QnA with Sri Sri

Q: Guruji, How can I fully accept and commit to my profession when I feel spending my life doing seva (service).

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: You can balance between seva (service) and your personal and professional life. You can do both. At one point in time, when you feel you don’t want to do anything but just want to dedicate (your life) for the sake of the world, then do it. What are your needs? You need some bread, butter, jam, a nice quilt, a good car. All this will be provided. Nature will provide it. I never thought how will I get the resources, how will I get money? We in The Art of Living simply start a project and then money comes. When we started The Art of Living we had no money. I just took the commitment that I will take care of these 175 kids. We had to clothe them, feed them and do everything. People wondered, ‘Gurudev you never ask anybody for money, how are you going to manage this school?’ I said, ‘I don’t know!’ So, my father housed them for some time. Then a little later somebody said, ‘I am going to America Gurudev. This is the key to my house. You can use it for whatever purpose you want.’ Someone else said, ‘I want to send three bags of dal’. Another person said, ‘I want to send three bags of rice’. Somebody came and gave me an envelope with some money. I didn’t even wonder or worry for one single day, how this is going to run. That is how Art of Living started. I had a choice to start The Art of Living and I said, ‘Yes'. First we went from village to village, then to cities. Then I went to Delhi. In Delhi there was a course for all the different embassies. One gentleman from the United Nations and his wife took the course. I didn’t even teach Sudarshan Kriya those days. We would just sit and do some guided meditation. I used to speak very little. Just a few words. They felt so thrilled. Everybody enjoyed it. Then someone from England invited me and then I went to England. Then I went to Italy, someone invited me to Italy. Then Germany, Switzerland, and like that I just kept going. I never calculated, ‘Oh, how to go, what to do’, everything just happened. We should know that we are a part of a grand universal plan. Our needs will be taken care of, but nobody’s greed can never be quenched. Greed is different. Needs will always be taken care of. If you have an intense need and you pray for that, it will come. It may take time, but not always.