KNOWLEDGE SHEET BY SRI SRI RAVISHANKAR

KNOWLEDGE SHEET BY SRI SRI RAVISHANKAR
POSTED ON: TUESDAY, AUGUST 25, 2026

Your expressions of love

You feel a lot of love for someone and they do not take it. What do you do?

Get frustrated
Turn the love into hatred and wish for revenge
Again and again remind them how much you love them and how little they love you
Become fussy and cranky
Throw tantrums
Feel humiliated and try to protect your respect
Resolve never to love again
Feel hurt and mistreated
Try to be aloof and indifferent
...and you have seen that none of these work. They only make the situation worse.

What is the way out of this? How do you maintain your lovingness?

Have patience and change your expression of love.
Be centered and limit your expression of love. Sometimes over-expression of love puts people off.

Take it for granted that they love you too and accept their style of expression. For example, a mother with three kids. One child talks, one child does not talk, one child throws tantrums. Mother's love is the same irrespective of their behavior.

Genuinely acknowledge their love for you. This will turn your demand into gratefulness and the more you are grateful in life, the more love comes your way.

Know that hurt is part of love and take responsibility for it. When you move away from your center, you will definitely get hurt and the nature of worldliness is misery.

Sri Sri’s visit to the Pink City (Jaipur) was celebrated in Rajasthani style (warm, friendly, colourful).

His photo was seen on practically every wall of the city and he was crowned with a typical
Rajasthani turban.

II JAI GURUDEVII

 

QUESTION & ANSWER WITH GURUDEV

QUESTION & ANSWER WITH GURUDEV
POSTED ON: TUESDAY, AUGUST 25, 2026

Q: Why do we have to love a form to reach the formless? Hasn’t this whole idea distorted the truth and created more misconceptions rather than helping people find their path?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Emotions can only flow towards the form. You cannot have emotions towards the formless. See, you can only communicate with me, you can’t communicate with the empty space next to me. If you say you are communicating with an empty space, then something is wrong. You can only see, touch, smell, taste, communicate and express your emotions to a form. The completion of any emotion leads you to a space that is totally formless, which is the source of all forms.

There are two beautiful words in Sanskrit, virupaksha and vishwaroopa. Virupaksha means eyes without the form; many people use this word as a name. Virupa means no form, and aksha means eyes, it means eyes without the form.

When you go a little deeper, then you see that the consciousness can see without the eyes, feel without the skin, taste without the tongue, and hear without the ears; this is Yoga Samadhi. Such things start happening in deep samadhi, just like in dreams? You dream without any of the five senses; you smell, taste, you do everything, right? So virupaksha is the consciousness that has eyes but no form.

Vishwaroopa means it is in every form. The universe itself is the form of the Divine; the Divine is in the form of trees, mountains, rivers. The whole universe is nothing but the manifestation of God; body of God. God is not sitting somewhere in heaven, away from the creation, He is the creation.
God and the creation are not different. It is just like how there is oil inside a sesame seed, similarly, in every atom of this creation, there is consciousness. It is like how the dance and the dancer cannot be separated. If you are watching a dance, it means you are watching the dancer. Can you watch a dance without the dancer? So this universe is the dance, and who is making it dance? The dancer!

What is the life in every tree, in every animal, in every human being? That is God! God is pancha bhootatmika, in the five elements. He is the Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Ether; He is the soul of the five elements. The Divine is present as five elements, and as consciousness. It is a wrong concept to say that God is sitting somewhere else in heaven.

Another very simple example, there is air everywhere. Even now, there is air. Without air you cannot exist. However, sometimes when you feel hot, you don’t feel the air; then when you sit near a fan that is blowing air, you can feel it. Other times, when you are feeling hot and humid, you are not feeling the air, but it is there. You can’t say that there is no air. Yet, when you sit near an air conditioner or a fan, you can feel it. That is what happens with meditation, samadhi, enlightenment.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

 

WISDOM QUOTE OF SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR

WISDOM QUOTE OF SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR
POSTED ON: TUESDAY, AUGUST 25, 2026

We should not express love too much. Like people don't know how to handle anger and hatred, they also don't know how to handle too much love. This is the reason why people run away. So, be very measured in your expression of love.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

 

KNOWLEDGE SHEET BY SRI SRI RAVISHANKAR

KNOWLEDGE SHEET BY SRI SRI RAVISHANKAR
POSTED ON: MONDAY, AUGUST 24, 2026

Success

Q.: How was yesterday's program? Was it successful?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

There is no question of success if you have nothing to gain. There is nothing to gain if you have only come to give and serve. Success indicates non-supremacy. Success means what? It indicates that there are chances of failure. If something is supreme there is nothing to lose. People running after success only exhibit their limitations.

Success means crossing a limit. To cross a limit you need to assume that you have a limit. Assuming a limit is underestimating yourself. If you have no boundaries then where is your success? If you have limitless access then there is no success. You don't say that you successfully drank a glass of water, because it is well within your capabilities. But when you do something that is beyond your perceived limits you claim success.

When you realise your unboundedness then no action is an achievement.

Anyone who claims to be successful only reveals his limitation. If you feel very successful it means that you have underestimated yourself. All your gains can only be smaller than you. Taking pride in any gains is belittling yourself.

Sheila: What if you feel that you are not serving successfully?

Guruji: You may feel that you have not done enough but you will not feel that you have not been successful. Real service is when you feel that you have not done enough.
Kai: You are not very successful! (Laughter)

Guruji: I am just full!

II JAI GURUDEVII

 

QUESTION & ANSWER WITH GURUDEV

QUESTION & ANSWER WITH GURUDEV
POSTED ON: MONDAY, AUGUST 24, 2026

Q: How do I live with a husband who is a mama’s boy? How and when does a man switch from being a devoted son to also being a husband and a father?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

See this from a long term perspective. What would you like your son to be? Do you want your son, as soon as he gets married, to be only a good husband and good father and stop being a good son? This is a question in front of you. If you answer this question you will get an answer for your question also.

Nothing stops someone from being a good husband and a good father, he just needs a little orientation. Maybe it’s such a new role for him and he has not yet adjusted to the new role. With patience, educate him and don’t ask him not to listen to their mother. This could be a way.

Sometimes people buy new cars and they don’t know how to drive it very well. If there are too many gadgets and too many buttons they look around in order to get oriented with the car.

Often mothers feel very insecure the moment their children, daughter or son get married. So they need some reassurance that everything will be as usual. This could be one issue. Secondly, one person can play all roles devotedly without getting into conflict. This is a skill, and one can get this skill when one is free from stress and has good support. So after sometime a wife should also treat the husband like a son, in the sense she has to have a lot of patience. How much patience you have till your child starts learning, that much patience you need to have. A child teaches a mother lot of patience because she has to teach him how to brush his teeth, how to wash himself, how to use the toilet, how to eat, how to wash his hands, everything she has to teach him. How much patience you have had with your child, so you keep at least 50 percent of that patience with your husband.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

 

WISDOM QUOTE OF SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR

WISDOM QUOTE OF SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR
POSTED ON: MONDAY, AUGUST 24, 2026

First believe that 'the whole world loves me and I also love this world', then you can call yourself a devotee.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

 

KNOWLEDGE SHEET BY SRI SRI RAVISHANKAR

KNOWLEDGE SHEET BY SRI SRI RAVISHANKAR
POSTED ON: SUNDAY, AUGUST 23, 2026

The purpose of life

Our first and foremost commitment is to do seva (service) in the world. If there is fear in your life, it is because of a lack of commitment. If there is confusion in your life, it is because of lack of commitment. The very thought I am here in this world to do seva (service), dissolves the i and when the i dissolves, worries dissolve. Seva is not something u 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 experience rough weather but will reap the fruits of its toil. When you make the service your sole purpose in life, it eliminates fear, brings focus in your mind and purposefulness, action and long term joy and may be short term problems!

II JAI GURUDEVII