QUESTION & ANSWER WITH GURUDEV
POSTED ON: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2026
Q: How to overcome doubts?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Where are you?
Which planet are you on?
What is your world?
Are you sure you are not dreaming?
Are you sure you are here on this planet?
Are you sure earth is beneath you?
What is it you are hanging on to?
How long will we continue this play, this drama?
What is happening?
What is the origin of this mind?
Where do all these thoughts arise from?
Where does all this grumbling arise from?
Where do all your concepts rise?
How do they rise? How do they fall off?
How do your likes and dislikes of people arise and fall off?
If we don’t get these doubts, we will not ask ourselves these questions. Not that they don’t arise; they do but we brush them aside. We don’t ride on the horse of these questions. We don’t ask very basic questions. Instead, we keep asking silly questions in our mind. Our doubts are all so silly! Our questions are also insignificant. They mostly concern trivial matters, like a dress, a tape recorder, etc. These are the types of questions we ask. We spend all our lifetime asking questions that do not mean anything; which do not take us anywhere.
In Sanskrit, doubts are called sandēha. Dēha means body. Sandēha means doubt. They’re very close. It is a state of mind. Doubt is a state of mind. Do you know when there is this state of mind? It is when we are body-conscious or body-bound, and are not aware of the life within us.
When a child starts becoming aware of its own body, it starts asking more and more questions. And when the body matures into the adolescent stage, there are ever so many questions that reel in the mind.
Doubt is that state of mind where it’s not fully alive. Answers cannot satisfy doubt. Hearing and seeing cannot eliminate doubt.
The life in you is dull. The wick in the lamp is going down. On the day you do prāṇāyāma or Sudarshan Kriyā, you are so alive. Every cell in your body is alive, and then there is no doubt in the mind. You feel so wonderful because of this. There is no split in your consciousness. Doubt is the split. A portion is awake and another major portion is asleep — the unfulfilled state of consciousness.
When the prāna is low, you feel unfulfilled. And when the prāna is full, you are so fulfilled. So when you have doubts, do more sādhanā or practice. This is called shraddhā or faith, the opposite of doubt. It starts with self-doubt — doubting the self, doubting everything in the world and doubting the Divine. There are three types of faith in the world (being Hindu, Muslim or Christian, is not what I call faith). There are only three types of people who have faith, i.e. there are three types of faith — in the divine, in the universe and in the world.
Faith in your Self, faith in the world and faith in something we do not know, the Divine. You can start from anywhere. Any one point will lead to all three; all three come together. When doubts arise in you, fast, meditate, do prāṇāyāma and prayers, and see whether the doubts remain. There is a shift in your consciousness.
Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
