Q. 218: Gurudev, the other day you talked about the five elements. Can you throw some more light on the same?

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

The whole world is made up of the five elements. We honor all the five elements. There is a great tradition of honoring rivers. The river does not want you to offer flowers or fruits. This is not the way to worship. Also by putting sewage or garbage into rivers, how can you say that you are doing worship? Worship means honoring, and you can only fully honor once you stop dumping sewage, garbage, plastic into the rivers. A few years ago you could directly drink from a river.

Today, no river is fit for drinking even from a hundred kilometers away from its source. Earlier even thousand kilometers away from its source, the river water was fit for drinking. In this country (India), people used only charcoal ashes, and not soap powder to clean vessels. They would use turmeric and many other herbal elements, which are biodegradable. We are pouring so much industrial waste into the rivers. This is not honoring the jal tattva (water element).

Honoring the Earth element means we don't pollute the earth with plastic, poisonous fertilizers and chemicals. It means we are environmentally conscious. Then there is the air element. We need to have clean energy. We have provided smokeless stoves in the villages of Maharashtra, which have been very successful. We need to honor air, and do whatever we can to have clean air. Then there is the space element. This is very abstract. You cannot catch space.

When you save your mind from negativity, you are filling the space with joy. Then the air around becomes like that. You can create a space of mistrust, anger, greed, jealousy and selfishness. Or you could create a space of fun, joy, confidence, and coherence. You could create an accommodating space around you. If we always speak negatively about all mistakes, then there is nowhere on earth you can really survive. Everybody is imperfect. When we try to see perfection in others, then we forget to see our own imperfection. Protect the space, save the mind at any cost. The five elements are part of the creation. You have to honor this beautiful creation and sustain it.

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