Q: Guruji, How do we ensure that a good soul is born? Do we need to follow some rules?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Just be happy and keep your heart clean and soft. When you doubt, when you are angry or frustrated, your heart and feelings get hardened. With the knowledge and wisdom, your heart remains soft and supple. Otherwise you say everybody else is wrong and only you are right. You don’t see how wrong you are. You do so many mistakes you don’t look at that but when somebody else does mistakes, your heart gets hard. Isn’t it so? There is a saying in India of saint Kabir which says ‘Bura dekhan main chala, bura na milya koi’ which means ‘I wanted to search a bad man but I couldn’t find one but when I looked at myself I couldn’t find anybody worse than me.’ This is coming from a saint. So seeing mistakes in others hardens your feelings. I don’t agree so much with the other line. If you keep on looking at your own mistakes, that will also not make your feelings soft and brings guilt. So I only use the first line of this.