QUESTION & ANSWER WITH GURUDEV
Posted on: Tuesday, September 10, 2024
Q: You always tell Ignorance is the cause of all our misery. Please explain.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
It so happened once, a lady went to a Guru and said, "I have two questions". The Guru said, "Okay, ask me".
The lady asked, "Why did God make this world? Why couldn't he just be happy with the way it was? And having created it, why did he make it so miserable?"
The Guru said, "I have only one answer for this! He created this world for me, and he made it miserable so that I don't get caught up in it". When your mind is miserable, you try to look for the cause of the misery. And then you see that the cause of your unhappiness (or happiness) is a situation, or a person, or an attitude, isn't it? This is the cycle of ignorance, and this is how it goes on — the cause of unhappiness (or happiness) is: a situation, an attitude or a person.
We want to immediately find a cause of our misery because unanswered questions is an irritant in the mind. So we want to find a cause for our unhappiness and hang on to something. Just look into your mind and observe, this is happening all the time. And when you find the cause of your unhappiness, you immediately want to eliminate that cause, or correct it, or do something about it. Does this make sense to you?
You are unhappy, you think that it is because the other person did this and now you want to correct them or do something about it. No! That is not the cause. The cause of all causes is something else. Those people and those situations were just postmen, or the laptop which got you a bad email. If you get a bad email, you don't throw the laptop, or change your password. Changing your password is not going to help in any way. For a particular situation you think that 'this' is the cause, but when you go a little deeper, you will find that the cause is not there but it is somewhere else. So the cause keeps jumping. And believing that is the real cause makes our ignorance more concrete.
The true cause is ignorance; ignorance of your true nature. When we are ignorant of our true nature, we become miserable. The relevance of the Guru is to bring you back to your true self.
Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Posted on: Tuesday, September 10, 2024
Q: You always tell Ignorance is the cause of all our misery. Please explain.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
It so happened once, a lady went to a Guru and said, "I have two questions". The Guru said, "Okay, ask me".
The lady asked, "Why did God make this world? Why couldn't he just be happy with the way it was? And having created it, why did he make it so miserable?"
The Guru said, "I have only one answer for this! He created this world for me, and he made it miserable so that I don't get caught up in it". When your mind is miserable, you try to look for the cause of the misery. And then you see that the cause of your unhappiness (or happiness) is a situation, or a person, or an attitude, isn't it? This is the cycle of ignorance, and this is how it goes on — the cause of unhappiness (or happiness) is: a situation, an attitude or a person.
We want to immediately find a cause of our misery because unanswered questions is an irritant in the mind. So we want to find a cause for our unhappiness and hang on to something. Just look into your mind and observe, this is happening all the time. And when you find the cause of your unhappiness, you immediately want to eliminate that cause, or correct it, or do something about it. Does this make sense to you?
You are unhappy, you think that it is because the other person did this and now you want to correct them or do something about it. No! That is not the cause. The cause of all causes is something else. Those people and those situations were just postmen, or the laptop which got you a bad email. If you get a bad email, you don't throw the laptop, or change your password. Changing your password is not going to help in any way. For a particular situation you think that 'this' is the cause, but when you go a little deeper, you will find that the cause is not there but it is somewhere else. So the cause keeps jumping. And believing that is the real cause makes our ignorance more concrete.
The true cause is ignorance; ignorance of your true nature. When we are ignorant of our true nature, we become miserable. The relevance of the Guru is to bring you back to your true self.
Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
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