QNA WITH SRI SRI

TUESDAY, MARCH 29, 2016

Q: What in your opinion are the needs of a society?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: A violence-free society, disease-free body, conflict-free mind, prejudice-free intellect are the rights and need of every individual today. People sit with prejudice in their minds and this is a big problem in the world today. People who don't even know you start talking about you. Hasn't this happened to you? When you don't even know someone and you talk about them, it has no value. We are wasting our energy doing this. Like this, we hold so many prejudices in our minds against different religions, casts, communities, genders, etc.

Gender equality should be respected. When it comes to Art & Culture, you see that there is gender equality.

Many many years ago, Lord Krishna danced upon the many hoods of the Kalia the demon snake. The snake Kalia had polluted and destroyed the River Yamuna so much because of his venom. Lord Krishna then destroyed the demon and brought relief and moksha (liberation) to the River Yamuna. Today, that same Krishna is present within you all, He is present in the form of all the saints present here today. And that Krishna today will say to the River Yamuna through you all, “O dear Mother Yamuna, now we will rescue you. We will bathe you and make you clean and pure once again”.

Usually it is the mother who bathes and cleanses the children. Unfortunately the situation today is that we have to clean our very mother (River Yamuna). It is everyone’s wish here that the cleaning of the River Yamuna should happen immediately and at the earliest. Is it not so? Do you all not want this?

The environment is our Prana. When we think of ourselves as composed of five layers or Panchakosha, then the very first sheath or layer – Annarasamaya Kosha - is the environment. This entire environment is the Annarasamaya Kosha (literally referring to the layer nourished and sustained by food). The entire world is full of Anna (nourishing food) and Rasa. Then the next layer is the physical body which I would compare to the Pranamaya Kosha (the layer sustained or inhabited by Prana). We can progress in life only when we keep the environment, the Annarasamaya Kosha pure and clean. We must always strive to leave this world in a much better state than the one we came into, for our own children and coming generations.

http://qnawithsrisri.artoflivinguniverse.org/