Intuition Q: What to do if people around me are always very negative? I have a friend who is extremely negative about everything and with time he seems to be getting worse.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: See, if someone goes to that extent of being totally negative, it is not easy for

a human being. It is almost inhuman to be that negative. And when he has gone so far, there is no

way for him to go any further, he will have to come back because everything is cyclic. Got it?

When you go to the rock bottom, there is no way you can go further down. You have to come up.

And that is what he said. He has gotten so bad that now he has to come back. And also to

demonstrate that originally nobody is bad, it is only the action. The spirit is never bad. The spirit is

always free and blissful.

Actions have a limited sphere and time. See if you do a bad act, you are not condemned forever.

Even a punishment given to you is only for a few years or so. And even in those few years, you are

treated well, isn’t it? A prisoner, whatever crime he has committed, is he treated badly? No, he is

treated with compassion. The same thing was said in the Puranas – even a person who has gone to

the highest level of crime, when he comes in contact with someone who is pure, someone who

is so brilliant, someone who is full of positive energy then the influence of that positive

energy is so powerful that it can bring light even to darkness.

See, in the darkest place a candle is good enough to bring light.

Q: (A member of the audience spontaneously asked a question and it was inaudible in the recording)

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Yes, see human life is mixture of pleasant and unpleasant days. You take the

life of anyone including Sri Ram, Krishna, Jesus, Buddha, Mahavir or Guru Nanak. Take anyone in

the history they all had some bad days while some days were good.

What is important is on bad days don’t go down and on good days don’t just go off the roof.

Maintain your equanimity and your dignity. This is what knowledge teaches you. Yes, there are

some bad days but if you have wisdom you will just sail through them and get over them. It does

not affect you so much.

The law of karma is very interesting and very strange. If it has to rain, it will rain. But it is your

choice whether to get wet or not. If you walk in the rain with a raincoat you will not get so wet,

just a few drops will fall on your face. But if you walk without an umbrella you will be fully

drenched and you will have to come and change your clothes. All this – sadhana, meditation,

satsang, singing, knowledge, all these are umbrellas and raincoats.

So people say, ‘Oh, if you are having a bad time now, do hollow and empty meditation, do

some Om Namah Shivayachanting and singing.’ You may feel some negativity in the mind but they

just come and vanish. And when you go deeper into it, a time comes that they don’t touch you at

all, and they don’t come anywhere close to you. That is enlightenment.

Q: What do you think about astrology?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: That is why I am saying this is a sort of lost science. Astrology is a science but

not the astrologers. They just make things up. You must follow your intuition. You don’t have to

worry too much about these things.

A general idea of it is okay. Like on a new moon or full moon day, the moon has an impact on your

mind. How many of you have had this experience?

How many of you can’t sleep on the new moon or full moon day? Moon is very much linked to the

mind. So it happens.

Just be watchful that is all, don’t be paranoid. There is big difference between being paranoid and

just having an idea. Be watchful about it.

Q: Guruji, I read and hear a lot of knowledge, but almost immediately forget what I heard. What do I do?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Don’t worry; I will keep talking to you. So even if you forget a hundred times,

never mind, I have enough patience. I keep telling the same things.

Those who are talking to you are also in the same boat. Many people here, they say, but they too

live from the other side. Never mind!

Have you ever heard Ashtavakra Gita? Forgotten, right?!

Have you heard the saying in that, ’Blessed are those who have forgotten.’ So you must belong to

that.

There is one talk in Ashtavakra Gita where Ashtavakra says, ’Those who can forget everything are

the blessed ones.’

So you seem to fall in that category. But this at least you don’t forget that you are blessed. Just

this one thing if you can remember, ‘I am blessed.’

Q: Guruji, I have lost my intuition. What do I do?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: You are in the right place, no problem.

See, yesterday we were having a meeting upstairs in Krishna hall and suddenly I said that I want to

go and see the basement. I have not been to the basement for probably more than a year now.

So I said that I want to go to the basement and so we all went to the basement. In the basement, I

suddenly went to this room and asked, ‘Who is staying in this room?’

They said, ‘We don’t know, somebody is staying.’

So I said, ‘Open the door’, and so we opened the door and we found a candle burning there. The

candle was almost finished and the flame was about to catch on to the bed and the cot. We would

have had a fire there because the flame of the candle was all over. If we had gone ten minutes

later, perhaps the bed would have caught fire. Somebody lit the candle and forgot. There was no

business for me to go there to that room.

That is intuition. I felt I should go there and I opened that room only.

I would never go and open somebody’s room. But now you know anything is possible. I may just

barge into anybody’s room.

So I barged into that room and we found that nobody was there of course and the candle was

burning.

So intuition is something that everybody is born with and everybody has it. The more hollow and

empty, the more meditative you are, it is very obvious then. Isn’t it?

So, don’t light candles in your room and then disappear from there, okay!

Q: Where is the world of spirit? Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: It is not somewhere, it is here only. Source : Sri Sri Talk

Video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t-iaQF-ipg&feature=player_embedded