God Loves Fun by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Author:Sri Sri Ravi Shankar [Shankar, Sri Sri Ravi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Art of Living Foundation USA
Published: 2015-05-19T20:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 5

Dealing with Feelings

When we feel high, we have no problems. The problem comes when we feel low. No one wants to feel low. When one feels low, then the more one tries to feel high, the more the low feelings persist. This seems to be the biggest problem. What is important about the feelings? They never stay the same. Feelings are like water. They are not solid, they are not ice blocks. Ice blocks will stay like that: Yet even they melt.

Ripples always get created in water. Feelings are like water, they are fluid. Feeling means that which flows, which changes. See, you feel good now, and then afterwards you don't feel good. Then again you feel good, again you don't feel good. This continues in life. But if we base our life on our feelings, we will be ruined. You feel good about something now, and a little later you feel bad about the same thing. Then those feelings change yet again. Have you noticed feelings changing?

Many people are unaware of the nature of feelings. Everywhere you will hear people say, "Follow your feelings, go by your feelings, do what you feel like," etc. What will you do? Be independent? People misinterpret what independence means. They think it means following your feelings. They think, "I do as I feel now, I do as I feel tomorrow, I do as I feel the next day." Then there can be no stability in life.

We are unhappy if we follow our feelings. So, when you feel low, jump into the lowest. Be like water. That is your real nature. Inside you, it is like water. The coconut is the symbol of the whole human life. The coconut has a husk. That is the environment. And then the shell is the body. The mind and the inner intellect is the white membrane inside. The water is the innermost part. It is very fluid. So, your true nature is like water, fluid and not hard inside. What is the nature of water? It always goes down, humble. It does not stand stiff.

Stiffness is the problem. Stiffness is ego. Water can take any shape. Whatever glass you put it in, the water will take that shape. Water means acceptance of the present moment. You put the water a bottle, and it will take that shape. So, when our innermost Being agrees with nature—"God is putting me in this situation, okay, so what!''—just agree with it. It is being active also, do you see? The water agrees, but at any little moment the water may not be there, it may change. It is not sitting in the bottle like ice. Ice does not move.

In water, the slightest movement makes ripples. It is dynamic also. It is not simply acceptance with fatalism; it is acceptance with motion, with dynamism, with readiness to jump up. A little shake, and the water is ready to jump up. Shake the bottle and if some more air is pumped into it, it just sprinkles all over like 7-UP or Coca-Cola.

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