Hope, Peace, and Inner Strength with Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Help us understand. In your understanding, what is Maya and what is God?

This is a very beautiful question.

Going straight for really deep questions, right?

It's great. I would love these questions actually. That's my cup of tea. Maya is all that you see, you can feel, you can touch. Through all the five senses can be measured. The God or divinity is called Mayavi. One who is behind the Maya, one who controls the Maya. The pure consciousness. The qualities of consciousness is beyond Maya. Like what? Truth, beauty. These are the attributes of God which cannot be measured. So that is the nature of self. The non changing aspect of consciousness which cannot be quantified is the self. And then all that can be quantified is Maya.

Hi everyone. Welcome to the Mindvalley podcast. Today's guest is one of the most imminent people I've ever had on the podcast. Let me start with a simple story. A few months ago, I got a random message from a Mindvalley follower in Colombia. And this person in Colombia said, thank you so much for doing work with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. I love that man so much because he brought peace to my country. Now, I know this may seem astounding to many of you, unless you live in Colombia. This man who brought peace to the country. Well, it turned out that during the violent era of Colombia, this Indian sage was somehow able to to bring love and compassion into the political discussion, to bring together warring parties to communicate at the table, which led to peace in Colombia. It is rare to be interviewing someone who has actually impacted the world to this level, actually ending conflicts that have lasted dozens of years. And this is especially what makes the spiritual teacher, Gurudev, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, so mesmerizing and astounding as a guest today. He's a global humanitarian, spiritual leader and peace envoy who has been teaching breath based meditation techniques for more than 40 years. But that is such a small slice of who this man is, even if you've not heard his name. Especially if you, if you might be outside India, you've probably heard of Art of Living, which has become one of the world's largest volunteer based nonprofits in 156 countries. During the COVID lockdowns, Art of living delivered over 75 million meals all over India to affected people. And the numbers here are astounding, folks. Gurudev has inspired a wave of volunteerism and service for better society. It has grown to 30,000 active teachers, 1 million volunteers. He's received over 38 awards from governments, has spoken at the UN, the European Parliament, the World Economic Forum, as well as Harvard, Stanford, And Yale. In fact, 21 universities have offered him an honorary degree degree. And he is truly a living legend and a world leader that I truly respect. Now, it doesn't even stop there. The reason why I'm reading you his bio in this way is because if you're not in India, you probably may not have heard of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, but it's important that you do because his work inspires in terms of just ecological restoration. He's helped plant 81 million trees around the world. In terms of helping people with stress relief, 5.6 million people have benefited from from his workshops. And what are his workshops? Well, he teaches a concept called Sudarshan Kriya, which is a powerful breathing technique that facilitates physical, mental and emotional and social well being. And he has used his influence and his, I guess, passion for bringing peace to help bring peace in conflict stricken areas like Sri Lanka, Iraq, Venezuela and Colombia. And so this is why he's received over 38 governmental awards, including highest civilian honors, awards in Colombia, Mongolia, Paraguay, and he's received India's highest annual civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan. So welcome to the Mindvalley podcast. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Gurudev. Tell us about where you are right now, the set and where you're sitting. It looks so beautiful.

I'm in Washington D.C. i see.

What brings you to Washington D.C. are.

You allowed to say, you know, post pandemic there is so much of violence in the world, you know, mental stress and depression on one side, aggression on the other side. So we started this campaign, I stand for peace. You know, when we have something to do, then we don't feel so helpless. So when everyone could stand up for peace and bring up to their conscious awareness, their commitment for peace, people already feel so much better, you know, mentally, psychologically. When you feel better, it gives strength to your system, you know, your body. Also you feel more inspired to do anything you want to do. So we are doing this campaign, stand for peace throughout us. And we're also planning to have a world culture festival here sometime next year. And so I am on the tour of US now. I've visited several cities. Yesterday I was in Chicago. Today here, tomorrow, then I'll go to Raleigh, North Carolina.

Yeah, that's beautiful. It's so wonderful having you in the U.S. so speaking of peace, we're going through a really crazy time today. You know, just this morning opening and reading the news. I'm living in Europe right now and the news was horrifying. Rockets, Russian rockets hit a civilian mall in Ukraine. A Thousand people were inside the mall. Nobody knows how many people, innocent civilians lost their lives. Then reading the news in the US It's a horrible, horrible tension and a feeling of helplessness because of the overturning of abortion rights in this really tense global environment. I'd love to get your advice and I'd love to make our topic today on peace of mind. How do we build inner peace? How do we build emotional resilience? What would you say to people who are experiencing this right now?

You know, Vishen, when everything is okay, peace has not much value. You know, you need doctors only when you become sick. It's when you're healthy. You don't care for doctors around, right? So the real issue now is mental health problem. Look at the gun violence a Fortnight ago, in one week there were 12 incidences of mass shooting. And there is so much tension. The women are on street for fighting for their rights. They feel very uncomfortable, insecure about their, you know, their future and the gender equality per se they feel is threatened. There are many such issues that people are coming with. And for all this what you need is a resilient mind and a mind which can take the problems as challenges and to be able to solve. See, a weak mind cannot carry along a strong body. On the other hand, a strong mind can carry along a weak body. So physically, mentally, emotionally and socially, to do any sensible action, you need a fit state of mind consciousness. For that you need inner peace. And so it's all the more relevant today. When you see all these horrible things happening around, you need to kindle the hope within you. And that hope and inner strength is what is paramount at this point of time, I feel.

So with that hope and inner strength, I'm curious to know how you would advise us to strike the balance. We want to be peaceful, we want to be blissful and happy. But with so many things in the world that are, that are out there to fix, how do we find this balance? How do you find the balance? Because you obviously care about fixing the world. You are a massive activist. But how do you go and resolve these conflicts around the world while still maintaining your peace? Not getting angry, not getting triggered.

You see, it's inner strength that can make you think better and take right action. Peace does not mean inactive complacence. You see, many times people say, oh I'm peaceful means just be complacent and not take any action, not to be proactive. These are the misnomer about peace. Peace could be very dynamic. At the same time be very Centered. You know, you don't need to act in a sense of fit of anger or you know, hatred or you know, sadness. You can act being very centered. And that act you will never regret. See, an impulsive act that you take on always ends you up in a sense of regret, isn't it? Later on you say, oh, I should have done this, I should have done that. So centeredness comes when you attend to yourself at the same time, see the situation, life in a broader perspective. See, humanity has undergone many challenges. This is not the first time we are facing challenge. We have had insurmountable challenges in the past and we have overcome. We have been resilient. That confidence in ourselves that we will be able to manage this crisis is paramount. I feel at this point of time, if we lose that, we find ourselves in a very, very weak spot, which would only lead us to more into a negative spiral which ends you in depression.

So confidence in our ability to manage the crisis. But what about this? How do we stay informed? Reading the news lately just seems to be such an act of self triggering. How do we stay informed yet not allow this to break our peace within?

Yeah, you must, you must invoke the valor inside you. You have the valor. You know, you say, oh look, this is the challenge. Okay, we'll face it. That valor gives you confidence. You see, for that you need really interesting.

Really, really, really interesting. You know why it's interesting? I read some studies that show that the emotion of valor, right? Thinking about valor as an ideal actually improves your heart resonance. It's really interesting. Thinking about compassion improves your heart. Thinking about valor improves your heart. So it's very interesting that you use that word valor. But how do we balance this? How do we, for example, have a hope for the future, think about valor, but still take the right action to change it or to help fix the world.

The moment you need to take a moment to yourself and calm your mind down, you know, retrieve your mind from action to awareness. When you are acting, many times you get lost in the act. You are not aware of your centeredness. What, what you are the bigger context to life. So just a few moments of reflection of self referral value. Getting back to yourself can bring about much needed strength within you.

I like that, I like what you're saying. But now let's talk about acting. One thing I've admired about you is that you, even as an activist, you always act with love, right? You faced opposing sides in wars. And you know, based on how we view the world, it's obvious that not both sides are innocent. How do you deal with situations like that? How do you have compassion and understanding for people who might be abusing, who might be murdering, who might be violent?

Vision. We have worked with nearly 800,000 victims whom I call victim, whom the world calls as culprits in the prisons. And if you talk to any of these convicts, you will find, you know, they have been on the other side. They have been a victim of their own emotions. They have been victim of lack of understanding, lack of education, bad, you know, parenthood or you know, broken family system. They had some issues, that's why they became violent. See, no soul, no individual have come to this planet or being a. So called a bad guy. Every child is born as a bad wonderful like an angel. But then they turn out to be all these, you know, anti social elements because of certain situations, right. Certain circumstances. So you find that, you know, even the gang members whom we are working with here in usa, in Los Angeles, in Chicago, in Washington, inner city gang members, you know, they're all nice people. They just needed that flip over, you know, to reflect on themselves and why they are doing what they're doing and get a proper, you know, mindset that exactly, you know, that then they are. You find that the same person who was moving around with gun is now moving around with roses. They can compassionate and ready to help people.

That's beautiful and it's wonderful to think that that could be the case. But what does that mean for the way we, the way modern societies deal with people who might be breaking the law? How do we deal with abusive, with abusers, with rapists, with people who might.

We should know that they are not mentally okay, they are sick people. Anyone who is mentally sound sane will not engage themselves in these activities of murdering and raping and all this crime. They are mentally sick. And so they need treatment. They need to be, be you know, just shooting them down is not the answer. But that is the last thing. If they don't, you know, if you can't catch them, then you shoot them. That is the policy of the police. That is, that is okay for them to do. But what we need to do is take care of the mental health before someone gets to that point. Right. And when you come to a bigger picture of war, say suppose you ask, okay, what do you say about the war? War I would say is worst act of reason. War I consider to worst act of reason. And whenever people start a war, they have a reason. See, America started the war with Iraq with the pretext they have weapon of mass destruction. And finally we found nothing there. So now the same Russia is waging a war against Ukraine. It's a perceived fear, you know, it's a perceived insecurity. It's not a real thing. But still, you know, they see that their security is threatened or whatever. So in these situations you need people who can be the bridge, who have, who can bring both people to understand each other. You know, when I went to Colombia, you know, I had a handshake with the president there. It was supposed to be five minutes after they gave me the award, but then we lasted for over 55 minutes. Then he said, you know, I'm so pained to see that I have no other options than military option because these people are not listening to anybody. 52 year old conflict with the park. They were not. Every day they were creating so much havoc. They would bring down the telephone towers, they would bring down the transmission towers and water supply. They would cut off for the city. The entire population is suffering. If you have visited Colombia before 2015, you would have found that the airport is a very small place. And then it looked like a third world country. But today, you see it's as good as any other cities in America. So prosperity comes with peace and peace comes with dialogue and understanding. So when I went to Colombia from Colombia, I went to Havana and met with the 14 park gorilla, you know, commandos. And we spoke. On the third day we did some meditation, we spoke and you know, on the third day they came on their own to the press conference and they announced we are going to adopt the Gandhian principle of non violence for social justice. And then they were ready to, you know, ask forgiveness with the families of the victims. So we flew in many of the victims from Colombia to Havana, put them face to face with them and they asked them forgiveness. I mean, it was a great eye opener for anybody on the planet to see how a person from inside can flip around and ask for forgiveness with those people. I mean, there was not one dry eye, I tell you, that day. And then the forgiveness process continued throughout. So they went, when they came back to Bogota, all these people went on with the forgiveness process. So we need to see the world with a different, not with the same stereotype. But we have been saying, you know, hey, you are a bad guy and you know, you need to be hanged. You know, capital punishment has almost vanished from the world, from the civilized world because we know that there is, we need to be compassionate and understand people why they do what they're doing. You know, there is they are not okay. Right. And help them out to come out of that type of mindset.

Wow, that, that is an amazing story. To think that after three days you got people who had been part of a 50 plus year war to ask for forgiveness, apply Gandhian principles and return to peace. That's amazing. You know, I was talking to my team yesterday and we were deciding that the next big country where we're going to do an event in is going to be Colombia. And so it's so wonderful to hear you talk about what you have done in Colombia and how you help change, how you help end this massive conflict. Do you see anything that we can do in the United States to bring more understanding? Because the division between the left and the right in the United States has gotten extremely. It's gotten, well, extreme.

Correct. US has not seen this much of polarization ever before. Yeah, there are reasons. If you talk to both sides, they both sound very right. They are right in their own, you know, in their own way. But there is. There need to be some shared value, some common grounds that we need to look for and bring everyone together on a platform. This is what we are planning to do as World Culture Festival. You know, life is so short. There is no point in creating heartburns and contentious issues as our forefront. And see the common grounds and bring more understanding, initiate dialogue. These are the things that we need to do to bridge the polarization. If we label one as right, another as wrong, then you can't bridge the gap. So we have to bring the parties into understanding and first find the common shared values and then move on to resolve through dialogue.

Right? Right. Gosh, listen to this conversation. It's. It's fascinating because you have a very beautiful, peaceful energy. And just listening to you is making me think about my reaction to some of these events in a different way. And I hope those of you listening to this podcast are having some similar insights. I like what you said earlier, that we must have hope that the world is going to get better, even in the midst of reading bad news. And I really appreciate you for giving us this hope. So we've spoken a lot about our reaction to the chaos of the world today. And now I want to ask a couple of questions that actually came from a common friend, Jeffrey Perlman. So Jeffrey is a friend of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. He's the person who introduced us. Jeffrey is the founder, one of the founders of Zumba, the popular American Latin dance workout program. Jeffrey is also a dear friend of mine. He's here in Estonia with me. Right now. And I asked Jeffrey, what would be your top questions for Sri Sri Ravi Shankar that you think he might want to answer on the Mindvalley podcast? So Jeffrey told me to ask you this. He said, ask Sri Sri about intuition. What is intuition? And what would be your advice on how we can nurture our intuition?

Yes. No. All of a knowledge that we get is through the five senses. Yeah. What we see, we smell, we taste, we touch and we hear, and we read and we understand. These are the five plus the. But there is another sense. I would say the seventh sense, sixth sense. You can say my intellect, but there is something beyond my reasoning. The seventh sense, which is a gut feeling, which is beyond any logical understanding. You just feel defies the logic and comes from somewhere deep within you. An impulse, an idea, or a vision. That is what I would say as intuition. Learning to use different faculty of your brain and your consciousness than what you normally or usually use is where intuition is, you know, enacting.

So this leads to another question. Okay. And this is also from Jeffrey. He also said, ask Sri Sri about Maya, the illusion of separateness. I'm curious to understand your thoughts on this. So there's intuition, there's Maya, which is the Sanskrit word for. For the illusion of what we see that the world is. And then there's the concept of God. Help us understand in your understanding, what is Maya and what is God?

This is a very beautiful question.

Going straight for really deep questions, right?

It's great. I would love these questions, actually. Jeffrey, thanks for asking these questions. That's. That's my cup of tea, actually. See, the word measure in English comes from the Sanskrit root Maya. Maya means that which could be measured. Maya is all that you see, you can feel, you can touch through all the five senses can be measured. So they're all called Maya. Maya is that which changes and which can be measured. So the God or divinity is called Mayavi. One who is behind the Maya, one who controls the Maya. That is the pure consciousness. The qualities of consciousness is beyond Maya. Like what? Truth. Beauty. Can you measure beauty? No. Can you measure love? No. Can you measure truth? No. Eternity? No. Infinity? Can you measure infinity? No. So these are the attributes of God which cannot be measured. So that is the nature of self. The non changing aspect of consciousness which cannot be quantified is the self. And then all that can be quantified is Maya. And whatever is quantified can all change. See, a bottle weighs here, 100 grams. And you go to moon, it will give way. Only 1/6 of that. Right. So the measurement itself is not authentic because it is subjected to time and place. God is something that is beyond time and beyond space. It's not the consciousness that was there yesterday, not here today. No, that which was there, which is here, which will be there. That aspect of divinity or consciousness you call God. G, O, D. I say G for generator, O for operator, D for destroyer.

Generator, operator, destroyer. Destroyer. Is that akin to the Hindu. The Hindu concepts of the Creator, the preserver, the destroyer, yeah.

Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh, creator, preserver, destroyer.

Explain that concept to us. That, that's a really fascinating concept. My. My mother told me that my name, Vishen was actually named after Vishnu the Preserver. But I've never fully understood that. Explain to me this concept, God and correlate it. I'd love to hear you explain this idea of the Creator, the preserver and the destroyer and what that means.

Now there is a beautiful story. A small boy asks the father, dad, what is God like? So father brings the boy out of the home and asks the boy, what was here before this house was built? The boy said, space. And the father said, where the house is built in the space. Suppose this house is destroyed. What will remain? It's a space, he says, that is God. That in which everything is, from which everything has come, into everything, into which everything goes. That non changing, eternal, absolute existence, truth and bliss that is God. And how do you know? See in your own body you see. Are you the body? Are you the mind? Are you the thought? Are you the emotion? Or is there something beyond all that which you call yourself as I. When you dive deep into it, you find that there is no answer. First, nothing is there. Then the second step, you find energy. And then you find the third step, you don't exist. What exists is just bliss. And so Anand or bliss is the real qualification of divinity.

Bliss is the qualification of divinity. It's so interesting you say that. I was having a conversation with a friend recently and was pointing out that all the great spiritual teachers in the world seem so blissful. We have sadhguru's program on mindvalley. And that program talk so much about bliss and play. And then you look at the Dalai Lama, and the Dalai Lama is always. Even as a man who has lost his country, he's always so cheerful and happy. You look at Neil Donald Walsh who wrote the Conversations with God books. His books are filled with so much humor. I love this concept of bliss, blissfulness and godliness, being unified. Love that idea. So you explained. I love how you Explained. Maya. I love how you explained that God is the one behind the illusion. Maya V. Now let's talk about what's happening right now with the metaverse. So again I want to confess this is a question from a mutual friend.

Jeffrey said Metaverse is a perfect example for Maya.

Yes.

Not definitely. Still it appears.

Sid, what are your thoughts on the Metaverse? And are we actually living in a metaverse designed by a higher power?

Yeah, see like hologram, you see hologram. When you see in hologram, all these different things are happening. It's projected in the space. There is nothing. I mean, you see the whole drama. The same light within the same light. You see the hero, the villain and the extras all are made up of just one light. Right? The hologram. That's exactly what when you see from a quantum mechanical eye, you see the whole universe from a different perspective. But then on day to day basis you also take into consideration the classical chemistry. Also you can't just hold on to one. You see, that's why the ancient Upanishads, ancient Rishis always said you have to have these two parts to your life. One is the practical wisdom, another is the eternal wisdom. So they both go hand in hand. You can say everything in this room is wood. Of course that's true. But you can't make the chair for the door and door for the window. On a different level. They all have their places. There is another beautiful story, Bishan. You must have heard about Adi Shankaracharya, the profounder of Vedantic philosophy. He used to say the whole world is Maya and preach Maya. The philosophy of Maya and oneness of Brahman and Brahman and you are one God and you are one and everything else is Maya. So once he was walking in the street and there was a crazy elephant which was coming on this in the back. So like everybody went for, you know, their shelter. Adi Shankar also ran to a shelter. So somebody asked him where? Well, this elephant is a Maya is an illusion. Why are you running? You know what he replied?

What?

No doubt yes, elephant was illusion. But my running is also illusion.

So. Okay, so that brings me to another question, right? We have spoken about intuition. You said it's the seventh sense. We spoke about Maya. Maya V. What then is manifesting? How much of Maya can we actually influence with our mind?

You can't quantify how much you can influence. It depends on how focused you are. That's why I said no. You have to have the two prong approach. No doubt elephant is an illusion, but you are Running you can't say I won't run because elephant is only an illusion. Why should I run is you are mixing the classical chemistry and quantum physics here. You have to speak in that language. He said my running is also an illusion. You have to run for your shelter. So as I said, you know, but reference the context gives a huge strength to our other activities. Once you have the context of the non changing more established in you then anything you do gains strength. It's through intuitive ability, it sharpens your intellect, it brings lot of enthusiasm and power energy to your actions, you know, so indirectly it supports your activity.

So the one of the most interesting things I've ever seen in my life happen at your ashram. So just some backstory for people who are listening. And I'm just going to add a caveat here to the editors. Gurudev, if in any way your people think I shouldn't share the story, we'll cut it out. Right? But I'll just share it now because this is not live, this is just share it. So what happened was we are an open book.

We are open to everything.

So I was so I'm glad you open to me sharing this. So what happened was in 2019 I was invited to interview Gurudev for a world a global women's summit at AT in India. And there I visited his ashram. And I witnessed something that completely blew my mind. It was beautiful to see. So I saw the work that Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and his institutes were doing to teach children to truly develop the power of their mind. They only teach kids, not adults. And I saw a young girl who was able to read with her eyes closed. I literally wrote down certain words on a piece of paper, didn't show it to her. She was blindfolded. And she was able to know exactly what I wrote down and write it in her own words exactly the same way. And then if that wasn't enough, they set her. And this was a table that was in my hotel room. It was not like a random table anywhere. There was no wiring, nothing. But they put some cut up straws on the table. So straws that were cut up, they put it on the table. And this little girl started moving the straws with her mind just through the act of concentration. It was powerful to see. And I know that she's not the only one. There are many children across the world because this, this Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's work is also in Malaysia, which is the country I was living in at that time. And they teach children how to develop powerful intuition and how to move objects with the mind. Now of course in today's world, if I, if I go and I even talk about this, you get skewered. You get skewered. People say oh it's not real, you're a charlatan and so on. So I don't talk about this much, but I know what I saw and that's what I saw. I'm curious to see if you can help us understand what's going on and what I witnessed, you know.

Several neurologists and scientists are now have taken this up to do more research on this project. We have taught nearly 80,000 kids around the world. What's most interesting and most thrilling is to teach the, this to blind children in the visually impaired schools, you know, around India, in Surat, in many other parts of India, Bangalore. And these kids could read without braille, they could even walk without the sensor stick. You know, many of them have never seen colors in their life, but they could color looking at, I mean just feeling through this, their hands, their fingers. They could color the books, color books like other children do. And it's so gratifying to see how these kids have gained something more in their life which you know, which they have never been able to do. Recently we have done this also in Himachal for people who are, who cannot hear and speak. There is a short video, we'll send it to you. Bishan. In a school for deaf and dumb children we have started this intuition program and it is mind boggling to anyone who see how one can use different parts of one's own brain to know, to understand, to read, to get all that. So it authenticates the fact that scientists say we use, we only use only 3% of our brain capacity. We are not using our mental potential hundred percent. Just few exercises and meditation can bring sea of change in people's perception, in, in abilities. It's not just in front of you, you know, kids can even find out what is in the next room, what someone is wearing, even they are thousands of miles away. And you just phone them and ask them tell me what dress I am wearing. And without being having a video call, they can close their eyes, they can see what T shirt you are wearing, what color you are wearing. All this is possible. It has opened a field of possibilities which in the past people never thought is possible. They thought only, okay, if you are a great yogi or a swami saint, somebody may be having some ability for extra sensory perception. But today your own children can practice and cultivate.

And I understand that you Only teach this to children, not to adults. Is there a reason? No.

They will. They'll complete. They'll go to Las Vegas and I don't know what they do and take a. Get to know everybody's password. By the way, we tell all the kids now that they should not this. They will promise that they will not, you know, use someone else. Get this power to use someone's passwords. Do it for lotteries and those sort of thing. Yes.

So I'm curious.

But you know, for children it is easy because they don't have so much of cravings and aversion. Their mind is fresh and they are open. They. They're not prejudiced, you see, their mind is free from prejudice and inhibitions. It is easy to get to these abilities, skills from within you.

This phenomenon is happening more and more in the world. I was just watching a documentary on, I believe Amazon. And it was showing schools around the world that are teaching kids to do to work with super census. And that documentary covered a school in Germany that's doing the same thing. And I had a really interesting thing happen to me. So I. After I witnessed what I saw in your ashram, this idea really, I mean, once you see that, you can never unsee it. It made me question so much of what I've Learned. So in October 2020, my vision started going blurry. And I went to the doctor and I was told that I have 2040 vision and I needed glasses. So I didn't want to get glasses. I decided I'll figure out how to heal my vision myself. And I was reading books. I ordered a couple of books on Amazon on healing vision. And there was this one book written by a man, and he was almost blind. And he said one day during deep meditation, he was able to see. He gained the ability to see with his eyes closed. He called it super sight. And he said as soon as that occurred to him, wait, I'm seeing beyond my eyes. Over the next couple of months, his eyesight came back to him. Now, what was funny is I read that book, I remembered what I saw in your ashram and I went to bed that night. The very next morning, I woke up and I have a vision test on my wall and everything looked clearer. And then I tested my eyesight and my vision overnight had gone back to 2020. I do not know what happened. But the understanding that our mind is so much more powerful than even our eyes healed my vision overnight.

Intention, you know, our intention and put attention. Our intention manifestation happens. Yeah.

Yeah. I wish I could Remember that book? Because I bought every book I could find on healing vision. So I know some of you guys are asking me in the comments. Go to Amazon and look for books on healing vision. Okay, so how are you teaching people to develop these abilities? I know that there are several modalities that you teach. One is called the Sky Meditation. One is Sudarshan Kriya. Would you kindly, in the few remaining moments we have, tell us a little bit about these practices and these methodologies?

Yeah, you know, we have seven layers to our existence. Body, breath, mind, intellect, memory, ego and the self. The consciousness, which is a referral point of all changes in life. So little bit about all these aspects, seven layers of existence is what I call the art of living program. And Sky Breath meditation is the same path which are being taught in about 101 universities across USA. Many universities are giving that for credit. Also there in the universities for credit. And it is helping you to. It's just 12 hours workshop spread over five days, four days, sometimes three days. And you know, you learn small little techniques which could help you to better yourself. I call it even dental, like mental dental hygiene. This is a mental hygiene. So you feel fresh, you feel nice, you feel very focused and you become more and more intuitive. And then I also recommend week long silence retreat to people. Even four days, five days silence which I conduct all over the world where people come for those four days, five days in any retreat center, sometimes it is non residential, sometimes it is residential. There you learn more about your own chakras, there are energy centers and you learn about those, you learn more about yourself, more about meditation. Then it's a do it yourself thing. You know, as much as you could follow those techniques on a daily routine, that much you get benefited.

I see now. And Sudarshan Kriya is sky Meditation. I apologize, it sounded like these were two different things.

So Sudarshana, it's one of the Kriya. One of the. Yes, Sudarshan Kriya Yoga is in that which is. Many other techniques are also there. But one of the main central thing is Sudarshan Kriya.

And Sudarshan Kriya or sky is really about breath, right?

It's about correct, it's breath. And it helps one to find one's rhythm and that helps one to go deep in meditation. Whatever form of meditation you are doing, Kriya complements that. And so it helps you to go deeper.

How many hours a day do practitioners have to dedicate to sky?

No, no, just 10 minutes, 15 minutes every day.

That's fantastic. And you also mentioned silent retreats that last several days. What is the purpose of the silent retreat?

That is getting back to your own source. You know from when you go into silence, then you explore. There is so much that you have within you which remains untapped. So you discover those things. It's the mother of all creativity. I would say. When you want to be intuitive, you want to be creative, you must take a few days of silence and it recharges your whole system. It recharges your batteries, see more than you can ever think of. Anyone who has had little taste of silence, they will really appreciate because everything else appears much brighter and generally makes you happy.

I see. And for those of you who are asking in the comments, where can I learn this? Well, Simply go to artofliving.org artofliving.org and all the information is there. Art of living has already touched almost half a billion lives, 450 million lives. So you can go to artofliving.org and you will be able to find information on all of this. There is a link directly there. Meditation and Breath workshop. You can join the workshop. The next one is starting. Oh, and they are. They're all around the world. So I'm logging in from Estonia and I see that there is a class locally in Estonia on 28th to 30th June. So it's very, very, very global. You will find this everywhere. So as we come to the final eight minutes of this, this recording, I'd like to ask you this Gurudev, what is most exciting you about the future of our planetary species 20, 30 years from now? Based on everything you're witnessing, based on everything that you're seeing, what do you think? We have to look forward to.

Two things. One is protecting the environment. We have to see that tree. We grow more trees. We are nature friendly. We have to save our water. We have to save our earth water, air pollution. We have to reduce noise pollution. We need to reduce. This is one thing. The second thing is mental health. We need to see that our society is free from stress and violence. We can't hand over to the coming generation a society where everyone is afraid of others, each other and you are scared to go to shopping mall, you are scared to go to a church or temple, you are scared to go anywhere out. You know that type of violent ridden society is not what we want to hand over to our younger generation. We need to see, we need to visualize and act now for a stress free and violence free society.

Do you Believe that we are moving more towards that or do you believe that in some way we might be regressing?

No, this I think on one side as far as environment is concerned, yes, there is a lot more awareness about it than before. 41 years ago, when I used to talk about environment, people would raise their eyebrows. They say, what are you talking, you know, in a developed world, what do you mean by planting trees? What do you mean by, you know, caring for Earth and going organic? They thought it's all utopia. It's not a doable thing. But I'm glad today every government in the world has a Ministry of Environment. This was never a subject of any government two decades ago mission because I traveled extensively. I know nobody used to talk about that. So on that front we are moving forward. People are aware of the carbon points now, which was never there before, which of course we were telling. Since last 40 years they have been talking about it, it saving water resources, not polluting them, of all the chemical fertilizers and all sorts of nonsense we put in the water. On the other hand, when you see the violence, the amount of depression and aggression that our young people are facing, it is appalling. Never like ever before. The two after pandemic people have gone into depression. There's so many suicides. Can you imagine 400 doctors committed suicide in us just this year.

Wow.

And 6,600 students took their life away. I mean, this amount of depression is disturbing, should be disturbing to anybody. On the other hand, you see gun violence. What is happening in Ukraine is heartbreaking. No one can. No sane person can tolerate this sort of thing. So this is there. So we need to immediately now act, all of us. We all should come together and, you know, take this intention for peace thoughts are very powerful. See, one thought can make so many things do from your own body, right? You want to go somewhere, it carries your 60, 70 kilo body to travel, get into the car and do all the work that you do. So if we all put our intention, everyone put an intention of a million people put their intention for peace. I'm sure it will impact the subtle consciousness in some way and bring more peace to people. So we all have to work for peace, inner peace and outer peace.

Beautifully said. Thank you so much. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

All the best.

Thank you for joining us on this podcast. And our final question actually came from one of our audience members. So this is from Manjusha Dole. And Manjusha asks, on behalf of Mindvalley and Earth, I wish to ask, does a disciple. Choose a guru or a guru. Choose as a disciple.

Doesn't matter who chooses whom. As long as you meet and then you get benefited in your life. All is done, all is well.

Thank you, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Thank you Gurudev. It's been wonderful and I feel so good after this conversation. Thank you for giving me so much hope in the world. And thank you for the existence of people like you. I truly appreciate.

Bishan, continue doing the good work you are doing. All the best to you.

Thank you so much. Bye. Namaste.