KNOWLEDGE SHEET BY SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR

KNOWLEDGE SHEET BY SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR

POSTED ON: FRIDAY, AUGUST 7, 2026

 

Shaucha and Ashaucha

 

When you are miserable, what has happened is that you have gone away from the Self. This is called Ashaucha. It means you have become unclean. In India when someone dies, the close relatives are said to be Ashaucha for 10 days because they are very sad. They are impure because they have moved away from the self. After 10 days of just being with that experience and reading the Gita, being with the Knowledge and pulling themselves back into the Self, then it is called Shaucha. They have purged out the impurities that have come during events.

 

This keeps happening again and again in dealings in life. You become Ashaucha and you have to get back to Shaucha. Go deeper in to yourself, then real Shaucha happens.

 

Shaucha's benefits are clarity in the intellect, a pleasing mind, focused awareness in the mind, a say over the senses, and therefore eligibility to realize the Self.

 

Shaucha is disinterestedness in the tendencies of one's own senses and non-association with other people. If a tendency in your body arises just have the understanding, "Oh yes, here is this old familiar tendency coming up again. Come on, you have had this experience enough, and still the body is craving for it again." Disinterestedness in one's own body -- just an idea, a sort of distaste, and in one moment it changes.

 

Why do people love each other so much, have such an intimate relationship, and then fight? Ashaucha has happened. If you don't get distaste for the tendency of the senses then distaste for the object of the senses will come and you will blame the object.

 

When Ashaucha happens then come back to Shaucha quickly. Suppose you get drowned in any worldly aspect, just know this is Ashaucha . . . "That is why I am suffering misery." Then come back to Shaucha.

 

Your attraction or craving is only as long as you think someone is "other." When you think they are part of you or your Self, then the attraction dies out. That is why a husband or wife is not attracted to the partner but to someone else because the partner has already become a part of them.

When you realize everyone is part of your Self, you enjoy the whole world without a sense of craving.

 

II JAI GURUDEV II

 

QUESTION & ANSWER WITH GURUDEV

QUESTION & ANSWER WITH GURUDEV

POSTED ON: FRIDAY, AUGUST 7, 2026

 

Q: Should the change be top driven or bottom up approach?

 

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

 

I feel we need to drive change from both ends -- we need the top down and bottom up approach. If you ask the people at senior levels, they will say, "What can I do? If we try to do something, people resist. What to do?"

 

Suppose the head of a religion wants to bring about a change, but he faces enormous resistance from the bottom. You need to work on both, have a top-down and bottom-up approach.

 

We need to secularize religion, socialize business and spiritualize politics. When I say spiritualize politics, I mean that every politician should see his job as a service activity and not as a job per se. E.g., during the time of Mahatma Gandhi, he and all the other people took to politics as a service to society.

 

When I say secularize religion, I mean that every religious head should pray for the whole population and not people of his community only, which means he should respect all the other religions. And socialize business means that every business entity should also play a part in developing society.

 

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar 

 

WISDOM QUOTE OF SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR.

WISDOM QUOTE OF SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR. 

POSTED ON: FRIDAY, AUGUST 7, 2026

Give in such a way that the other does not even feel they have taken. This is generosity, and this is beauty.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar 

 

KNOWLEDGE SHEET BY SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR

KNOWLEDGE SHEET BY SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR

POSTED ON: THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 2026

 

Drop your self image

 

Kashiap : "How do you make everyone happy?"

 

Guruji : "Become me."

 

Rama : "How do we become you?"

 

What stands between you and me is your self image. Your self image restricts you from being me.

 

Self image whether good or bad causes misery.

 

When you think good about yourself in a very subtle manner you think bad about others. Then anger, jealousy, hatred - everything follows.

 

When you think bad about yourself you feel low and again you start getting angry and you hate everyone else. If you think good about yourself you are in trouble and when you think bad about yourself you are in greater trouble.

 

So drop your self image.

 

II JAI GURUDEV II

 

QUESTION & ANSWER WITH GURUDEV

QUESTION & ANSWER WITH GURUDEV

POSTED ON: THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 2026

 

Q: Gurudev, how to deal with growing up and becoming an adult?

 

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

 

Know that it is a tough time, and it will pass. Many concepts will come; every day you will find different concepts crumbling down. When these concepts keep crumbling down, you often experience vacuums. It is the vacuums that create restlessness and confusion in you. Here, meditation will help and enhance your endurance.

 

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar 

 

WISDOM QUOTE OF SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR.

WISDOM QUOTE OF SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR. 

POSTED ON: THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 2026

Meditation makes you sharper, happier, and intuitive. Don't you want intuition? Don't you want the right thought to come to you at the right time?

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar 

 

KNOWLEDGE SHEET BY SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR

KNOWLEDGE SHEET BY SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR

POSTED ON: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5, 2026

 

Stress-Free Living

 

What is stress, and when do we experience it? When we have too much to do in very little time, and when we feel that we do not have the energy to achieve it all, then that is when we feel stressed.

Now you could probably reduce your needs and responsibilities to reduce the stress in life. Or, the other way to deal with this is to increase your energy. When I say ‘energy’, I do not only mean physical strength. It also means being mentally and emotionally strong. So we need to think about how we can increase our strength and energy.

 

There are many techniques to increase our energy levels from within, but there are not many people in this country who make use of those techniques, and they unfortunately do not share them with everyone else.

 

In India, we are so divided on the lines of caste and religion. We are also divided by our greed and personal motives, even within our own families. People think, 'I should not teach this technique to anyone'. This is not a good thing. Why should one say so? You should in fact teach it to everyone. If this technique helps improve your health and reduces stress, then you should help others by teaching them the same technique too. Yet we end up keeping these techniques secret rather than letting others also know about it.

 

So I said that this is not how it should be. I said that techniques that help enhance one’s health and well being should be taught to everyone, such as the breathing techniques, some exercises and Yogasanas. Everyone in the world should know and benefit from these techniques, so that the common man is peaceful and happy, and is able to maintain harmonious relationships with the people around him.

 

II JAI GURUDEV II