January 02, 2014
Bad Antogast, Germany
How can I fully accept and commit to my profession when I feel
spending my life doing seva(service).
Sri Sri: You can balance between seva (service) and your
personal and professional life. You can do both.
At one point in time, when you feel you don’t want to do anything but just want
to dedicate (your life) for the sake of the world, then do it.
What are your needs? You need some bread, butter, jam, a nice quilt, a good
car. All this will be provided. Nature will provide it.
I
never thought how will I get the resources, how will I get money? We in The Art
of Living simply start a project and then money comes.
When we started The Art of Living we had no money. I just took the commitment
that I will take care of these 175 kids. We had to clothe them, feed them and
do everything. People wondered, ‘Gurudev you never ask anybody for money, how
are you going to manage this school?’
I said, ‘I don’t know!’
So, my father housed them for some time. Then a little later somebody said, ‘I
am going to America Gurudev. This is the key to my house. You can use it for
whatever purpose you want.’
Someone else said, ‘I want to send three bags of dal’.
Another person said, ‘I want to send three bags of rice’.
Somebody came and gave me an envelope with some money. I didn’t even wonder or
worry for one single day, how this is going to run. That is how Art of Living started.
I had a choice to start The Art of Living and I said, ‘Yes'.
First
we went from village to village, then to cities. Then I went to Delhi. In Delhi
there was a course for all the different embassies. One gentleman from the
United Nations and his wife took the course. I didn’t even teachSudarshan
Kriya those days. We would just sit and do some guided meditation.
I used to speak very little. Just a few words. They felt so thrilled. Everybody
enjoyed it. And this time when I was in America, the wife of the UN
(representative), Mr. Cooper, she was in there too. She was the first American
lady to take the course with me. She was there in Boone ashram,
after 32 years.
Then
someone from England invited me and then I went to England. Then I went to
Italy, someone invited me to Italy. Then Germany, Switzerland, and like that I
just kept going.
I never calculated, ‘Oh, how to go, what to do’, everything just happened.
People called me to London, so I went there. The house I would stay in, we
would just do satsang in the evening and a short meditation. There would be a
queue of people outside. The people who would come would feel good; some
healings would happen. They told their friends who then told their friends.
For
10 years we did not print any advertisement. In the initial days I would not
permit any advertisement. Not even any pictures, or posters. No banners,
nothing. Only word of mouth. If you benefit, tell your friends. If they
benefit, they tell their friends. We were doing it like that.
Only later, in 1989, when the group was growing bigger, then we started giving
ads in the paper for people to know that there is satsang, meditation and Kriya.
Art of Living took those tiny steps and today we are very big.
We should know that we are a part of a grand universal plan. Our
needs will be taken care of, but nobody’s greed can never be quenched. Greed is different. Needs will always be taken
care of. If you have an intense need and you pray for that, it will come. It
may take time, but not always.
Is Sanskrit spoken on all the planets in the Universe, or only on
Earth?
Sri Sri: Well, I don’t know in which planets they are speaking, but
certainly not on this planet.
All the languages, even though they have come from Sanskrit, it is not spoken
anywhere. Even in India, it has almost disappeared; 99.9% disappeared.
Somewhere, 0.01% people know just a little bit. Sanskrit needs to be revived
and it is happening now.
Slowly people are doing this. They now know that it is a very good language for
computers.
Neurolinguistic
functions are best with the Sanskrit syllables.
Italian language has about 50-60% of Sanskrit words. Russian has so many,
English has so many as well. All the Indian languages also have many words in
common. Chinese and Japanese also.
Recently when I was in Japan, one scholar had written a book that said that 80%
of Japanese language has roots in Tamil which is again close to Sanskrit but
not exactly Sanskrit. I will say, whatever language you speak, speak
the language of the heart. Sincere, clear. No malice to anybody. No ill
feeling towards anybody. Speak with a pure heart and a clear mind, and success
will be yours. Success is sure for you.
Gurudev, I am pregnant and I eat vegetarian food only. I was told
that I should eat non-vegetarian food during my pregnancy to have a healthy
baby. What do you say?
Sri Sri: I don’t agree to that. Most of the children born today and born in
India, and people are vegetarian there, and in America also.
Millions of people in America are turning vegetarians. Even in Europe they have
started to turn vegetarian. We have doctors that say that you should be
vegetarian, and that the body cannot digest animal protein.
It
is a wrong notion to think that we must eat meat in order to be healthy. It is
not necessary. This is a wrong notion, ‘Oh if you don’t eat meat you will be
very weak’. Come on, look at a horse! You say horse power, yet a horse is
vegetarian. Elephants are vegetarian. Giraffes, Zebras are vegetarian. The big
fives except the lion are all vegetarian. They are not weak.
Even cows are vegetarian. Bulls are so strong. This is a wrong
notion in people’s mind that only if you eat meat you will become strong.
Meat causes so many diseases. Go on the internet and you can find a lot about
it.
Gurudev, I read recently that in India a new political party has
come up that is against corruption and VIP culture, etc., in Delhi. I sometimes
see this VIP culture in The Art of Living. Gurudev, do you encourage VIP
culture?
Sri Sri: Absolutely not. There is no VIP culture, but does that mean
everybody gets to do the same thing? No! They should play their roles properly.
VIP culture is a preferential treatment that went on in Delhi. I even tell them
in our satsangs that we shouldn’t put the board, 'VIPs'. Of course they
put it because they have to give passes to people, so that the VIPs who come,
come from a different entrance. They come and sit there.
I
tell you, though this party has started, they are very new. Let us see for a
couple of months if they will be able to be that way. Sometimes practically it
may not be possible.
Imagine the President of Germany come here. Do you think he'll be able to just
sit anywhere? No! There will be security guards, there will be sniffing dogs.
I
even advised Arvind (Leader of the new political party against corruption).
I told him that this ideal is very good, but don’t be a soft target for people
who may want to create disturbance.
The world still has criminal elements. We should be practical. Though from my
eyes, everyone is good, but there are still some criminal tendencies. We are
not still in what is called Ram Rajya.
Ram rajya means where there is no crime. It is written in the scriptures
that during Lord Rama’s time there was no crime. There was justice for
everybody. Everyone was equal and everyone was loved. This was a great dream of
Mahatma Gandhi. He took the name of Rama and united India. He said, ‘Do you
want the kingdom of Rama? Then let us unite’, With the ideal of Ram
Rajya, he united India.
Today,
we are not yet a Ram Rajya. Where there is crime you need to be safe,
protected. Either you have spiritual power and say, ‘I don’t need protection’,
or you have to take protection. It is a good step.
But if you ask me, 'Why do you meet some people and not everyone', I meet
everybody. Some people come with projects and I spend time with them. They have
done some seva, done some work. If you want me to only come and sit
with you, then I’ll say, 'I have no time for you. No time for gossip'. But if
you have some project, yes, I’ll give you some time. That is there, but not VIP
culture.
(A member of the audience asked a question which was inaudible)
Sri Sri: In my eyes, it is we who create these boundaries.
Way back in the 80s, if I had to come to Europe I had to take so many visas.
One visa for Germany, one for France, one for Italy, one for Switzerland, one
for Holland and one for Scandinavia also. So many visas! My goodness! It would
take me 4-5 days to get the visa of each country. So I had to plan well in
advance. At that time I had wished and said, ‘These borders between all the
countries in Europe should all go’.
I even loudly expressed this and said, ‘Why are there so much visa
restrictions? It should all go’, and boom, that’s it, a couple of years later
it happened.
Now with one Schengen visa you can go everywhere. Still Switzerland was the
last one to join. They usually push other people in the water and see how deep
it is and then they get inside (laughter); to be very safe you know!
Finally Switzerland also has joined.
So now we don’t have that issue. One visa and that’s it, you can go all over.
Poland also has joined. Earlier, we could come to Germany but could not go to
Poland without a particular visa. Those borders are now becoming obsolete, and
that is nature’s way. That is coming closer to nature.
The border between cultures, borders between races, languages, nations
should just be dropped. It is time! One world family. We must understand this.
Vasudeva Kutumbakam!
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