Q. 273: Gurudev, sometimes when I relax my mind in the midst of office action, I am not perceived to be as sharp or smart as others at work. What to do?

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Sometimes surely if you show some aggressiveness, you can act. See if you’re playing a part in a movie or in a theater you can’t say I can’t do this, I can’t do that. If the act demands you to be a villain you have to act like a villain but not be a villain. Do you see the difference? You don’t have to think, okay everything will happen. No, not that way, instead you should think, ‘okay let’s do it’. Go with the spirit of enthusiasm, with the spirit to do something. Never talk philosophy in the workplace if they don’t understand that. You know that everything is changing and everything will get done. But if someone says fix the electricity and you say, ‘oh don’t worry things will happen in their own time, anyway I am not the doer. Just have faith that God is taking care of everything,’, then that is no good. -There is no water in the tank, ‘water will come’. The bulb is fused, ‘oh the fuse is gone it will come, so what!’ Don’t talk like that. 

The secret of non-doership should be kept within you but don’t talk to others about it. When you’re in action, put your 100% and act but don’t speak like that especially with people who don’t understand. Even with satsangi's, you will irritate them. Even with people on the spiritual path, if you speak like that they get irritated, isn’t it? Just imagine, you need ten volunteers in the kitchen, ‘oh you know someone will do it, anyway you are not the doer so why bother’, just imagine someone with that attitude, what would you feel? ‘Come on get to work’, right? -So, even within the path this attitude will irritate people. -Now just imagine those who know nothing about non doer-ship, those who know nothing about meditation, those who know nothing about hollow and empty, what will happen to them? They will think okay he is a little cuckoo, right! -So be very normal and do your work. Also keep smiling and dancing.

One gentleman went to a funeral program or ceremony of his close relative. He said, ‘Guruji’, and he started dancing and singing, ‘Radhe Govind’ -‘Guruji said everything is impermanent, so people die and they go and it’s all normal. We should just celebrate!’ And he started dancing. Because he is a man of little height, people could not say anything to him or shut him down. But they got thoroughly irritated and they said, ‘Guruji, what is this guy doing? He’s quoting you. He said 'keep smiling all the time’. I said keep smiling, I didn’t mean you go and give a big smile when somebody’s funeral ceremony is happening. Others are crying and he’s smiling, ‘oh good, good, good, everything happens for good, everything happens for purpose.’ Don’t you think this is too much? How many of you think this is too much? This is something called discrimination, wisdom, you should use that. Yes it’s obvious, somebody very elderly passed away, that’s okay. But you should be sensible, sensitive to others’ feelings, others demands, others needs, yes.

In the same way, your office thinks you need to be aggressive. You show them, be aggressive if you can. If it cannot happen at all, you give 100% then you just tell them it is just not in my nature. If someone tells me to use foul language and scolds somebody I will tell them it is impossible for me, I can’t. All these 56 years I have not uttered a single foul word, never! I never made any effort, it just never came. It never has come even in the worst moment. The worst thing I have said is, ‘you stupid’, that’s all that has come out of me. I can count on my fingers, six to seven times or eight times I might have said that word. Once, one of my teachers was misusing the trust people had kept on him and he tried to exploit them financially and this and that and I said, ‘you stupid, you better don’t do this, you are not going to teach, you’re not representing me’. So someone said you should use language and you should be strict with these people and I said I can’t. So similarly if they say you have to be too aggressive then you simply say I can’t, it’s not in my nature. That’s it!

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