Wisdom for the New Millennium E-Book

Sri Sri Ravishankar

• Herausgeber: Aslan eReads
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Seitenzahl: 246

Beschreibung

The spiritual search will always be a search for wisdom. As we enter this new age, Wisdom for the New Millennium offers us many profound insights to further our journey

Leseprobe

Title

Wisdom for the New Millennium

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Sri Sri Publications Trust, India

 

Copyrights Sri Sri Publications Trust

This digital edition is published by arrangement with Aslan Business Solutions

Digitally Published By:

 

Aslan Reads -An imprint of Aslan Business Solutions Borivli, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India Email: [email protected]; Website: www.aslanbiz.com & www.aslanreads.com

Physical Editions Published by:

 

Sri Sri Publications Trust The Art of Living International Centre 21st KM, Kanakapura Road, Udayapura, Bangalore – 560082 Email: [email protected]; Website: www.sattvastore.com Toll Free: 1800-258-8888

© All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the publisher

ISBN: 978-93-85898-15-0

Layout by: Sri Sri Publications Trust

Contents

Title

Introduction

Chapter 1 Address at the United Nations 50th Anniversary Celebration

Chapter 2 New Millennium - New Age

Chapter 3 Creating the Ultimate Relationship

Chapter 4 Love, Ego and the Purpose of Life

Chapter 5 Healing with Consciousness

Chapter 6 Human Values in the Classroom (A Talk to Teachers)

Chapter 7 Karma and Reincarnation

Chapter 8 Death and Beyond Death

Chapter 9 Jesus, Embodiment of Love

Chapter 10 Buddha, Manifestation of Silence

Chapter 11 The Six Distortions of Love

Chapter 12 Living All Possibilities in Life

Chapter 13 What is Meditation?

Chapter 14 Four Pillars of Knowledge and Six Types of Wealth

The Art of Living & The International Association for Human Values

The Founder

Follow Gurudev on:

The Art of Living In Service Around The World

International Centres

Landmarks

Cover

Introduction

In our general education we are taught many things. We learn to read and write, we learn something of science, mathematics, geography, and history. Some delve into music or art. Unfortunately, the most fundamental of knowledge has not been taught; how to manage one’s own mind and emotions to develop and enjoy the fullest of what human life can offer. No other knowledge is more valuable in determining the quality of one’s life.

Young children, who have not yet accumulated a lot of stress, exhibit an abundance of energy, enthusiasm, profound joy, and unconditional love. These qualities that manifest spontaneously in an innocent child demonstrate the truest, unadulterated, essence of humanness. We are all born with a wellspring of love and joy. These qualities are not just emotions, they are the essence of our existence. The truth of our essence cannot change, it can only be covered over and hidden from us.

As we age, stress accumulates as toxins in the body and as negative emotions in the mind. The effect of the stress, and the varied ways we cope with it, results in reduced physical health and the entrenchment of unhealthy mental and emotional habit patterns. The more stress we have, the more negative emotions such as fear and anger consciously, and unconsciously, affect our lives.

With the innate wellspring of joy and love largely blocked from our experience, the mind is drawn toward distractions that provide a limited, temporary joy, and our attention habitually focuses more on the past or the future, and less on the present moment. Most of the time the mind is caught up regretting something from the past, and worrying about the future; or glorifying the past and constantly planning how to be happy in the future, not realizing this prevents us from being happy now.

If you observe the mind, you will see how little the attention is fully in the present moment. Being present is not only being attentive to what is happening around us, but also being aware of how we are feeling inside. It is being connected to our feelings reflecting genuineness in our interactions. Feelings are often expressed without really being felt. We often say, “I love you,” or “It is a pleasure meeting you,” without feeling that way at the moment.

Usually we are speaking one thing while our mind is on something else. When someone is speaking to us, we are busy thinking about what we are going to say next instead of being present to what the person is saying. So much more joy, love, intimacy, and appreciation can be experienced when we are fully present, but the mind has been conditioned otherwise.

Cultural influences further condition us to focus outside of ourselves to find happiness, or love, or to place blame when we have feelings of anger, jealousy, or other negative emotions. Since real fulfillment can never be found outside ourselves, continuing to focus our attention in that direction leads to an endless cycle of desires.

Often, people continually hope some state of happiness will come in the future once some “thing” has been accomplished. The mind keeps thinking “I’ll be happy when I finally have that.” Young people think they will be happy when they have freedom from their parents. Single people will be happy when they find the right partner. Married people think they could be happy if only their partner would change a few things about themselves. Others think they will be happy when they have more money, more fame, a better job, a better house, when they retire, etc. Being happy is continually put off to the future, but happiness cannot be experienced in the future, only in the present.

When a desire is fulfilled we may feel happy for a time, but then another desire comes and again we start looking to the future. No matter what success, fame, or relationship we may achieve in the world, a lasting, profound fulfillment does not come. Many simply accept that this is as good as it gets, while the purpose of their life remains unclear, directed toward shallow rewards, or is thought to be unachievable.

The problem is, the mind wants infinite joy and love, but all the things in the world can only provide a temporary, finite joy. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have any desires, but we need to break the habit of looking for happiness in the future and be happy with what we have right now.

Our society’s past has been dominated by the search for greater exterior comforts while the development of our inner world has been sacrificed. In just a few generations our civilization has advanced with the most amazing technology, and incredible abundance and freedom, but this has not helped people live truly happier lives full of love. As technology has advanced, the pace and pressures of life have only increased, creating more stress and tensions.

On the surface, life does seem better off than in the past, but below the surface we hear tens of millions of people are relying on antidepressive medication; stress-related diseases are epidemic; and a majority of the population relies on artificial stimulants or relaxants such as caffeine and alcohol; or in many cases, much harder prescribed or non prescribed drugs.

Society accepts these developments as normal only because the knowledge of how to dissolve the accumulated stress, and open the heart and expand the consciousness, has not been available or adopted. Rather than search for a way to grow out of these limitations, most people just learn new ways to cope, and settle for limited happiness, instead of living the profound joy and love that should be natural to the human experience.

If we understood more how our own mind and emotions function, and regularly took some time to settle into our own depth, we would not need the various crutches people use to cope. Now is the time to turn our attention inward, to explore what can be done to develop our inner potential.

First we need to attend to our spiritual needs. The basis of spirituality is simply knowing ourselves better. Spirituality is not about pondering something that is outside this world, it is recognizing that spirit underlies everything in this world. A spiritual experience is not something out of this world, it is feeling the intimate connection one has to everything, and every person, in this world.

Ultimately, the depth of the joy and love you experience in this life is determined not by what you have, but by how well you know yourself and how well you have removed the obstacles that prevent you from experiencing the true nature of yourself. That is, the self you experienced as an innocent child. This doesn’t mean we want to act like children.

What we want is the intelligence and understanding of a mature adult with the inner connection to one’s wellspring of joy and love that a child experiences. What we need is what we already have, we just have to clear away the obstacles and let it shine.

Understanding the tendencies of the mind, and the laws which govern it, can help to release the grip of the habit patterns. Understanding negative emotions for what they are, and why they come, can help one recognize what is happening and bring the mind back to the present moment. Knowing you are much more than just this mind, these thoughts, or these emotions, bring an expanded awareness in you, but, using only the mind to attempt to change the mind has inherent limitations. Joy and love are not moods we can try to adopt. Joy and love is our essential essence, beyond mere emotion, beyond the mind.

Gaining knowledge is essential but must go hand in hand with a healthy lifestyle and some form of physical or mental practices that can clear away the accumulated stress that is the root cause of the problem. The greatest expert in the psychology of the mind, if he or she is filled with stress, will be unable to remain centered during a storm of emotion. Techniques such as meditation, yoga, breathing practices, and sincere, heartfelt prayer, when done regularly, can begin to clear away the stress, expand the consciousness, and open the heart. Fully blossoming as a human being is simple, the knowledge and practices are available, one need only make a change in one’s priorities.

The new millennium will likely be a more spiritual age for mankind. Already we see more and more people searching for spiritual answers, questioning the meaning and purpose of life, and looking for a fulfillment that comes from within. Guidance can be found in many places but ultimately everyone must find their own way.

Basic knowledge of our emotions, and the tendencies of the mind, and doing practices that cleanse the system of stress and impurities, offer us the means by which we can restore the connection with the source of joy and love inside us. The intangible effect of prayer and grace may also play powerful roles in this development for many people.

The spiritual search will always be a search for new wisdom. As we enter the coming new age, this Wisdom for the New Millennium offers us many profound insights to further our journey.

- James Larsen

Chapter 1 Address at the United Nations 50th Anniversary Celebration

Beloved souls. I am glad we are gathered here to ponder the ways and means to bring back human values to society. Today, I see the crisis in the world as one of identification: A man identifies himself with his profession, religion, race, culture, nationality, language, region, or sex. Only after that does he identify with being a human being. Limited identification leads to war. Through education we need to bring about a change in our basic identity. We are all first part of the Divine, and secondly, we are human beings. This can happen only through right spiritual knowledge.

Here I would like to make a clear distinction between ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’. Religion is the banana skin and spirituality is the banana. All religions have three aspects: values, symbols and customs. While values are the same in all the religions, symbols and customs differ. Today we have forgotten the values and simply hold on to the symbols and customs. Only spirituality can nourish human values. It can eliminate frustrations and bring contentment and happiness in life.

Right education is that which creates in each person a sense of belongingness with the whole world. A person learns to embrace all the religions of the world as his own and can choose to practice one without decrying the other. Members of a family can practice more than one religion. This should be the strategy for the 21st century.

In this age, when technology has advanced, we have cared very little for the emotional and spiritual needs of people. Neither at home nor in school have we been taught how to release negative emotions. Neither at home nor at school does one learn to handle one’s own mind.

Breathing techniques, pranayama, meditation, and yoga can release the tension and negative emotions and help one to live in the present. Man either worries about the past, or the future, or gets stuck in negativity. Only spirituality can help him to get rid of the negativity and live in the present. Prayer, when combined with silence, can connect us to the infinite source of power deep within our hearts.

A stress-free mind and disease-free body are the birthright of every human being. This august assembly can draw a syllabus and implement a plan to introduce spiritual knowledge at various levels in the society, such as in schools, colleges, and rehabilitation centers. Only then can we reduce the crises and the diseases in our own environment.

Due to lack of proper spiritual education and lack of a total and comprehensive understanding of all religions of the world, religious fanaticism has taken root in many regions. Spirituality, without dogma, and with understanding which is all encompassing, is the need of the 21st century.

Now is the time for us to attend to this. Human evolution has two steps: the first is from being a “somebody” to being a “nobody”, and the second is from being a “nobody” to being “everybody.” This knowledge can bring sharing and caring throughout the world.

Chapter 2 New Millennium - New Age

The general understanding of evolution presents human development as linear. The thinking goes that man evolved from an uncivilized, barbaric being in the beginning and over a long period of time gradually became more civilized, cultured, and better off. This is a shortsighted conclusion. If you go back to early human civilizations you will find there were very intelligent people living then. Nature has not deprived any generation, at any time, of civilization, culture, and refinement. Of course, sometimes life was more cultured and civilized than at other times.

Long ago, time was seen as a wheel or circle rather than linear. A circle means you always come back to the same point. From the Dark Age you come back to the Golden Age. Then, as time goes by, the knowledge of one civilization gets lost, and in some future time it is again revived. What we call “New Age” today is nothing new; it is all very ancient.

The shift from the Old Age to today’s New Age is a shift from prestige to self-esteem. Look back in the past century or even the past few decades; the values were different. People were more into showing off, or were very much concerned about what other people thought about them. As the New Age begins, we see values shifting. In the Old Age, people believed in seeing God somewhere up in the clouds. In the New Age, the idea that God is within you, that you are the Divine, is becoming more prominent.

New Age people talk in terms of angels and consciousness, with more emphasis on values, on love, on meditation. If someone spoke on love a few decades ago, people would have thought it was something phony, or unscientific. The previous age was more head-oriented; the New Age is more heart-oriented, but people are still searching for something of substance. Much of the so-called new age knowledge has no backbone to it, it is a little airy-fairy, so to speak.

In the previous age, there was more emphasis on such things as pesticides and antibiotics. Now the emphasis in the New Age is going back to natural and organic farming. Being more with nature and using natural herbal medicines is again an ancient wisdom. A few decades ago, yoga was thought to be something very odd and not very dignified. Sitting and squatting on the floor was not very mainstream.

Today yoga has become very fashionable. Everywhere you go you see people doing yoga to keep their health, and scientists have documented the benefits. What was once thought to be primitive has become meaningful and what was once thought to be a very advanced and civilized technology has proven to be destructive. That is why I say time is not linear, it is a wheel, it is a circle, and it comes back around.

People view ancient times as barbaric, but today look at the toys children use. Do they look more refined? Civilized? Look at movies and television, do they show signs of refinement? We are coming back into a “New Age” because time has come to its darkest point.

You cannot go any further down! This age has come to the end of barbarism, it cannot go any further down. At the bottom of a wheel the only direction you can go is up. That is why people are becoming more aware of value systems. Parents are concerned about their children and their values, and on how to enhance the human values in everyone.

This is exactly what the ancient Rishis, Sages, and Saints did thousands and thousands of years ago. You can find these records in ayurveda, in yoga, and many other literatures which contain the same principles, in a more profound and methodical way, of what is now being called “New Age” thinking.

In India a few decades ago, singing was thought to be not a very nice thing to do in public, especially for women. Dignified women would not come and sing in public. Singing was not thought to be very graceful. The first film producer in India had such a hard time getting a few singers to come and sing, and actors and actresses to participate in the movies. Only the temple dancers would sing or dance. Today the times have changed. Today music has taken over. The value systems change, and the changing of value systems are due to the change of time.

We are, I think, in a very fortunate time, because we are coming up from barbarism to an era with more trust, more love, more compassion, more service, and more caring for each other. Not only caring for each other, we have started to care for the planet, which was never heard about until recent times. The environment has become the talk of this decade. Before the last few decades no one cared about the environment or even heard this word that is so popular with the common public today.

Someone said recently, “There is no place on earth where there is no environmental problem.” Fortunately this New Age has brought us more hope and more promise. Today we recognize that there is something beyond the material, the matter, that there is something that is higher than our day-to-day routine life.

In previous decades, business was the main talk, love was secondary. Today love has taken a more prominent place. We can talk about love without feeling shy or shameful about it. Emotions can be expressed today, but they were not allowed to be expressed a century ago. This is especially true for men. In the past, a man could not express his emotions because that was considered wrong. Today expressing emotion is acknowledged and even encouraged.

Love and business have opposite arithmetic. They are opposite in nature, so they cannot meet. Business is giving less and taking more. A banana worth two cents is sold for ten cents. Business is giving that which is less valuable and taking something more. Otherwise business cannot work! You cannot buy something for ten cents and sell it for five cents! Love is taking minimum and giving maximum. Love is giving more, but taking very little.

Both business and love need an exchange, a communication, a happening. When the sense of belongingness grows in us, love finds its true expression. Not just as a formality, but the presence of it in our very life. Love is seeing God in the person next to us, and meditation is seeing God within us; they go hand in hand.

The best position is to combine the ancient and the new and adapt them to modern-day life and current situations. For example, when people started inventing airplanes, it took them several decades to really come to the right design. Before a plane could take off they had many obstacles they had to undergo, because there was no map or blueprint available from the past. There was no clue because no one had done anything like it in the past. If they had, there was no record of it.

What the knowledge from ancient ages offers us today is a map on which we can do our own research. The path of inner awakening is an individual research, everyone has to walk the path, and the ancient knowledge can give us guidance. The knowledge will be like lampposts, showing the way from time to time.

In the New Age community I have heard many people talk about predicting earthquakes and earth changes and the visions they get about this angel, or that angel, and a lot of things like that. One thing these people don’t understand is the process of yogamaya. That is one word explained in detail in the ancient texts.

Yogamaya is a sort of mental game that the mind plays, an illusion that comes in the mind bringing it some vision. Unfortunately, people believe these visions are one hundred percent right. People go on and on, going to psychics to ask them questions and other such things. Sometimes these vision might be true, but they don’t have a way to verify the visions or test the accuracy. The ancient wisdom tells us these visions could be just a mental hallucination. Recognizing the value of the ancient knowledge helps separate you from hallucination to authentic reality.

Making use of the ancient knowledge can also save society the research of many hundreds of years. If the herbologists of today had to do all their own research to find out which herb is suitable for what disease, without using the available ancient knowledge, it would take them forever, because there are millions of herbs! When there is guidance, when there is an ancient book available on herbology, they can refer to it, and then they can experiment on what has been said there, and this saves them a lot of time and effort.

Many have heard about people in the world who get a vision that the world is going to end on some such date, or something like that, and they tell everyone to come to the church and give up everything, and they will be taken in a chariot to heaven. The visions of such people are a mixture of their own fears, anxieties and desires. Right vision can only happen when one is thoroughly hollow and empty, what Buddha called total emptiness of the mind. To check on one’s yogamaya you need someone who can tell you if your vision is right or wrong, if there is a little difference here, and you are making a little mistake there. Those having such experiences could also take more time to examine themselves more carefully, and meditate more and go deep inside, then they may see a clearer distinction between the illusions of the inner visions and the reality. This knowledge of discrimination is what the modern New Age needs to make use of from the wisdom of past ages.

Chapter 3 Creating the Ultimate Relationship

The complexity and difficulty of relationships make humans distinct from other species. The more advanced we are, the more we face the challenges of relationship. Animals have no problem with relationships. They don’t go for any counseling. Nor do tribal societies have problems with relationships.

The urge to connect

There is a deep urge in every human to get connected. This urge sets one to look for relationship. Once you have a relationship, you want it to last forever. When you say, or hear someone say, “I love you very much,” the typical response is, “will you love me forever?” We want that love to be for all time. This moment someone is in love with you or you are in love with someone, but that is not sufficient. Many also say, “I love you forever, for lifetimes, till my last breath.” The words may vary but we want the love to be forever. We are not satisfied that we have the love only right now.

Also, we would like to know that the relationship is connected to the past. Often people say, “I’m sure we had such a deep connection from the past, maybe you are my soul mate.” We want the connection to be deep, and we aspire for it to last for eternity. This very tendency in our relationship indicates something deeper. It shows the urge is coming not from a mental level but from some unknown corner that we have not fathomed.

So what if someone was related to you in the past? What is the need that they should be in your future? When things are nice and fine, you think your relationship has always been that way, you have always been in love. When things start to go wrong, even after many years, you think you must have been mistaken and you were never together in a past life. Why then do so many stay together for all those years? Just look at this. If our relationship is based on a personal need, it is not going to last very long. Once the need is fulfilled, on a physical level or emotional level, the mind looks for something else, somewhere else. If the relationship comes from the level of sharing, then it can last longer.

If you know how to row a boat, you can row any boat. If you don’t know how to row a boat, changing the boat won’t help. Changing the relationship does not solve the issue of relationship. Sooner or later we will be in the same situation in any relationship. We have to look somewhere else. We have to look somewhere deep within us from where we start relating. First of all, what is our relationship to ourselves. Let us ponder on that.

Who are you to yourself?

Repetition

Often we think, “Oh, I am single, I am so bored being by myself, I need a companion, I need a relationship.” If you are so bored by your own company how boring will you be for someone else? Two people bored with themselves get together and bore each other. Love and boredom have something in common. Repetition. If you go on repeating something again and again, you will get bored. When you are in love, you go on repeating the same thing. Lovers insist a thousand times, “Oh, I love you so much, I love you so much, you are so beautiful.” Say it once, that’s enough! Lovers seem to have “lost it.” When you are in love, what you speak does not mean much at all. Many do not even know what they are speaking.

Often you will see in high schools or college rooms where someone is in love they write their names all over the place, books, walls, everywhere, a kind of graffiti. Often their rooms and home is not sufficient and they even go and write on trains, metros, and bus stops; repetition.

Spiritual practice is also a repetition. Having a rosary, chanting the name of God, doing something like this is a repetition. At first the repetition brings boredom in you.

When you sustain that boredom, instead of just dropping it and running away, the spring of love gets opened. When you go on and realize you are the source of the love, you are the giving end and not the receiving end, only then can your relationship blossom.

Relationships change

The nature of relationship always change. Here I am using the word relationship in a broader sense, in its true sense, in the relatedness. When you were a child, you had much love for your parents, friends, and toys, and as you grew older the love from the toys and candy shifted onto other friends and from friends it shifted on again. When you became a parent, see how much love you have for your children, as compared to your love for your parents. Parents care several times more for their own children than for their parents, because their attention, their love, is shifted from the elders to the younger ones. A similar shift often happens in the relationship between husband and wife when a child comes.