negotiation skills from the United States, courtesy, decency and refinement from the British, and human values from the villages of India. You

TOLERANCE Neither accept people as they are nor tolerate them. Many people think tolerance is a virtue but tolerance is actually a negative term. If you like something, you do not have to tolerate it. Tolerance indicates a deep sense of dislike that can at any time turn into hatred. It indicates a sense of separateness, small-mindedness, a limitation of consciousness. When you tolerate, it is a temporary state. Tolerance is a potential volcano. If you are tolerating, it means you are just holding on. Acceptance is also negative. You accept that which is not lovable. Tolerance and acceptance come with judgment and separation. Question: "But aren't we supposed to accept people as they are?" If you do not love them, then you have to accept them. I tell you, do not accept people as they are. Just love them as they are.

Young children, who have not yet accumulated a lot of stress, exhibit an abundance of energy, enthusiasm, profound joy, and unconditional love. These qualities that manifest spontaneously in an innocent child demonstrate the truest, unadulterated, essence of humanness. We are all born with a wellspring of love and joy. These qualities are not just emotions, they are the essence of our existence. The truth of our essence cannot change, it can only be covered over and hidden from us.

When our body and mind are relaxed, we can discover divinity in chirping birds, rustling leaves, flowing water or tall mountains. Even erupting volcanoes, thunder and lightning, or warring human beings exude divinity—everyone has the freedom to relate to God in the form they want to. A guru is the one who kindles this awareness in us.

Someone who does not have any responsibility can feel very detached, ‘Oh, I am doing nothing. I am free.’ But that freedom has no value. If someone who is responsible for the whole of society, the whole kingdom can say, ‘I am not doing anything’ in spite of this responsible job; then that ‘not doing’ something is great. That is enlightenment.

Forgetfulness of the infinite is misery. Forgetfulness of the trivial is ecstasy.

The best "Puja", the best form of worship is to be happy, to be grateful.

If someone blames you directly, do not believe it. Just know that they are taking away your bad karma and let it

The fire of love or fire of knowledge creates unpleasantness or a sense of longing in the beginning, but it moves on to the blossoming of bliss, the blossoming of fullness.

Think about a world which never irritated you. You’d be stuck with it forever.

Love is not an emotion. It is your very existence.

life is a ball we should play with it !

Rejection itself means the finite.

Half the health we spend gaining our wealth,” he says, “and then spend half our wealth trying to gain back our health—this is not a very intelligent thing to do.

Even in moments of utter danger, a person like Mahatma Gandhi remained totally involved in his work.

If people are not inspired from within, it will not be possible to build a good work ethic. Work

Healthy breathing is the key to eliminating these toxins and harmonising emotions. Neither

Science is about learning 'what something is' and spirituality is about knowing 'who I am'. The

To be afraid of danger is to be wise, but to yield to fear is fatal.

The three gunas [qualities] happen: sattva, rajas and tamas. These three gunas come in cycles into our life. When sattva comes, there is alertness, knowledge, interest, joy, happiness – everything comes. When rajo guna comes there is more desire, feverishness, restlessness, and sadness. When tamo guna comes delusion, attachment, lack of knowledge, lethargy – all these come.

The School Now we come to the school. The responsibility of the school is to educate a child and at the same time, not to vanquish all the virtues that a child is born with. A child is born with virtues and a school should see that it protects their virtues, that innocence, the sense of belongingness, love, and trust which every child is born with. Often in the educational system, the school only caters as an information bureau, but not as a personality-building center. Most schools can produce great computers but only a few good human beings. We have brilliant students. They have information about the world. Just by one question they can answer all the information that is needed. But are they good human beings? Do they know how to behave well? Are they cultured, civilized, compassionate human beings? This is a question that every school and every teacher should ask.

discipline in words and speech. Do not speak any word (from your side) that would create turbulence and turmoil in the minds of others. Even if you don’t speak, some people get turbulent. That you are not responsible for, but from your side, do not speak. This is an oath you will take to begin with, for the next five days. Do not speak any harsh word. Don’t let any harsh word come out of your mouth to anyone. Do not hurt with your words, for the Divine dwells in every heart.

This Truth has to be realized here and now, in this lifetime. Do not postpone it until the next lifetime. If you do not know it this lifetime, it is the greatest loss. There cannot be any greater loss than this. This is the greatest loss imaginable.

If there is fear or confusion in your life, it is because you lack commitment. The very thought, "I am here in this world to do seva," dissolves the "i" and when the "i" dissolves, worries dissolve. Seva is not something you do out of convenience or for pleasure. The ultimate purpose of life is to be of service. An uncommitted mind is miserable. A committed mind may at times experience rough weather but it will reap the fruits of its toil. When you make service your sole purpose in life, it eliminates fear, focuses your mind and gives you meaning.

Arjava [sincerity] is the second thing. There are people who can go on forgiving themselves but they are not sincere. So they can be where they are and continue doing the same thing. Forget the past. ‘Yes, I did something wrong, I am also preparing to do something wrong today and I’ll continue with something tomorrow.’ There’s

An organization should be like a picture frame. The frame shouldn’t eat away the picture.” In other words, just as it isn’t possible to hold a picture in the absence of a frame, without an organization any work, whether spiritual or social, can’t happen. At the same time, if the organization becomes too bureaucratic, it’s like the frame eating the picture away.

More tiring than the work itself is the memory of hard work, just thinking you have worked hard interferes with the quality of rest. Some people take pride in working hard without any results. And there are others who crave for a long rest without knowing that true rest is in non-doership. Thinking you need rest makes you restless. Thinking you have to work hard makes you tired. Thinking you have worked hard brings self-pity.

All that you can do is to raise the level of sattva. And then when sattva’s level is high, we have to wait one moment, any moment knowledge can dawn there. All that you can do to have sunlight in this room, is to open the curtains and keep the windows open. And when dawn comes, it just dawns. You have the sunlight inside. If you close your curtains, even if it’s midsummer afternoon, you will still find your room dark, because the gunas are cloudy.

In science knowledge comes first and then faith follows. In spirituality faith comes first and then knowledge follows. The knowledge that pesticides and chemical fertilizers are good for plants came through science. Based on this knowledge, people had faith in pesticides and fertilizers and they were used all over the world. Then a different knowledge came and faith shifted to organic farming. Knowledge brought faith, the knowledge changed, and then faith changed. The knowledge and faith of science is of "happening." In spirituality, faith is first and knowledge comes later.

The secret—to being you, to being Happy?” “Just keep on smiling. Even when you’re sad. Keep on smiling.” Not the most profound advice, admittedly. But Happy is wise, for only a fool or a philosopher would make sweeping generalizations about the nature of happiness. I am no philosopher, so here goes: Money matters, but less than we think and not in the way that we think. Family is important. So are friends. Envy is toxic. So is excessive thinking. Beaches are optional. Trust is not. Neither is gratitude. To venture any further, though, is to enter treacherous waters. A slippery seal, happiness is. On the road, I encountered bushels of inconsistencies. The Swiss are uptight and happy. The Thais are laid-back and happy. Icelanders find joy in their binge drinking, Moldovans only misery. Maybe an Indian mind can digest these contradictions, but mine can’t. Exasperated, I call one of the leading happiness researchers, John Helliwell. Perhaps he has some answers. “It’s simple,” he says. “There’s more than one path to happiness.” Of course. How could I have missed it? Tolstoy turned on his head. All miserable countries are alike; happy ones are happy in their own ways. It’s worth considering carbon. We wouldn’t be here without it. Carbon is the basis of all life, happy and otherwise. Carbon is also a chameleon atom. Assemble it one way—in tight, interlocking rows—and you have a diamond. Assemble it another way—a disorganized jumble—and you have a handful of soot. The arranging makes all the difference. Places are the same. It’s not the elements that matter so much as how they’re arranged and in which proportions. Arrange them one way, and you have Switzerland. Arrange them another way, and you have Moldova. Getting the balance right is important. Qatar has too much money and not enough culture. It has no way of absorbing all that cash. And then there is Iceland: a country that has no right to be happy yet is. Iceland gets the balance right. A small country but a cosmopolitan one. Dark and light. Efficient and laid-back. American gumption married to European social responsibility. A perfect, happy arrangement. The glue that holds the entire enterprise together is culture. It makes all the difference. I have some nagging doubts about my journey. I didn’t make it everywhere. Yet my doubts extend beyond matters of itinerary. I wonder if happiness is really the highest good, as Aristotle believed. Maybe Guru-ji, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, is right. Maybe love is more important than happiness. Certainly, there are times when happiness seems beside the point. Ask a single, working mother if she is happy, and she’s likely to reply, “You’re not asking the right question.” Yes, we want to be happy but for the right reasons, and,

Visayasukham duhkhavat parityaajyam. Unless you get this maturity, you cannot move into your center. It needs some maturity from the world, in the world, some amount of saturation, some amount of getting beaten up by situations in life, so that it pushes you to the center. If you are too ambitious all the time, thinking about this and this and this, your mind is hovering around the world, it can never get into the center.   That's why, either a person who is very saturated can go deep in meditation, or a person who has suffered in life can go into meditation. They know what was sorrow, and they can drop things like sorrow. Or they know what was sorrow, and they can take things, this is like sorrow.

When longing disappears, love disappears.

We all cried when we came into this planet, but it is important, that at least when we go, we are happy and smiling. Do not have regrets in life. You should feel that, 'I have done what I had to do, and whenever the time to leave this body comes, I will die happily'.

Dvityadvai bhayam bhavati which means, Fear is the result of duality.

5. Sarasyaavartaad iva vrttirantah karanaparinaamah. What are the thoughts? What are the vrittis, the modes, moods? They are like a whirlpool in the lake that is mind. It is the same substance in you, the same energy. You can spend the whole life worrying, grumbling, brooding over things and being miserable, or the same energy could be used to uplift you to unimaginable heights. It is one energy, one wave. That is your mind.   Like a whirlpool, the waves arise within the water. The same water is made into a wave. Thoughts are not some external force coming into you and attacking you. It is part of the consciousness. And how to move about with it, this we will see.

Your sadness is because of the thorn of desire in your heart. If you don`t take notice of it, it will turn into sarcasm, cynicism, frustration, and anger. You need to pull it out and throw it, then you will feel uplifted and happy.

Our body is an illusion, it doesn’t stay the same, it keeps changing. Our emotions also keep changing. So, in that sense, it is all an illusion. Have you read my tweet about happiness? When you look at somebody`s face, if they don’t look happy, it is because there is a thorn of desire in their heart. Your sadness is because of the thorn of desire in your heart. If you don`t take notice of it, it will turn into sarcasm, cynicism, frustration, and anger. You need to pull it out and throw it, then you will feel uplifted and happy. These are the four stages: 1. Sarcasm 2. Cynicism 3. Frustration, and 4. Anger Many times we don`t notice why we are sarcastic, or cynical, or frustrated and angry. Why does this happen? It is because of this thorn of desire. If you are angry, either you hurt yourself or you hurt others. If you get angry at others, you become sad and if you are angry at yourself, then also you become sad. In either case you become sad. Many a times people don`t notice this at all. Even if one notices this, he doesn`t have the courage or willingness to remove it and throw it. If you manage to pull it out, you will find joy, enthusiasm, and contentment, and this is a siddhi (special ability). This requires both self effort and grace. You need to put some self effort and then grace follows.

Jyothishmati pragnya means to see your whole mind as light, as a flame. Your consciousness is a flame. Your mind is a flame. You forget this! Your entire body is functioning because of this presence of the mind as a flame in you. Otherwise, you’ll be like an unlit candle. What is a flame? How does a flame work? A flame lives on oxygen, doesn’t it? What does it do? A flame uses some matter from the substance earth, and it uses oxygen and lives. And what is life? Life is also the same! It uses oxygen and lives on some matter. Just like a flame lives from the wax and wick, and uses oxygen, so too, your life, the mind, uses the body and food in the body as wax, and the air as oxygen. And it exhibits activities in the body like the flame (consciousness) exhibits life.

If you turn back time and look, 5100 years ago in the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna did the same thing. He has been the first HR manager India knows. When Arjuna was so depressed and was not ready to do his job, Lord Krishna was with him in the battlefield, and told him all sorts of things. First, He warned Arjuna that people would blame him for sure. Then He incited Arjuna's ego and tried to wake him up. And then He offered His disciple different incentives, saying, "If you win, you will have the kingdom. If you lose, you will enjoy Heaven. Come on, fight." In many ways, Lord Krishna lifted Arjuna out of that depression.

Shasana means rules someone else imposes on you. Anushasana means rules you impose on yourself.

When you consciously acknowledge dispassion as a prime factor to move life, then you are able to control the mind.

Learn to rest in that place within you that is your true home.

A good leader is satyadarshi (truthful), samdarshi (equanimous), priyadarshi (pleasant personality), pardarshi (transparent) and doordarshi (farsighted). He has a mission and a vision and a spirit of sacrifice, compassion and commitment.

This is what is expected of a leader — better perception, clear observation and graceful expression.

Surrender is the venture of the bold man. A fearful person cannot surrender.

Regretting the past is the first sign of ignorance. Anxiety about the future is the second sign of ignorance. And being miserable is the sign of total ignorance. If you are in regret mode, then you are on the first step and that is ‘Vishada Yoga’.

Estate agradecido por las cualidades que se te han otorgado, porque no fueron construidas por ti. Estas cualidades dependen del rol que te ha sido concedido para actuar. Cuando comprendes esta verdad básica, entonces tu perfección interna se vuelve estable.

The Washing Machine Our body is like a washing machine. Our mind is like cloth. Love is like pure water. Knowledge is detergent. Each lifetime is one wash cycle. The mind comes into the body to get cleansed and pure. But if you put in mud instead of detergent, your clothes become dirtier than before. You will have to go on putting your clothes in the washing machine to get them cleaned. And the process repeats again and again. Similarly, you will have many more births until you stop repeating the mistakes that you have made. Weggis, Switzerland

Otherwise, whatever you are resisting, you promise yourself one hundred times, "I will not do this, I will not get angry, I'll not be rough to people," and you will see when the time comes, your emotion comes like a storm and all your affirmations are just washed away. All your promises get blown

Now Mrs. Retallack wondered how the effects of what she called "intellectual mathematically sophisticated music of both East and West" would appeal to plants. As program director for the American Guild of Organists, she chose choral preludes from Johann Sebastian Bach's Orgelbuchlein and the classical strains of the sitar, a less-com­ plicated Hindustani version of the south Indian veena, played by Ravi Shankar, the Bengali Brahmin. The plants gave positive evidence of liking Bach, since they leaned an unprecedented thirty-five degrees toward the preludes. But even this affirmation was far exceeded by their reaction to Shankar: in their straining to reach the source of the classical Indian music they bent more than halfway to the horizontal, at angles in excess of sixty degrees, the nearest one almost embracing the speaker. In order not to be swayed by her own special taste for the classical music of both hemispheres Mrs. Retallack, at the behest of hundreds of young people, followed Bach and Shankar with trials of folk and "country-western" music. Her plants seemed to produce no more reac­tion than those in the silent chamber. Perplexed, Mrs. Retallack could only ask: "Were the plants in complete harmony with this kind of earthy music or didn't they care one way or the other?" Jazz caused her a real surprise. When her plants heard recordings as varied as Duke Ellington's "Soul Call" and two discs by Louis Arm­ strong, 5 5 percent of the plants leaned fifteen to twenty degrees toward the speaker, and growth was more abundant than in the silent chamber. Mrs. Retallack also determined that these different musical styles markedly affected the evaporation rate of distilled water inside the chambers. From full beakers, fourteen to seventeen milliliters evapo­rated over a given time period in the silent chambers, twenty to twenty­ five milliliters vaporized under the influence of Bach, Shankar, and jazz; but, with rock, the disappearance was fifty-five to fifty-nine milliliters.

Find the love you seek, by first finding the love within yourself. Learn to rest in that place within you that is your true home

If we think we have all those qualities in us, then they will remain in us. Remember, a bud has all that it needs to become a flower, and so it is with you. You have everything that is needed for you to blossom. It will not be lost.

That Supreme Purusha that you intend to attain is not dry and devoid of joy and enthusiasm. Rather, he is full of joy and enthusiasm, overflowing with the nectar of happiness. There is no place for dullness here. Often people associate regular practice with something that is boring, dull and lifeless. They think, “What will I get by doing all this?” It is not so at all. Abhyasa here means to go towards the source of all joy. The moment one understands this fact, all the abhyasa becomes very easy and joyful. But until one finds the juice in doing so, one feels the need to strive and it may appear to be difficult initially.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar y ahora lo practican decenas de millones de personas en todo el mundo46a través de la fundación The Art of Living.47Hace más o menos lo que hace el tummo,

Yogi is the one who is satisfied with intellectual knowledge and experiential knowledge, both, as well as, with material knowledge and spiritual knowledge.

One who isn’t concerned about the outcome and is centered on the action goes beyond conflicts and the dualities of success and failure.