Spiritual Guide – By Sri Sri

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar explains beautifully about the spiritual path.

Difficulties will arise within all young persons. The time and duration may change, but everyone will experience fear and inhibition.  Parents can help ease the burden by treating their children as friends.  There is an old saying in Sanskrit: “When your son or daughter turns sixteen, behave with them like a friend.” Parents shouldn’t act like teachers; they shouldn’t tell their children what to do or what not to do. Instead, they should just share their difficulties with them. Be a friend to them – a friend who is at their level. A friend understands them, and pays attention to their emotions and difficulties.

Teenagers should keep their spirituality as a tool always. Whether experiencing inhibition or fear, a strong and consistent spiritual practice will see young adults through both the highs and the lows of growing up. Indeed, spirituality will help students understand that failing an exam is not the end of the world, or that true happiness depends on what their friends think about them.

Students should commit to self-realization.  Such commitment can take you across all obstacles; and the greater the achievement, the greater the commitment. The more you commit, the more your capacity to do any work. Commitment is always about shouldering something a little more that what you can do. You don’t say, “I am committed to drinking a glass of water or walking one kilometer”, which you do anyway. Your commitment has to be more than what you think you can do. Commitment is about stretching your capabilities.

There is so much talk about success everywhere. Everyone wants to be successful. Have you ever thought, what success is? It’s simply ignorance of your capabilities. You have set a limitation on your self, and whenever you cross your own boundary or limitation, you claim success. Success is ignorance of the power of your self because you assume you can do only that much.

You never say, “I successfully ate a banana!” When you put a limitation on something, you are limiting the power of your own self, your own consciousness. Every time you achieve something, you feel proud about it, isn’t it? Actually, you should feel sorry about it. You are just proud of what you can easily do, because you do not know that you can do so much more than what you are proud of. When you are successful, you are proud of it, and if you fail, you feel guilty and upset. Both can drag you out of joy, out of the greater potential that you possess.

So the best thing is realize your success, and surrender it to the Divine. If you are successful, so what? It is just another happening, another thing that you did, and you can do much more. Through spiritual practice and raising awareness, our youth can expand their limits and move through the obstacles of growing up. We need to work together to move our fears aside, release our inhibitions, and move forward with a smile and grace in our lives. As we let all the thoughts, emotions, and judgments pass by and consciously choose to focus on the joy in our lives, our difficulties will naturally recede into the background as we become light and buoyant, and reflect the light of the Self.