Buddha & Silence: Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Wisdom by Spiritual leader and Art of Living Founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

“Thoughts are not the goal in themselves. Their goal is Silence. When you ask the question "Who am I?" you get no answer, there is silence. That is the real answer.” - Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Guruji shares:

Buddha's life was not of lack, need or want. From the very beginning, he lived a very saturated life. Any pleasure would just be at his feet the moment he wanted it. Gautama, Siddhartha lived such a life, and you would wonder how a person of such pleasure and luxury could talk about sorrow! One has to experience sadness, sorrow, misery in the world in order to speak about it.

But Buddha said the first principle, first truth he discovered was--there is sorrow. As he was that sensitive, that saturated in the sensual pleasures from outside, there was nothing to go in for, because everything would be there. How would you go in for something which is already there? All the pleasures were there. He was silent from the very beginning, because there was saturation. His silence had arisen out of saturation.

But one day he said, "I would like to go and see what the world is." This inquiry, inquisitiveness arose in him. And when he saw someone who was sick, someone who is old and dying, and someone who is dead, these three instances or events was good enough to bring in him the knowledge that there is misery.