December 31, 2013 Bad Antogast, Germany
Often people who are celebrating cannot appreciate silence. And those who enjoy silence don't celebrate. They don't look that joyful and celebrative. People who are in silence are very morose and melancholic. But our specialty is, we are in silence and we are celebrating. This is so beautiful. A great way to welcome the New Year!
Now let us thank the year 2013.
2013 with all its events has brought us together. It has posed many challenges which made us strong in some ways, and with many of its gifts, it has made us happy in many ways.
No year passes without some wisdom. So like every year, this year also which is just going to pass, has given us some wisdom; has made us wiser. Now we need to move on.
Time is like a flowing river. Even with a river you can put a dam, but you can't stop it totally. If the river is gushing, it will overflow the dam as well. So you have to leave it. You can only store a certain amount of water, but with time, that is not possible.
Time is like a fast flowing river. Time is like the wind which nobody can stop. Time is like the Sun around which the Earth revolves. Time is like our mind, ancient, yet very fresh and very new. Our mind is very ancient, yet very fresh and new.
So the celebration of New Year is to honor time. Honoring time means honoring the mind, and honoring the mind means honoring yourself. And the way to honor yourself, is to know that you are neither a culprit, nor a victim.
What stops you from honoring yourself? When you think you are a culprit, you did something wrong. You carry guilt in you and think you are a sinner. If you are a sinner you can never celebrate yourself. You can never be at peace with yourself. It will always eat you up deep inside. Only when you get out of the culprit consciousness, the guilt consciousness, there is peace and there is spiritual light within you.
You should know that there is light inside of you; you are part of the light, and part of Universal Love.
Yes, you are a spark of Universal Love.
Every individual wants to experience this universal love; to be a part of it, a spark of it, and that can only happen when you are out of culprit consciousness.
The other thing is victim consciousness. If you feel you are a victim, you can never express truth, you can never express the Divinity.
The purpose of being here is to express all facets of life, i.e., love, joy and wisdom. And to fully express life is celebration. These are all the different facets of life and you are here to express that. But if you feel that you are a victim of situations, of time and of other people, you can never do that.
So how to get over the victim consciousness? Know that all the unpleasant experiences in life has given some depth to me and thank them. And the pleasant experiences have a given me an opportunity to do more service for people, and thank them too.
Life is always a mixture. We must thank the unpleasant days, because it has centered us. Nobody gets more centered than in unpleasant situations. Unpleasant things take you out of the external and puts you with yourself; so that gives you depth, and it adds to your personality.
So instead of saying, 'Oh I wasted 20 years of my life', or, 'That person created some problem for me', drop all that and say, 'I thank all those bitter days cause they gave me strength, and I thank all the pleasant days that made me realize my true potential, and helped me express my true nature which is joy'.
By thanking the pleasant and the unpleasant, we get over the victim consciousness.
Welcome the coming New Year with a resolution. Resolve to do something excellent, something very good. Resolve to be of use to others. Resolve to be happy and spread happiness, because that is important.
You know, you cannot be unhappy without a reason, but you can be happy without any reason. This is the wisdom that we must bear in mind, 'I can be happy without any reason!'
If I am unhappy I will search for the reason, why am I unhappy. You have to do it, nobody else can do it for you.
This is when you find that your unhappiness is due to physical dependency, or emotional dependency; or physical want or emotional want.
It is your physical and emotional wants that make you unhappy.
First we need to know how to handle the emotional wants. What are emotional wants? Appreciation from people. Let others appreciate me, let others praise me; adoration, and appreciation. Then the inability to handle the altercations of others. These are the emotional needs.
Also, thinking, 'Oh I am so good, I always think good about everybody, but everyone thinks bad about me'. This is the sort of emotional mess that we create for ourselves. We only create this, nobody else creates it for us.
Knowledge and meditation is the way to get out of this. Knowledge and meditation helps you to overcome the emotional dependency.
When you have overcome that, then physical dependency has its own parameters.
Work hard, have confidence in your talents and abilities, and then reduce your wants and desires.
If your wants and desires are high up there, and your physical ability is low, then you will be unhappy. See that your wants and desires match your physical ability.
Suppose you don't have hard teeth and you want to crack the shell of a walnut using your teeth, I tell you, the shell will not crack but your teeth will definitely crack. So you must first see how strong your teeth are, accordingly you should choose.
If my physical ability is only to lift 15 kilos, I should not venture to lift 50 kilos. I should limit myself to 15 kilos, and then slowly rise up to lift more by working towards it.
So, you should look into your physical ability, and then your desire should match with it. If there is a mismatch between your desire and your capability, then you will be unhappy.
Suppose you are a heart patient and you want to venture climbing Mount Everest, what can I say to you? I would say, write Mount Everest on top of your staircase and climb. Just climbing the second floor will be like climbing Mount Everest for you.
So, you need to match your desires to your abilities. Somewhere you need to let go, and somewhere you need to hold on. Hold on to faith, and let go of cravings. If you let go of cravings, you will be happy.
Hold on to the faith that only good will happen to you. 'Only good things can happen to me. If something unpleasant is happening to me, it is because nature wants to make me strong'. Have this faith in you.
If something bad happens, you should think it is just an accident. You should not think that it happened because I deserved it, no!
'If bad things happen to me, it is only an accident; but good things are bound to happen to me'. This will give you confidence.
So, taking these few pearls of wisdom and treasuring it is essential to make life a celebration. These are the decorations for celebrating life.
http://www.artofliving.org/in-en/wisdom/celebrating-life?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+whatsrisrisaid+%28Wisdom+from+Sri+Sri+Ravi+Shankar%29
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