Ashram!

Q: Sometimes I feel like leaving the normal life and just staying in the ashram. What should I do?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: I would like you to live the normal life. I want to make the whole world into an ashram, and you want to leave the world and come to the ashram?
What does Ashram means? A place where you get some care, love, food for thought and some food for your stomach. So you can make your own homes ashrams. Invite people, give them some good knowledge and give them some food, and if you do this a lot then every home is an ashram. I want people in the ashram to go out and start centres wherever they are, make their homes as lighthouse of joy, knowledge and love.
What will you come and stay here and do? Even I don’t stay in one place. I keep travelling across the continents. So you don’t have to leave the world and come and live here, if you have some responsibilities. But you are most welcome to come and stay sometime, and do some seva. When you think you can do better things here being in the ashram and contribute better to the society and not just for your comfort, then it is okay. I don’t want the ashram to be a place for lazy people who want to renegade, run away from everything and waste their time and be a trouble for everybody else.
Ashram is the place for people who want to do a lot for the society and don’t want anything for themselves. If you have that much dedication to do work for the world and society then yes, this is the place for you. Your needs will be taken care of.

Time-Mind-Event Dimension

Master: Hmm? What should we think now?
There is a very intricate connection b/w time mind event. An event has impact on mind and time has an impact on mind and event. It is the event that makes the mind pleasant and unpleasant. And time makes the mind free or bound. Its like a triangle, Liberation is freeing the mind from time and event. Time and event u cant separate. But mind you can separate from both time and event. 

It is a very interesting mechanism – the triangle of mind event and time. One who knows the divine plan is daivagna. If u know the time, you can manage events and mind The farmer knows which time to sow the seed – if he sows in rainy season or in summer he will be at loss. So he knows when to sow and when to harvest. Before and after harvest time if he harvests then it is no good.
The knowledge of how the events are happening is imp.

Events, time and mind are all associated with action, So it is a trapezium – events, time, mind, action.
So do the right thing at the right time. You can free the mind from time and event with meditation.

Is anger your nature??

A disciple came to his Master and complained: “Master, I have an ungovernable temper. How can I cure it?”

“You have something very strange,” replied the Master. “Let me see what you have.”

“Just now I cannot show it to you,” replied the other.

“When can you show it to me?” asked the Master.

“It arises unexpectedly,” replied the student.

“Then,” concluded the Master, “it must not be your own true nature. If it were, you could show it to me at any time. When you were born you did not have it, and your parents did not give it to you. Think that over.”

A Walk on the water

In ancient India there was a young lad. He was very much interested in magical powers/Siddhis gained by meditation. One day he meets a wandering saint who agrees to teach him meditation. The young lad takes the blessings of his parents and walk away with the wandering saint.

After many years, the young lad, now a grown man, returns to his home-town and meets his parents. He is very eager to show his parents his extraordinary skill he gained. He asks his father to come to the river. His father agrees and stands by the banks of the river to watch what his son is up to. The young man starts walking over the river water without sinking as if it were a road. He crosses the river back and approaches his father in anticipation of appreciation for his newly learnt skill.

Instead of appreciating, his father gives a tight slap on his sons face. Stunned, the young man asks the reason for slapping.

His father says, “All these years you mastered meditation only to gain “Siddhi” (Perfection) of walking on the water? If you give one anna to boatman he will take ferry you to the other side of the river. So, this siddhi of yours is worth just one anna? How foolish of you.”

 

 

The fragrance was always there….

There was a very close friendship between a bumble bee and a worm.

 

Once Bee said to Worm, ”Why do you live in muck and faeces? Come to my garden. There are roses and agaves and jasmines. You’ll be thrilled by their fragnance.”

 

Worm gave it serious thought, ”I’ll go and visit his garden, but what if there’s nothing to eat there? I may starve to death.” As a precaution he rolled up two small balls of dirt and faeces and plugged them into his nostrils. Bumble Bee, unaware of this, asked him to climb onto his back. Off they flew.

 

In the garden the air was sweet with fragrance. The bee placed the worm on top of a rose and asked, ”Well, what do you think of the fragrance?” ”Nothing special. I still smell the same old odour,” the worm retorted, not impressed at all. Bee was confused, ”Why does my friend fail to enjoy the fragrance?” he asked himself. Then he took a closer look at the worm and found two tiny balls of faeces fitted up his nostrils.

 

He made a plan for removing them. Taking the worm to a pool of water, he offered him the chance to swim. They both dived into the water. Bee then climbed upon the worm’s back and pushed his head underwater. Water rushed into the worm’s nose and mouth and made him burst out with violent sneezing. This procedure forced out the mess that was blocking Worm’s nose. Quickly picking up the worm the bee returned to the rose, ”Ah… Ah… what a scent! It’s fabulous… The scent of rose is wonderful.”

 

The worm praised the flowers no end. The Bee then said, ”The fragrance was always here, but it was you who chose not to enjoy it. You had stuffed your nose with muck and excreta.” and then took him to savour the scents of other flowers in the garden.

 

The analogy of the story: The bee in the story resembles our guru. The muck is similar to our worldly habits which we dearly hold on to only to give us more grief and misery. Guru always tells us that the blessings and grace is always there but we fail to understand / experience it. Unless we remove the muck from our lives, we will never experience the grace and blessing showering on us eternally.