YOUR BODY IS A PRECIOUS GIFT: Wisdom from Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

World renowned spiritual leader and founder of Art of Living, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has a magical way of making you take a second look at what you took completely for granted. He makes you relook at the familiar with renewed interest. Looking at the world through Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's eyes you begin to see everything with wonder, awe, respect, love and gratitude.

And he makes you feel that way about something you may not have even looked at with much regard: your body.

You may not have the best figure or height or looks. You may be what others keeping reminding you - “too tall” or “like a stick” or like a “pudding” or “way too short”! Yet Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has a magical way of taking you by the hand, guiding you to the mirror of your Self and making you fall in love with yourself once again!

Has anyone ever told you that “Your body is a precious gift”? Well, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar does. He says:

“Your body is a precious gift to you by Mother Nature. Respect your body.”

Have you ever thought just how precious your body is? What is it about your body that makes it so valuable?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar tells us:

“Your body is capable of inviting God. Your body is a temple in which Divinity can enter and reside. Therefore, keep it healthy, transform it and just light a lamp in it. That is enough for the Divine to come and reside in it.”

Isn't that a beautiful way to look at your body? It is unique. It is beautiful just as it is. It is a fitting abode for God!

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar takes this one step further, he says, “The Body is the Divine’s most precious abode”!

Makes you wonder?

I leave you to ponder over these words of wisdom by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: “What is there in your body? It is Divine’s altar. Spread the altar of smile and light the lamp of knowledge and invite “anandakanda”, the child of bliss in your body. If the son of Nanda has to come to you, light is necessary, the altar of smile is necessary.”

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, apart from playing a decisive role in enhancing global peace has also played a vital role in changing popular misconceptions through his satsangs or wisdom talks. This excerpt is from one such talk that helps people to appreciate and love their bodies the way they are.

Love can only blossom when there is freedom

Wisdom Knowledge shared by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Guruji about Love

Love can only blossom in freedom. When freedom is restricted, love suffocates. You need to be free. Often love stifles. When you are in love or when you love somebody, you feel stifled because you are obliged. When there are so many obligations that you need to fulfil, then these obligations become like a load on your head and you get the added responsibility not to hurt the people you love and who love you. In a subtle sense, this takes the freedom away and slowly demands start arising in you. The moment demand arises in you, know that love is on its death-bed. Love is in an oxygen chamber and it doesn’t live very long.

Demand destroys love. Freedom is essential.

A lover is beyond all rules. There is no rule on how to express your love. All expressions are a spontaneous outburst of love and love finds its own expressions – you cannot streamline it. Your eyes cannot hide the love, your gestures cannot hide the love, and your steps cannot hide the love. Love flows in all your expressions, in your behaviour, in your alertness, in your walk, in your talk, in your whole life.

One thing you can never fully hide is love. You can hide anger to a great extent, you can eat anger inside you, and you can put a big smile on your face. People may not notice your anger, your vengeance – but you cannot hide love. It comes flooding from your eyes, your smile and your gestures. There are no rules on how to express love, because when you are in love, you cannot make a mistake. A lover is beyond all rules, beyond all scriptures, beyond all theories and philosophies.

If you don´t follow certain codes of conduct, there is a possibility that you will fall out of that love. Anyatha patitya ashankaya – there is the possibility to fall off the knowledge, off the path of love. So just follow and stick to these rules. This is very, very beautiful. No doubt you need freedom to blossom in love, but in turn love brings freedom in all situations, all circumstances. Nothing will be stifling, nothing will be bonding to you, and nothing will restrict you, your freedom, in the true sense of love. Are you getting what I am saying?

When you are in love, nothing is a burden to you. When nothing is a burden, how can anything take away the freedom from you? You lose freedom when something is a burden to you. So love in turn brings that freedom. When a rule is imposed on you by someone else, then it is restricting to you. But when you have taken a rule on yourself, on your own, it is not any restriction, it is not suffocating to you. Like when you take on the rule of driving on the right side of the road, then that is it.

Discipline (rules) bring more freedom to us although, on the surface, it appears to restrict freedom. But if you go a little deeper, you will see that your own rules, your own disciplines bring you freedom. Though you are beyond all discipline, yet it is good to have your own discipline. Though it doesn’t matter to you what you do, when you rise, what you eat etc., it is better to have a certain discipline because that gives you such freedom.

Be enthusiastic and praise others

Enthusiasm is the nature of life. We often have a tendency to put cold water on the other’s enthusiasm. Reverse this tendency. Take every opportunity to praise others and support their enthusiasm. If you put down other’s enthusiasm, the same may happen to you. As you sow, so shall you reap? Recollect how much enthusiasm and joy you had when you went to the primary school. Someone without enthusiasm is like a corpse. But as you mature, the enthusiasm curve declines. As enthusiasm declines, we stop communicating.

How would you like to see yourself? Happy and bubbling with enthusiasm or dull and difficult to please? Often, you like to be pleased, appeased and cajoled. So you put up a tough, upset face and act difficult to please. If a person has to appease and please ten people all the time, it will be so tiring. People who keep a long face and expect others to cajole and appease them make others run away. As Lovers often do this, they expend a lot of energy in cajoling, and this brings down the joy and celebration of the moment.

If you feel down, appease and please yourself. You need to be appeased by someone else is the sign of grossness. If you want attention, all you get is tension. It is not possible to attain Divine Love with a complaining face.

Become one whose enthusiasm never dies.

His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Praising is a Divine quality never fail to praise others, it will boost up their energy and make them feel good. When you praise other's eventually that quality kindles in you and when you criticise others after sometime you will become the carrier of that bad habit or quality. Whenever you feel that a particular action or thing is wrong and it's bothering you then, just go that person makes him aware about it and then let go. Don't keep on pondering about it for the rest of your day. Educate and Ignore is yet another best policy, then one should adapt to it.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Shares Wisdom on 'Doing Trivial Things'

In Sri Sri RaviShankar's knowledge on 'Doing Trivial Things' , Sri Sri Ravi Shankar begins by asking the pertinent question, “What is that you can do for eternity?”

 He goes on to explain that the job cannot be “big or great because it needs effort and effort tires you.” So big tasks can only be handled within a comparatively short frame. So what is it that one can do eternally?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar answers that, “If you can think of one thing that is way below your capacity to do and agree to do it for eternity, that becomes Pooja.”

Confused? Puzzled? Wondering what that means?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar elaborates, “The readiness to consciously do trivial things for eternity unites you with eternity. This is an antidote to ego. Ego is always ambitious and wants to do the toughest job like climbing Mount Everest etc. Whereas in a simple act like watching a butterfly, watering the garden, watching the birds or the sky, can bring deep relaxation, and relaxation connects you with your source. Not that you do trivial things all your life, but consciously agreeing to do the trivial actions for eternity, opens a new dimension and brings in immense peace and restfulness.”

Now, does that make sense? How many of you would agree that watching a butterfly or washing the dishes can actually bring relaxation?

Finally Sri Sri Ravi Shankar concludes with this advice to the sincere seeker: “To find rest in activity, choose an activity that is far below your capacity and agree to do it until eternity. Doing a job far below your capacity and being satisfied with it will make it possible to do a job much beyond your capacity. Know that all actions are born out of infinity and that which is born out of infinity can take you to infinity.”

Now isn't that beautiful? Something really worth mulling over! Those of you who felt they were stuck in jobs far below their capacity can now smile... you have a beautiful escape to connect with Infinity! So feel grateful!