SRI SRI SATSANG

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in Satsang today

"Is compassion essential for a saint to have? If you have a wound on your hand will you show compassion or sympathy for your own hand? No. In the same way some saints may not show compassion but they are steadfast in knowledge that there is no two. Compassion is colour of love. It is not necessary that the same colour is displayed by all. Love is always there, but compassion is only one of the expressions of love. And it not necessary that it is expressed by all. Because if a person is established in the knowledge of non-duality then he doesn't have compassion in them. See there are two types of people who do not show any compassion. One who is has a cruel heart, filled with stress and hatred, tamasic in nature. And the other is one who is established in the knowledge of non-duality. One who doesn't see anyone as separate from himself, he too does not have any compassion. Compassion means there has to be two, one can never show compassion or sympathy on oneself.  For compassion or sympathy you need two. Of course, that doesn't mean you it an excuse for your insensitivity!

You know you will find a thousand opportunities to doubt if a person is good or not. There will be a thousand doubts that will rise within you that will cause you to think of someone as wrong. But rising above these thousand doubts is true connection, that which is beyond the intellect. Doubt always comes up in the intellect. But when the connection is established at the level of the soul then even if the intellect brings forth a thousand reasons to show you that this person is wrong, the soul does not listen to it. Then it stays. Confidence in someone is a matter of the soul, the Self. That's why you say self-confidence. That means confidence in one's own self. But confidence itself comes from the Self. Doubt is form the intellect. So when the confidence, the faith is established, then the intellect brings forth many doubts to test the faith. Sometimes you feel doubtful, you will feel low but somewhere the confidence will stand its ground, which will tell you what the truth is, what is right.

There was a saint who did not have any compassion. He was irritated by the word compassion! He believed that everyone was suffering because of their own karmas. That was his thought process. No matter what goes on, on the outside, inside you always know what is right. For example, sometimes no matter what a person says or does, somewhere inside you know that he is right or wrong. That ability to differentiate between right and wrong is there inside us, which is beyond behaviour, thought process, beyond a person. When we are connected to a person beyond their behaviour, their thinking, that is faith. And is that faith comes into your life then rest everything else falls into place!"

Ques: How can we always be established in non-duality?

#SriSriNo don't always tried to be established in non-duality. Your outer behaviour has to be on the basis of duality. You cannot move forward without that. Use duality in your outer behaviour and be established in non-duality in meditation, in rest. Whenever your mind is agitated, rest in non-duality. Non-duality in meditation, puja but duality in behaviour. Else it will be problematic, if you start thinking your wallet and someone else's wallet is the same! You will also be in trouble and the other too! So keep duality in your day to day life but you need non-duality when you meditate, in knowledge. You cannot progress in knowledge without non-duality. You cannot reach the ultimate love, the ultimate devotion without non-duality.