S 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

What if I have not been writing? Feelings wouldn’t have died; expression wouldn’t have sharpened. I wouldn’t have analyzed many of my deeds and others’ deeds to me. Small and irrelevant looking incidents of life wouldn’t have appeared priceless.

My life is an abstract life. I am avoiding it everyday and it’s avoiding me everyday.

You cannot say, "I will look it up." Your birthday and social security number are things you look up; trigonometric functions and identities are what you know all the time.

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

The death is born when life is born. The moment I was born was also the first moment or first step of death.

Marriage is like death, only happens once.

Good people are not those who lack flaws, the brave are not those who feel no fear, and the generous are not those who never feel selfish. Extraordinary people are not extraordinary because they are invulnerable to unconscious biases. They are extraordinary because they choose to do something about it.

The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth, whether it's scientific truth or historical truth or personal truth! It is the guiding principle on which Starfleet is based! If you can't find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened, you don't deserve to wear that uniform!

Shankar Vedantam wrote that those who travel with the current will always feel they are good swimmers, while those who swim against the current may never realize they are better swimmers than they imagine,

Jai Shiv shambu, shiv shankar, Jai Bhole..

There is only two types of women in the world: 1. beautiful 2. very beautiful

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

Feeble minds are tamed,great minds always conquer..

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

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

Literature cannot be reality in a same way as literature cannot be idealistic.

Infinity means it is permeating all the finite things,

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

Your desire for pleasure or happiness makes you unhappy.

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

An insightful book possesses the ability to speak to you

If the shining sun blinds the eye,it makes sense. But to be blinded by gold and silver!

Writer can’t be writer twenty-four hours; and they have many avtars.

Human is very odd living being. I have not understood anything so far.

I am helpless because I achieved popularity more than what I actually am.

There is no entertainment better than the process of understanding yourself

He who has not first laid his foundations may be able with great ability to lay them afterwards, but they will be laid with trouble to the architect and danger to the building. – Niccolo Machiavelli in The Prince

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.

If I have not found a path, it means the horizon is open for me.

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

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

No person can ever be called friendless for he has the company of books.

She was like a star in the sky and I would imagine how she could be mine....

I find imaginary numbers useful when computing my tax deductions.

Today is my birthday and I'm very happy, not because it's my birthday today...I'm happy because I have paid one more installment of my life.

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.

A wide array of research shows that people who are delusionally optimistic tend to outlive people with more realistic attitudes.

When you define God, it ceases to be one

মানুষ যত সহজে ধ্বংস করতে শিখেছে তত সহজে নির্মাণ করতে শিখেনি ।

In most early human societies, concern for the afterlife was a primary motive. The guiding principle, as William Paley, the eighteenth-century philosopher, put it was, ‘the hope of heaven and the fear of hell’.20

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?

The idea that any historical analysis is entirely objective is flawed. A writer is by no means free or without prejudice and an awareness of one’s own preconceived notions is perhaps the first semblance of objectivity. Furthermore,

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.

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.

Author compares the impact of biases to his experience as an average swimmer who overcame a considerable fear of water. While the swimming was easy in one particular experience, he was internally congratulating himself on his acquired skill. But when he realized he was swimming with a current he would now have to fight against, he realized just how definite his limits were.

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

Every human being is a god today. A god, who creates his own world employing deceit, envy, betrayal, murder, legality, obligation, superstition, faith, devotion and ignorance. God today is not confined to a particular religion, but finds expression in Christ, Mohammed and Buddha.

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.

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

People with depression and some other disorders often see reality more clearly.

You must actively manage your career because otherwise things won’t just happen. Hope is not a strategy.

You must invite honest and accurate feedback. Surround yourself with people who care and aren’t afraid to speak up to you directly, face to face.

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.

Many people hold false beliefs not because they are in love with falsehoods, or because they are stupid—as conventional wisdom might suggest—but because those beliefs help them hold their lives together in some way.

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.

Our minds are vulnerable to myths, falsehoods and fictions not merely because we are dumb or stupid, but because we are frail, flawed and easily afraid. Advocating fearless rationality—an end to myth-making and myth-believing—is not just about being smart. It is a matter of privilege. If you don’t lack for food and water, for physical security or a police department that comes when you call, you might not feel the need to turn to myths, rationalizations and rituals. You may have no need for fellow members of your tribe to come to your assistance when you are sick, because there are doctors and hospitals who will do a better job. If you think of yourself as a citizen of the world because borders are illusions and people everywhere are the same, you probably haven’t lived through the kind of persecution that makes you desperate for the protection of your fellow tribesmen. It’s fine to hold secular, cosmopolitan views. But when rationalists look down on people who crave the hollow panaceas of tribe and nation, it’s like Marie Antoinette asking why peasants who lack bread don’t satisfy themselves with cake. They fail to grasp what life is like for most people on the planet.

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.

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.

Unconscious bias influences our lives in exactly the same manner as that undercurrent that took me out so far that day. When undercurrents aid us … we are invariably unconscious of them. We never credit the undercurrent for carrying us so swiftly; we credit ourselves, our talents, our skills. I was completely sure that it was my swimming ability that was carrying me out so swiftly that day. It did not matter that I knew in my heart that I was a very average swimmer, it did not matter that I knew that I should have worn a life jacket and flippers. On the way out, the idea of humility never occurred to me. It was only at the moment I turned back, when I had to go against the current, that I even realized the current existed.

one reason people cling to false beliefs is because self-deception can sometimes be functional—it enables us to accomplish useful social, psychological or biological goals. Holding false beliefs is not always the mark of idiocy, pathology or villainy.

Most of the time your employer doesn’t really care about your career. All you are to them is a skilled and loyal resource. So don’t expect HR to regularly track a file marked “X’s Career.” Grasping this harsh reality should be the beginning of change.

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.

The old practice of doing your job and keeping your head down doesn’t work that well anymore. As an experienced professional, you must be out there and if you are not visible you might as well not exist. And if you are looking to change careers or jobs, visibility is not a luxury — it’s a necessity.

some students look at the problems that they're facing and they draw global conclusions from them. They say this is not just a professor giving me a bad grade or someone not sitting next to me in the cafeteria. This reflects that fact that I am not ready for college, or I shouldn't be in this college at all.

There is no use complaining about the hidden brain, or wishing it away. The telescope effect in our moral judgment is part of our nature. There is nothing we can do about it. But there is something we can do about our actions. We can choose to allow our actions to be guided by reason rather than instinct, choose to set up national and international institutions that respond instantly to humanitarian crises, rather than wait for our heartstrings to be pulled by stories of individual tragedy. If we rely on our moral telescopes, there will be people in a hundred years who ask how the world could have sat on its hands through so many genocides in the twenty-first century. Making

What exactly are values? Values are not your skills or knowledge but things that you acquired unconsciously since childhood. You may think that you can change yourself enough to cope with the demands of a career. Be careful because it’s much easier to acquire skills than to change values. Hence the importance of matching your values with the, organizational culture.

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.

The BJP remained one step ahead of its competition, though, and found a new weapon that offered much better targeting than Facebook ever could—WhatsApp. Using it, a specific message could be sent to one group of people and a completely different message to a different group of people. By making use of people’s pre-existing biases, individuals could be turned into supporters by a party through messaging that would make them believe that the party had exactly the same goals as they did. The platform would allow the BJP to appear vehemently anti-cow slaughter to voters in Uttar Pradesh while making it appear ambivalent towards it to voters in the northeast. Or aggressively pro-Hindutva to some voters and solely development-oriented to others. Such was the magic of targeted messaging on WhatsApp.

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,