DR. DEEPAK CHOPRA: Wellknown Ayurvedic Physician, Author & Speaker U.S.A: I am Dr. Deepak Chopra and I am just so delighted to be on this Hangout with His Holiness Gurudev Sri Sri Ravishankarji. Perhaps some of you don’t know that he and I are guru bhais (brothers), and we go back a long, long time.
I think the topic of the Hangout is ‘What can we do to create a stress-free and a violence-free society’. It is very obvious that you cannot get rid of war by war; you cannot solve the problem of violence through violence. And yet, you know countries go to war ‘to create peace’. Peace begins with you; peace begins with your innermost being - which is already a place of peace, joy, equanimity, love, compassion, kindness. So, if you are not peaceful, we can’t create peace in the world. If you don’t know how to love, then we can’t create love in the world.
Gurudevji has been doing amazing work throughout the world, giving peace to people so they can create peace in the world. We are all familiar with the phrase - can we be the change we want to see in the world. So the change begins from within. That is where the techniques that Gurudevji teaches - like kriya yoga and meditation - that is the first place. If you can start to do that, you go beyond your internal dialogue, where your mind is constantly evaluating, judging, labeling, anticipating, worrying, remembering, feeling, all kinds of negativity in the form of anger, hostility, resentment, jealousy – you go past that. Because you can’t manipulate that, but if you go past that, you go past the secret passages - the dark filled alleys, and the ghost filled attics of your mind, which is a product of karma. It is a product of karma, vasnas, sanskaras (impressions), and you go past that. That is what kriya yoga does, that is what meditation does. Then we find that place which we call Satchidananda, which is the pure being, pure consciousness, and then from there you evoke the divine feelings of love, joy, compassion, equanimity; and then you act. So being is first, feeling is second, reflecting is third, and being is last. We are human beings; we are not human doings…
This is the great message of the great spiritual tradition of India, and this is the message that Gurudevji is carrying throughout the world. I just wanted to say how much I appreciate that, how much I value that and I really honor Gurudevji for making this phrase - Vasudeva Kutumbhakum - the world is one family, making it practical. Because love without action is meaningless, and action without love is irrelevant, when you combine the two, you come from a place of being. When we transform ourselves, we transform the world. In our personal transformation is the transformation of the world; there is no social transformation, without personal transformation. So, with that, I once again want to thank Gurudevji for the great contribution he is making to the critical mass, and hopefully, this will lead to a more peaceful, healthy and a happier world. What more can we want?
GURUDEV SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR: Thank you very much. That is so rightly said, that peace begins with oneself; if you are not peaceful, you cannot spread peace around. So we have to be peaceful; we have to find the inner peace, and that is most important. It is so well said.
