Reporting live from Boone, NC :) - GuruDev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Reporting live from Boone, NC :) Excerpts from Q&A with Gurudev at yesterday’s Satsang - 7/26/2026 *My nephew is autistic. How can I help him become self-dependent and help my family understand him?* Gurudev: Autistic children have come to receive care and service from the family. Do whatever you can for them. *As a mother, how do I balance responsibility with letting go when my child resists everything?* Gurudev: A mother’s questions about her child never end. The question, “What more can I do for my child?” is itself an expression of love. When love is alive, you feel that you have not done enough and that there is always something more you can do. There is no fixed answer to this question, and you should not expect one from anyone. Embrace the question. From time to time, the right ideas will come to you. *How do I know whether I am on the right path and have made the right decisions?* Gurudev: Stop following the path. Don’t do your Sadhana & do not be with Sangha, wisdom then see how it feels :) Then be honest and listen to your own inner voice ! Doubt usually arises about something positive. You may doubt whether someone is honest, but you rarely doubt someone’s dishonesty. You may doubt whether you are happy, but you feel very certain when you are unhappy. Similarly, people doubt God, the unseen, and whether they are on the right path. Yet what is unseen can be more real than what is seen. Doubt as much as you need to. _Genuine truth cannot be obscured by doubt; doubt can only waste some time._Eventually, it disappears. Doubt also arises when prana is low. Pranayama, including bhastrika, increases prana and makes the mind sharp. Then you can go beyond doubt. *I continue to worry about my future and the health of my family. How can I stop worrying?* Gurudev: Worry is a thought that gets stuck in the mind and keeps repeating itself. Bring that thought to the level of music. Convert your worry into a song. Music helps you descend from the head into the heart. Sing your worry and see whether it still troubles you in the same way. Our worries are often very small: “What will happen to my job, my money, my son, my daughter or my family?” We rarely worry about what will happen in the next lifetime because we imagine we will remain here forever. Sing the worry away—but be a little careful about what you keep repeating, because what you ask for may come to you. The Art of Living is about music, meditation and laughter. *After my father’s death, I lost interest in sadhana, seva and satsang. I feel that we will all die one day, so what is the point?* Gurudev: Such feelings can arise for a short period when someone close to you passes away or when a major difficulty occurs. This is natural. The ancient tradition gave people freedom from social and spiritual obligations for a period after a birth or death in the family. When someone who lived, walked and spoke with you is suddenly no longer there, a vacuum is created. That emptiness shows you that the body and the visible universe are not everything; another dimension exists. This can be a profound time for meditation. Do not think, “I am doing sadhana.” Simply sit with the emptiness and go deep into it. That emptiness itself can free you from many attachments. Sensitive people do not need dramatic reminders of impermanence. They can simply observe that everything in the world is constantly changing. *How can I act fearlessly? I hold on to things because I fear losing what is good, and then I remain stuck.* Gurudev: This is where the Guru is essential. When you feel connected to the Guru, you know that what you need will be given to you and what you have will be protected. The Bhagavad Gita says that for those whose attention is not scattered and who remain one-pointedly connected, the Divine provides what they need and protects what they have—yoga-kṣemaṁ vahāmyaham. The condition is one-pointed attention and connection. When that connection is there, this care happens. *How do I move beyond boredom in sadhana, seva and satsang?* Gurudev: Blessed are those who are bored. Boredom comes with repetition when you are operating only from the head. The head becomes bored, but the heart never becomes bored. When something comes from the heart, you can say, “I love you,” again and again, and it does not feel repetitive. The heart loves repetition, while the intellect dislikes it. Boredom is the stage in between: the intellect is loosening its grip, but the heart has not yet fully taken over. So allow the boredom to be there. Music and dance cannot truly be boring. If music feels boring, you are probably no longer listening or participating from the heart; you have moved into the head. Music itself depends on repetition. Without repetition, there can be no music.