A talk by Sri Sri Ravishankar, Art of Living

A talk by Sri Sri Ravishankar..

"People have very funny ideas about enlightenment. Every culture, every religion has got their own ideas about it.

In Christian culture, a rich man cannot be enlightened. It is impossible. You have got to be in poverty to be enlightened. From the Christian point of view, Rama cannot be enlightened! Even a camel can go through a needle, but not a rich man! Many years ago, once I was traveling from Bangalore to Delhi. I met a Christian priest in the airport. He just looked at me and I smiled back. He came to talk to me and said, “I feel like talking to you my dear brother. You seem to be a nice person.” He asked me if I believed in Jesus and I said yes. He was a little stunned. He asked me the question again and I said yes again. Then he asked if I was a Hindu. And I said “perhaps”. He then asked if I believed in Krishna and I said yes. He then said: “But how can Krishna be God? He is a butter thief. He was married. How can somebody be married and steal butter and all and be God? He is not the one who can give salvation. You know, Jesus is the only way. I was also a Hindu before and now I have become a Christian. From the time I have become a Christian everything is happening. Jesus is taking care of me. I tell you, you better become a Christian.”

How can Krishna be enlightened? Jains do not think that Krishna is enlightened. He created the war. Arjuna was going to go away, take sanyas and renounce the world. Krishna brainwashed him and brainwashed him and made him fight. Krishna was responsible for this huge war. How could he be enlightened? Stealing butter, having so many wives. Impossible! Jains do not think that an enlightened person, sadhu, should ever wear clothes. Their idea of an enlightened person is one who walks nude. One who is not nude is a little less great. Who knows what will happen? What desires would come up in him? Whether they are free from lust or not, how would you know? What is the proof? Jain sadhus are nude. They do not wear any clothes. They are considered enlightened. This is their idea of enlightenment. They simply do not consider those as enlightened who eat two square meals a day. That too one who enjoys a meal is not at all enlightened. Can a saint eat chocolate? He is not a saint then!

Buddhists have got their own idea of who is and who is not enlightened. Somebody who sings, dances, looks at the whole world, pleasing the world is not enlightened. Someone who meets their family and sits with their family is definitely not enlightened. I have seen many of these so-called sanyasis. They are so afraid that they cannot meet their families. May be attachment will happen. They have run away from the family and fear that attachment for the family can come up anytime.

I know of a so-called sanyasi who would not meet his mother. He would meet everybody else but not the poor old lady who is his mother! What had she done? He would not meet her. She was 70 years old and would cry and cry. So-called sanyasis, nuns, brothers, fathers behave like this because that is the idea they have. See, when you can love everybody, why can’t you see your family members in the same light? Many sanyasis go through this difficulty in their heads about not seeing their family. These are all just concepts about enlightenment. The main essence forgotten is dispassion or centeredness. Being centered in spite of everything is the second essential principle in yoga. This is vairagya.

As you all know, there are three gunas or qualities. They are sattva, rajas and tamas. Three gunas come into our life in cycles. When Sattva comes, there is alertness, knowledge, interest, and joy in everything. When Rajo guna comes, more desires, selfishness, restlessness and sadness arise in us. When Tamo guna comes, delusion, attachment, lack of knowledge, lethargy, all this comes. These three come in life turn by turn. But one who is centered will watch, witness and just move through that very naturally, innocently, without being averse to it.

It is said: Yogaha karmasu kaushalam - the skill in action is yoga. Yoga itself means skill. Yoga is the skill to live life, skill to manage your mind, skill to deal with your emotions, skill to be with people, skill to be in love and not let love turn into hatred."

Congress has waited to learn from the bomb blasts

When POTA was repelled by Congress, BJP cried aloud in opposing it. Now after the Mumbai incident, when so many foreigners are lost, due to the international pressure, the Congress has brought back the POTA in the name of UAPA. Thanks to BJP for supporting to pass the law. Hats off to Advaniji - you didn’t oppose just for the sake of opposing the ruling party - it was a rare show of unity and solidarity. I wish the trend continues and the politicians take nation’s interest to the forefront than the party's interest.

Kapil Sibal, the great science and technology minister, told the following in the parliament while bringing back the law: “Congress had learnt lessons from its past experience in fighting terrorism….. In life, as in politics nothing is static… ideologies change. We all learn from experience”. Thanks Mr.Kapil Sibal and Madam Sonia – the bomb blasts are now taking place at just about an incident a month only – you didn’t wait for Pakistan’s nuke to land straight on your head through terrorists – you learnt the lesson so quickly, it is really amazing!

In the same line as Kapil Sibal, hope and pray the defense minister doesn’t say something like this after loosing some war with our great neighbour, “after all, we have to learn from our experience and this lost war was a good experience and we will definitely win the next war, be patient”

You are a good learner Soniaji, for sure, you will have a lot to learn from the coming election! The nation is very safe in your hands!

Exit Gracefully Contd..

In continuation of my previous post 'Exit Gracefully', I suddenly remembered something to contribute constructively rather than stopping with a criticism of the stalwarts.

Ever wondered you can learn Bharatanatyam at the age of 60+? Read on…

The Art of Living organization had conducted its Silver Jubilee celebrations in 2007 at Bangalore with a musical fete of about thousand Veena artisits, about thousand mridanga/ tabla artisits, about thousand flute artisits etc., - totally about 5000 artists. The vibrations and the joy of the event cannot be contained in words. In continuation of that ArtOfLiving had conducted several programs at various places like Kerala, Delhi, Mumbai etc., with several hundreds of artists performing their state’s traditional art. In the same way, a program was conducted at Chennai also with hundreds of Bharathanatya dancers. I was a volunteer for the program and I happened to know some interesting things that took place there.

The Kalakshetra foundation is the main Bharathanatya dance school functioning at Chennai and it is unfortunately being led by a Christian lady. This Sonia’s Congress Govt could not find any Hindu dancer to lead the organization for Hindu ancient art. She thought Sri Sri Ravishankar’s Chennai program was religious and so refused to send her students to the program. Sri Sri was firm in his views – yes, this is a religious program – how can you separate Bharatanatyam and Hindu religion? – how can an art born out of India be separated from Hindu religion? the whole of bharatanatyam is based on Hindu Gods, how can you separate both of them? Unfortunately a Christian lady had invented that the Bharatanatyam dance performance is Hindu religious specific and firmly said ‘No’ to send her students to the program. The students though eager to perform, feared about their academic results being tampered by this idiot lady. Then Guruji made a personal call and said NO HUMAN CAN DECIDE THE FATE OF ANOTHER HUMAN and the students came formed and performed against the wish of their institutional head, brave isitn't?. There were about 400 performers from different parts of Chennai and the majority of the performers were below 25 years of age right from 5-6 years. What a performance it was, It had to be seen to feel the vibrations and the divine presence on that day.

Guruji might have kept this in mind and should have said to himself - NO HUMAN CAN DESTROY THE HINDUISM AND ITS ARTS. He very recently founded a 6 days course called Natya Yoga and successfully completed 2 courses in India and 3 at Dubai and Sharja. Right now one is going on in Kerala. I give below the details as I received from Art of Living organisation:

Natya Yoga

Ever wondered why it is called the änanda tandava (blissful dance)?! Attend Natya yoga!

Explore Natya through bhajans

Natya Yoga is a six day dance workshop designed for the benefit of all, irrespective of age, gender or prior training in Dance. This workshop aims at teaching classical Bharatanatyam with Bhajans as its foundation. The word classical in no way implies that it is complicated. The very idea of this workshop is to help one and all appreciate classical art forms, and to help everyone explore the spirit of dance and music, which is bliss. Hence the name “NATYA YOGA” (Literally union in dance). The participants will be able to dance to a Bhajan at the end of the workshop.

All living beings have a natural tendency to express joy via movements, it is especially the case with human beings, dance being as expression of joy. The precise purpose behind Natya Yoga is to enable one and all to experience the joy of movement, or dance; and the healing effects of music.
Natya Yoga enables one to enjoy the language of Indian classical art forms. This workshop is meant to help one leave behind day to day life, and enter a world that is surreal.






Experiences of the participants:

Thirty of us, a mixture of young and old with absolutely no idea of bharatanatyam grabbed the opportunity to do the very first course of NATYA YOGA .Some people wondered ‘Of what use is it to learn dance at this age? We are never going to be stage performers. The answer came immediately. Ganga(the teacher) gave us a visual treat. As I was watching, I became aware that there is a difference in my viewing the dance now after Natya yoga. I was watching intently then I thought ‘Why I didn’t know to pray like this…..then slowly as the dance progressed my eyes were filled with tears and it became my prayer. Suddenly the ‘I” dropped and the ‘prayer’ remained. Finally the ‘Prayer’ too dropped and only the ‘Prayerfulness’, the ‘Bhav’ lingered. The philosophy behind the dance, the spirit behind the dancer dominated over the rest and I found my purpose of doing the ‘Natya Yoga’.

- Veda Chakrapani, Journalist.

According to Islam Dance is considered Haram (that which is prohibited). I too was of the opinion that only jobless people got together to do these kinds of things. After 6 days of Natya Yoga, my perspective has totally changed. Everyday was a new experience, and I eagerly awaited the beginning of every class. It is believed that dance is tiring, but I experienced quite the opposite – an extreme flow of energy! This is a priceless course that has helped me immensely. I will personally bring as many people to attend it as possible.

- Jahir Hussain, Bussinessman

Isn’t the way our Bharathanatyam stalwarts should think?

Imagine what an effect it could have been if our stalwarts do these kind of workshops at the College level?

Exit gracefully

It was when the Kalyan Utsavam of Thirupathi Perumal took place at the Chennai Island ground a few months back. I was just changing the channels with the remote control as usual. All of a sudden I saw a fat lady dressed as a gypsy dancing. I thought it was Ganesh and the fat lady Aarthi in a comedy program and passed through but only after sometime I realized that the program was the Bharathanatyam of Dr.Padma Subramaniam in the Kalyana Utsavam. I could not digest that, believe me, I initially thought it was Aarthi in a comedy program. I am a lover of our heritage arts like carnatic music, bharatanatyam etc., and when I was in College, I went to Kumbakonam (from Papanasam) all alone, on my own, to see her dance performance of Kamba Ramayanam, when everyone of my age was going to dance, cinema, beach etc.,, . The depiction of the scene of Rama looking at Sita for the first time (Annalum Nokkinar, Avalum Nokkinal) is still lingering my memory even after nearly 30 years. I am an ardent lover of the art though I don’t know anything about the art and my daughter did her Arangetram at the age of 12. But what Padma Subramaniam did on that day was a total disgrace to the art and I can not but describe it than “the ugliest”. I know she has researched/ contributed so much to the art and is continuing to do so but this was the feeling I got when I saw her performance that day.

Not only her, lot many stalwarts are doing that – Vaijayanthimala in her 70s is another awkward. Can you believe that she is dancing even now with all hanging flesh in her face? Dhananjeyan and Shantha Dhananjeyan in their 60s are doing it. Remember all these stalwarts are having their own dance schools where they have enormous youth power. Many beautiful serial artists and movie actors are coming out from those dance schools only. If they put in some good thinking they can do fantastic performances with their youth power and it is possible for them to divert lot of youth currently tending towards Kuthupattu, Maanada-Maylilada, Jodi No 1,2,3.. etc., towards this beautiful art. Before that they should first accept their age and stop performing themselves to create some disinterest in the art and make even those interested in the art to leave. On that day, I am sure the Bharathanatyam art would have gone into severe criticism by many of the non-Hindus and many of the so called modern people who are waiting to defame our heritage and culture.

Both Carnatic music and Bharathanatyam are fantastic arts and have so much to offer to the youth as well as aged but mostly now, these are being offered with only the content for elders. Which youth, especially those who don’t know anything about the ragas (like me) will sit and hear 30-45 minutes of raga alabanai? Whereas carnatic music has enough to mesmerise people for several hours. All stalwarts are interested only in showing up their expertise, they don’t bother to promote the art, to promote the youth, to attract the youth, to nourish the art..

I request all these stalwarts who have crossed 50s – You have done enough to show your capabilities and talent and people also have accepted your genius nature – now stop promoting yourself - the youth is currently tending towards the wrong side and there is an emergency to do something to pull them out - please do something to promote that art among the youth – or atleast stop doing something that will chase away the youth from the art.

This not only holds good for Bharathanatyam and carnatic music, take the case of our cricketers, politicians, actors - this the same everywhere. While the stalwarts were of so much pleasure in their respective field in their youths, they compensate it by being a burden equally in their second half.

Take the case of Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Ravi Shastri, Ganguly, to name a few. They contributed so much and won so many matches for the country but in the later half, they also won equal matches but this time….. for the opposition. Currently Sachin is waiting for the ungraceful exit. I can see the one and only exception in Anil Kumble, Mr.Gentleman.

Remember Don Bradman – there can not be a better example for graceful exit. He is remembered now only because of his graceful exit at the peak of his career. Had he prolonged his career for some more years and exited with several failures, who would remember him? he would have been another ordinary cricketer like Gavaskar! I don’t know how that tradition continues even now in Australia – Border, Steve Waugh, Chappels, Shane Warne all exited – or made to exit – ceremoniously.

Take the case of our actors Kamal, Rajini, even MGR, Sivaji – they all prolonged / prolonging to be out ungracefully. See the movie Vettaiyadu/ Vilaiyadu, Kamal with all his enormous extra flesh in his face and the fat belly could not match the speed and the smartness required for the role he played (Police officer). He was the ugliest in Dasavadharam. The same case with Rajini in Baba – somehow he managed in Shivaji – but I am sure they both are waiting for the unceremonious exit only.

Our politicians – Take the case of our Mr.MK- He was so much of a treasure to the party in his youth and contributed so much to it but now, as everyone knows he, along with his family, is a total burden to the party and undoing all what he had contributed to the party. He will bury and seal his party before handing over it to another. Of course it is good for the state and I wish him good health and many more years so that he buries the party so deep that no one can dig it out!.

Let us learn from the Australian cricketers – Exit ceremoniously when you start feeling your deteriorating age and leave the field to the youngsters.