Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

**Rick Rubin** (0:02)
Tetragrammaton Tetragrammaton.

**Sri Sri Ravi Shankar** (0:24)
This planet always had some peaceful places, peaceful times. It's not that the whole planet was being disturbed at one point of time. Maybe during COVID, even then, there were places where there has been peace. Like there is day somewhere on the earth and night somewhere else. Like that peace and disturbance have been part of this existence from a long time.
In the recorded history, I hear about just 285 years without any war or recorded conflicts. But conflicts are also part of life.

**Rick Rubin** (1:12)
Is sitting practice the best thing that we can do? Is that number one?

**Sri Sri Ravi Shankar** (1:19)
Sitting meditation is essential.
I would say it's essential. Once you are well into practices, if you have practiced meditation for a long period of time, then whether you lie down, you are walking, you are talking, that serenity or meditation goes with you. It stays with you.

**Rick Rubin** (1:46)
So if you practice enough, the feeling permeates you all the time.

**Sri Sri Ravi Shankar** (1:50)
Absolutely.
It's just your vibration turns into that space, and then you create joy. You don't say, oh, this is bringing me joy, but you are the source of joy.

**Rick Rubin** (2:04)
Do you feel that from the practice you've done and from the state that you're in, that you can see a change in people when you're with them?

**Sri Sri Ravi Shankar** (2:15)
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's obvious.

**Rick Rubin** (2:18)
How has your relationship to practice changed over the course of your life?

**Sri Sri Ravi Shankar** (2:23)
Well, from my childhood, I've been in this sort of space, which, yeah, from a very young age.
So, it's not just some moment that happened that I completely shifted, nothing like that. But of course, I took some silence retreats and I myself went into silence for 10 days. And then when I came out of silence, I started teaching, then the breathing technique came. Those things happened. But meditation was like fish to water for me, natural.

**Rick Rubin** (3:01)
Tell me about the benefits of being in silence.

**Sri Sri Ravi Shankar** (3:06)
You know, it consolidates yourself in ways that you can't even explain.
You know, you'll be able to hear the noise in your own mind. And then, you know, the mind becomes like a laser beam, very sharp and focused. So, it's very beneficial. I would say silence is the mother of all creativity. See, suppose you want to write a music, write some relic, lyrics, or a poem or anything, you need a quiet place, right? You can't come up with a creative idea in a noisy place. See, now you are in a beautiful, quiet place. So that your creativity finds an expression.
And so silence is necessary for creative, productive activity.

**Rick Rubin** (4:03)
What would be a suggestion for those who have trouble being in silence and feel they're not comfortable being with themselves?

**Sri Sri Ravi Shankar** (4:12)
Yeah, that would happen. That's why you need a teacher, someone who is experienced, who can just handhold you through that journey. See, even to learn swimming, you need a coach. If you know that there is a lifeguard standing on the swimming pool, you would just jump without any fear and anxiety. So the same way, silence for the first time may be rattling. It may be very confusing.
So, if there is a person who has experienced that deep silence and is sitting with you, it becomes so easy for you to get into that silent space.

**Rick Rubin** (4:56)
Beautiful.

**Sri Sri Ravi Shankar** (4:57)
So, because we are all just energies and we transfer energy with each other, we exchange. So, silence is also one such high volt energy that can bring about transformation in people's life. Yeah. More than word silence conveys a lot.

**Rick Rubin** (5:19)
Really?

**Sri Sri Ravi Shankar** (5:19)
Yeah. I don't speak Mahatma.

**Rick Rubin** (5:26)
Would you recommend that most people starting off meditate for the same amount of time, or is it different for different people?

**Sri Sri Ravi Shankar** (5:35)
Yeah. General thing is about 20 minutes, half an hour. It's good to begin with, yeah.
It's not the amount of time, but it's the intensity with which the meditation moves in you. That's more important.

**Rick Rubin** (5:50)
Have you noticed the difference in the outcome when someone meditates by themselves versus meditating together in a big group of people?

**Sri Sri Ravi Shankar** (5:59)
They have the qualitative differences there. They both are needed for an individual. Sometimes a group meditation and that can uplift our spirit or energy or field.