Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on Gurupurnima

Gurudev first shared five signs of a Sad/Sadh/Sat/Sath Guru (you would find them in a knowledge sheet as well,let us do some digging through intimate notes to the sincere seekers)

The five signs are:
– Dukkha Kshaya – Elimination of Sorrow
– Sukha Aavirbhava – For no reason happiness blossoms
– Gyan Raksha – Knowledge gets protected
– Sarva Samruddhi – Abundance and no lack in anything in life
– Sarva Samvardhan – Hidden talents blossom, people who never wrote start composing poetry etc

Then He told a story of a young boy. A young buy meditated for a long time so the Creator became happy and decided to bless the boy. So he asked the boy to ask for any boon. The boy said, ‘Knowledge’. The Creator showed the boy a huge mountain and told him that this is knowledge – take as much as you want. The boy – how much he can take? He took four handfuls of knowledge and returned back. The four handfuls then were known as four Vedas and the boy was called as Vedavyasa – the one who organized Vedas. This is a symbolic story – how the huge mountain of knowledge was and how Vedas are only few handfuls of this mountain.

Ayurveda, Atharvaveda, Gandharvaveda are part of Vedas and Upavedas. Then there are Darshanas in which Yoga comes as forth Darshana. Vast branch of Yoga is just one of the Darshana. Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Sankhya, and then Yoga-Ayurveda. Nyaya Darshana is the practical tool by which one can validate or verify whether the attained knowledge is authentic or not. Such is the expanse of knowledge and Veda Vyasa has done this amazing work of organizing the knowledge.

Because of the ultimate importance of His work, any chair of a teacher is called Vyasa’s chair or Vyasapeeth. The full moon of this Indian Calendar Month is dedicated to Vyasa. Full moon indicates fullness. Fullness that comes out of gratitude. So today we feel grateful for whatever we have got, for all the teachers who have given us knowledge. Be a Guru to someone in life. Meaning, give unconditional love to someone, care for them, be a source of light for them. Help and serve them and be available for them. Being a Guru is a good job (laughter).

The conscious self
Actions happen through consciousness. It is because of consciousness that you talk, walk, sit, cry and laugh. Consciousness expresses the three shaktis — Gyan Shakti, Ichcha Shakti and Kriya Shakti. Knowledge, action and desire. If there is co-ordination among these three, then life is very smooth. If not, then life is in doldrums.

If you desire something and it is not correlated with knowledge then it will be very foolish — like a desire that you should have a house on the moon. If there is lack of knowledge, then you are stuck with the desire. Sometimes you have some knowledge but you don’t act on it. Even then you become miserable.

Example of the lack of Kriya Shakti
Many a time you say that you will do certain things or that you want to do certain things. Yet you never do it. You just keep postponing something you know is very good and that you should do it. Exercise or yoga class is the best example. Desire is there. You know it is good and you want to do it also, but then you don’t. This is lack of Kriya Shakti.

Ichcha Shakti is desire, Gyana Shakti is the power of knowledge, wisdom, and Kriya Shakti is the power to act. Some people have lots of Kriya Shakti — they become restless. They keep shifting the table or chair, or wiping the same window again and again, or vacuuming the same carpet again and again, but there is no knowledge of what to do. This is due to lack of Gyana Shakti.

What is lack of Ichcha Shakti?
That’s when there is no strong desire. For sometime one does this, two minutes later something else.

The mind keeps changing. Lethargy — that is also lack of Ichcha Shakti. In such a person the Kriya Shakti doesn’t allow one to be quiet and this causes restlessness. If a person is not so active, then he does not have so much Kriya Shakti. He will simply sit quiet but his mind will go on working. Some people will have a lot of knowledge but there is no desire in them to share with everybody. No Ichcha Shakti. So a perfect balance of these is very rare and worth having.

Yagna, Daana and Tapah — these are the three things that purify the human nervous system, the human consciousness and the human mind.

When everybody gets together, chants, sings and meditates, then that is Yagna. People get depressed because all the time they are thinking about themselves. When you start thinking how you can help people around, how can depression come? Tapah is observing the opposites — meditating and observing the breath. Opposite values come and bother you. Bearing them is Tapas.