What do we mean by practical wisdom?

Excerpts from talks Sri Sri has given, these bits of wisdom bring a sense of relief when you read them, and give you a perspective to help navigate life with less stress and more joy.

“All sensory pleasures in the world are like wrapping paper; the true bliss is the present inside…Unwrap the present. The whole world is there for you to enjoy. The wise know how to enjoy the gift inside, while the ignorant get stuck with the paper.”

“When you follow fun, misery follows you.  When you follow knowledge, fun follows you.”

“Love is seeing God in the person next to us, and meditation is seeing God within us.”

“There is a place you can come where everything is beautiful. Tourists go from place to place looking for beauty. They try to take beauty from that place. They only get tired and tanned. Yet the most beautiful spot anywhere is right here. When you come here, you find that wherever you are, everything is so beautiful.

Where is this place? Don’t look here and there. Where do you go? Within you. When you come here, then any place is beautiful. Then wherever you go, you add beauty there.

If you are unhappy, even the moon is irritating to you. Sweet things are nauseating, music is disturbing. When you are calm and centered inside, noise is musical, clouds are magical, rain is liquid sunshine.

Book yourself on a trip to this most beautiful place in the universe. Then you find that every day is a vacation and a celebration.”

“The way to overcome personal misery is to share universal misery.  The way to expand personal joy is to share universal joy. Instead of thinking “what about me?” “what can I gain from this world?” think “what can I do for the world?” When everyone comes from the point of contributing to society, you have a Divine society. We have to educate and culture our individual consciousness in order to expand in time with the Knowledge . . . from “what about me?” to “what can I contribute?”