Nine Days of Navaratri - Talk by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

What is Navratri festival ?

Raksha Bandhan

This full moon is dedicated to the seers -- the Rishis. It is also called the Raksha bandhan. Bandhan means bondage, Raksha means protection. A bondage that protects you - Your bondage to the knowledge, to the master, to the truth, to The Self, all Save You. A Rope Can Be Tied To Either Protect Or Strangle You. The Small Mind and Mundane things can strangle you. The big mind or knowledge saves you. Raksha Bandhan is that bondage that saves you.
You are bound by your bondage to the Satsang. Your bondage to the master, to the truth, to the ancient knowledge of the rishis, and that is your saviour.
Bandhan is bonding and bonding is essential in life. Let the bonding be divine in a life free from bondage.

Daily Do's

Guruji said five Yagyas we all have to do every day:

1. Ask yourself Who am I? Be with yourself for sometime, Meditate.
2. Feed some birds or animals.
3. Respect any guest, the people around you.
4. Nurture trees and plants. Grow some plant or tree.
5. Discuss some Knowledge for some time with a few people around you. Find the time to read at least 2 shlokas of Geeta.

Guruji spoke "Jai Gurudev"

Guruji broke his Navaratri silence today and the only words he spoke today were "Jai Gurudev".

You know there is a Big Mind and a small mind. Sometimes the Big Mind wins over the small mind and sometimes it is the other way around.

When the small mind wins over, it is misery and when the Big Mind wins, it is joy.

Small mind promises joy and leaves your hand empty. Big Mind may bring resistance in the beginning but fills you with joy.

The word Guru means great. Jaya means victory. Deva means one who is fun-loving, playful, light. One who is playful is often not dignified and when one is dignified, he is often not playful.

Jai Guru Dev is victory to the Big Mind in you that is both dignified and playful. That is what Jai Guru Dev means: “Victory to the Greatness in you.”

You do not say victory or hail to the Master as he has won over already. You say victory to your own Self, your own Mind, which is being veiled by the small mind.

Jai Gurudev <3

Desire and the Importance of Failing

A window opens.
A curtain pulls back.

The lamp of lovers connect,
not at their ceramic bases,
but in their lightedness.

No lover wants union with the Beloved
without the Beloved also wanting the lover.

Love makes the lover weak,
while the Beloved gets strong.

Lightning from here strikes there.
When you begin to love God, God
is loving you. A clapping sound
does not come from one hand.

A thirsty man calls out, 'Delicious water,
where are you?' while the water moans,
'Where is the water drinker?'

The thirst in our souls is the attraction
put out by the Water itself.

We belong to It,
and It to us.

God's wisdom made us lovers of one another.
In fact, all the particles of the world
are in love and looking for lovers.

Pieces of straw tremble
in the presence of amber.

We tremble like iron filings
welcoming the magnet.

Whatever that Presence gives us
we take in. Earth signs feed.
Water signs wash and freshen.
Air signs clear the atmosphere.
Fire signs jiggle the skillet,
so we cook without getting burnt.

And the Holy Spirit helps with everything,
like a young man trying to support a family.
We, like the man's young wife, stay home,
taking care of the house, nursing the children.

Spirit and matter work together like this,
in a division of labor.

Sweethearts kiss and taste the delight
before they slip into bed and mate.

The desire of each lover is
that the work of the other be perfected.
By this man-and-woman cooperation,
the world gets preserved.
Generation occurs.

Roses and blue arghawan flowers flower.
Night and day meet in a mutual hug.

So different, but they do love each other,
the day and the night, like family.

And without their mutual alternation
we would have no energy.

Every part of the cosmos is draws toward its mate.
The ground keeps talking to the body,
saying, 'Come back! It's better for you
down here where you came from.'

The streamwater calls to the moisture in the body.
The fiery aether whispers to the body's heat,
'I am your origin. Come with me.'
Seventy-two diseases are caused
by the various elements pulling inside the body.
Disease comes, and the organs
fall out of harmony.

We're like four different birds,
that each had one leg tied in
with the other birds.

A flopping bouguet of birds!
Death releases the binding, and they fly off,
but before that, their pulling is our pain.

Consider how the soul must be,
in the midst of these tensions,
feeling its own exalted pull.

My longing is more profound.
The birds want sweet green herbs
and the water running by.

I want the infinite! I want wisdom.
These birds want orchards and meadows
and vines with fruit on them.

I want a vast expansion.
They want profit and security
of having enough food.

Remember what the soul wants,
because in that, eternity
is wanting our souls!

Which is the meaning of the text,
They love That, and That loves them.

If I keep on explaining this,
the Mathnawi will run to eighty volumes!

The gist is: whatever anyone seeks,
that is seeking the seeker.

No matter if its animal,
or vegetable, or mineral.

Every bit of the universe
is filled with wanting,
and whatever any bit wants,
wants the wanter!

This subject must dissolve again.

Back to Sadri Jahan and the uneducated peasant
who loved him, so that gradually Sadri Jahan
loved the lowly man. But who really
attracted who, whoom, Huuuu?

Don't be presumptuous and say one or the other.
Close your lips. The mystery of loving
is God's sweetest secret.

Keep it. Bury it. Leave it here
where I leave it, drawn as I am
by the pull of the Puller
to something else.

You know how it is. Sometimes
we plan a trip to one place,
but something takes us to another.

When a horse is being broken, the trainer
pulls it in many different directions,
so the horse will come to know
what it is to be ridden.

The most beautiful and alert horse is one
completely attuned to the rider.

God fixes a passionate desire in you,
and then disappoints you.
God does that a hundred times!

God breaks the wings of one intention
and then gives you another,
cuts the rope of contriving,
so you'll remember your dependence.

But sometimes your plans work out!
You feel fulfilled and in control.

That's because, if you were always failing,
you might give up. But remember,
it is by failures that lovers
stay aware of how they are loved.

Failure is the key
to the kingdom within.

Your prayer should be, "Break the legs
of what I want to happen. Humiliate
my desire. Eat me like candy.
It's spring and finally
I have no will."

- Rumi

The Portrait Of This Passage

As

The

New dawn

Dances silently

Upon the gardens

Of the dew doused

Morning lawn

It draws

With

Its

Light

The portrait

Of this passage

To which we are drawn

For it is loves celestial sight

The timeless wisdom

That is never

Worn

- Silent Lotus