This is a transcript from our podcast episode with Dr. A.T Ariyaratne about meditation and charity.

Axel Wennhall
Hi and welcome to the interactive podcast, “Meditera Mera”, with me, Axel Wennhall, and Gustav Nord. We’re currently in Sri Lanka, where we just finished our Surfer Meditation Retreat with Breathe In. But before we fly back home to Sweden, we’re meeting a very special guest, Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne, also known as the Gandhi of Sri Lanka, and he’s the founder of the largest non-government movement in the country, Sarvodaya. We’re in his home to speak about how meditation can be used as a tool for peace and empowering all people around the world. Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne was born in 1931 in Onawathuna in the south of Sri Lanka. In 1958, he founded Sarvodaya when he took 40 high school students and 12 teachers on an educational experiment to an outcast village and helped the villagers fix it up. Sarvodaya has been active in over 18,000 villages in Sri Lanka. And Dr. Ariyaratne has been inspired by Gandhi and his principles of nonviolence, rural development and self-sacrifice, and Buddhist ideals of selflessness and compassion. Sarvodaya means the awakening of all, and the movement places the people at the center of social change. He has led tens of thousands of family gatherings and meditations with millions of people throughout Sri Lanka and other parts of the world. He has received several international awards, such as the Gandhi Peace Prize, and he’s sharing other international honors with others, such as Nelson Mandela and Dalai Lama. And he has also been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Today, we’re going to try to speak with Dr. Ariyaratne about how meditation can be a force of good, how it can help people empower their own lives as well as their communities, and even create peace. But perhaps most importantly, how can his work inspire all of us, wherever we are in the world, to meditate more?

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
Arriving to Dr.

Axel Wennhall
Ari’s home, we were first greeted by his daughter, Charika, who showed us around the meditation center. And then we got to meet his lovely wife, Nita, who’s been a big part of the movement, focusing especially on children’s needs. When Dr. Ari arrives after a few hours, we jump straight into the interview. So let’s do a short landing meditation now instead. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, just take a few moments and feel the temperature of your skin. can you feel right now? Okay, that’s it. So back home to Dr. Ari.

Okänd
Start fighting. Okay.

Axel Wennhall
He’s sitting very comfortable in his green sofa. Gustav and I sit next to him in two chairs. Three fans are buzzing and the door is open towards the road. It’s getting dark in Muratova and Dr. Ari starts straight away.

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
I have been part and parcel of what you call meditation for the last 73 years. That means I started seriously thinking and practicing meditation when I was only 15 years of age. And to this day, I continue to do it. Meditation may be practiced at a particular time of the day, but after some time, meditation has to be a part and parcel of every moment you are alive. That means you should be mindful of your body. You should be mindful of your sensations. You should be mindful of the thoughts you get to your mind. You should be mindful for the natural or cosmic laws that govern those three processes. So this is called four kinds of mindful meditation. So total meditation is these four. And without a person practicing these four forms of meditation, one cannot understand who one is. So the main purpose of meditation is the awakening of human personality to understand truth behind your own life and the life of all the others, including nature. To understand oneself and others in realistic forms by yourself. So meditation is a growing process which should be practiced by every human being. Otherwise, human beings will get equated to any other animal. If you take another animal, they also eat, they also have feelings, they also think, they also co-produce, have children and all that. They also die. So, but they cannot take control of their mind. Only the human being can do this. Out of all living beings on this planet, which may go into billions of beings, living beings, human being is the only one who is capable of understanding oneself and improving the thinking ability, improving the mind to such an extent, as to what we call enlightenment. Enlightenment, knowing the whole thing, the whole truth about the oneself and the universe. So mind is superior to any form of scientific or technological gadget that have been invented during the last three industrial revolutions. And the fourth industrial revolution is said to have just begun. That is not going to bring about any kind of increased happiness to human beings. Happiness can come only if you understand who you are, your mind. Her mind is full of attachments. When you can’t get what you want, you get angry. Greed, anger, are two things that we have as long as we have ignorance. So greed, anger and ignorance are three qualities that all of us human beings have. So the mind should be purified so that you can get rid of all greed and hatred by getting enlightened, that is by improving the mind. So meditation is for the purpose of improving the mind, so that the mind is cleaned of all kinds of evils that mind may harbor. That’s why in the UNESCO Declaration, I think, they say all wars start in the minds of human beings. So if the mind is peaceful and understanding, there will be no conflicts, there will be no war. So when you do meditation about your own body, you begin to see that this body with which I have identified myself, I have no control. I can’t say, Now I am old. I can’t say, Don’t get old, be young. The body will not listen to me. Body will get old and one day body will say, Hey, I am going. I can’t say, Body don’t die. That means the body is not mine. Mine, I, my mind, you, yours is only a myth. It is something that ignorant human minds have created. That means there is certainly nothing called I ego, my mind. It’s a foolish human creation. So anatha or non-self is one thing we have to understand. Non-self is one. Then dukkha is suffering. Suffering is even at the time of being born, we cannot remember, but we went through terrible pain. Because in the mother’s womb, we were maybe at 98.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Outside, it is much more. So that you feel much more or much less, you feel the colder heat. It is terrible. But we can’t remember that now. Then from childhood we grow slowly, we become aged and we die. So this process of change, anicca or impermanence, and the suffering that impermanence bring about, we can see only through self-mindful meditation. And these three factors, anicca is impermanence, dukkha is painfulness, suffering, anatta is non-ego, non-self. These are the three fundamental principles that we try to understand through meditation. So when we meditate on the body, we begin to see that this body is nothing but coming together of four elements hardness, liquidity, heat, and expandability and contractability. These four basic elements in space form what is called our body. Then when we meditate, we see attached to this body, there are six doors eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and the mind itself. So there are six organs that open out from this body to the outside world. So when we meditate on the eye, and the object you see with your eye, and the consciousness you create, which eye and the object creates consciousness, you begin to, in meditation, you begin to see that. Similarly, sound consciousness, ear, the sound you hear and the sound consciousness. Similarly, smell consciousness, taste consciousness, body consciousness, and also the mental, mind consciousness. So this body creates six kinds of consciousnesses. You see a pretty girl, immediately your eyes get attracted to her body. And then, you create it in your mind. You make an image and even after you go to sleep, that comes to mind. Following day you follow it, till you get fed up with the whole business, you are there. You know, what a idiotic thing I have been. How to. You see, so eyes have cheated you, ears have cheated you, everything has inserted. If you understand, these six senses can always bring things that we like and then repeat it, no end to this craving. It never ends. Meditation makes you realize that. If you can’t get that, you get angry. If she runs away with another fellow, you want to kill both of them. Anger comes. All due because of ignorance. So meditation helps you to understand who you are and how your senses work. So like this, like that I can go on. With regard to the body, you have these six senses and what you call five aggregates. Aggregates five kinds of mental formations. So, similarly you can meditate on your feelings. You can meditate on the thoughts that come to your mind. Then you can meditate on various other things, like the phenomena, the cosmic laws that operate, which affect our human lives. Therefore meditation is not a simple thing. In the western world, it has become a fashion now, mindfulness meditation. I am not for that kind of meditation. That kind of meditation is like you are used to getting a. When at all you have a headache, something else, when you have stomach trouble. That is, meditation is not a pill. Meditation is right understanding. What is right understanding? There is suffering, there is a reason, the cause. This cause can be removed and there is a way, a path to remove this suffering. So, the suffering or the painfulness people don’t see. They see only those things that bring happiness to your eyes, ears, body and all that. Some kind of temporary sensation. But you should be able to have right understanding where you see that there is painfulness, there’s a cause, it can be removed, and there’s a way of doing it. Then only you can get true happiness. Happiness which cannot be removed. So meditation is not running away. Meditation is not something to do with suffering. Meditation is going to find out happiness that nobody can take away. What has happened to the western world is, right understanding you have lost. You think it is the only life. There was no life previous life. There will not be any future life, so you don’t care. Whatever you do in this life, that’s all. That is wrong. There have been for millions and millions of lives, we have lived as humans, as health strides, as animals, all kinds of creation, worms, all kinds of levels we have existed. And today being born as a human being is a great, great opportunity we have got. We should not miss it. And we have been born as human beings at a time when there was a Buddha. Two thousand six hundred years ago there was a prince, a king, who gave up his throne and everything, his palace, his wife, his child, everything. Went into the forest to find out where is true happiness. All the pleasures I enjoyed as a prince in this palace, I couldn’t find. Then he went in search of all those people who were in the jungles meditating and all that. He couldn’t. Then he sat under the Bodhi tree in Bodhgaya in India, and then he looked at himself and slowly realized what we now call the Four Noble Truths. Four Noble Truths, the last one is the path to awakening, path to enlightenment that has eight components. Right understanding, right thoughts, right words, right deeds, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Those eight. When you follow those, I am not going into detail, the Noble Eightfold Path, but if you go into detail you will find that every part of a second we spend can be meaningfully spent without wasting. But 99.999% of our time is wasted. Just to satisfy our eyes and ears and nose and hardly one percent we concentrate to find out, oh, is there an end to this suffering? If birth is suffering, if old age is suffering, if death is suffering, having to part with your loved ones is suffering, having to come together with people you don’t like is suffering, not getting what you want is suffering, you want good health but you get illness, that is suffering. Like that there is no end to this suffering. The cause of all this suffering is greed, craving, craving for all kinds of things. So how to remove craving? Craving for mundane things, craving to satisfy the five senses, craving, worldly craving, all these three kinds of cravings are there. So when you speak, how to abstain from untruth? How to abstain from unpleasant language? How to abstain from harsh, rude speech? How to abstain from gossip, like that? In word. How to discipline yourself? The body you discipline by non-killing, non-stealing, non-sexual misconduct, non-lying and non-intoxication. These five principles are, they are for every human being to follow, every layman. When you give up household life and when you get into a higher level where you go right along through spiritual awakening, then you give up, you add more and more disciplines. So along with meditation or bhavana, two other things are associated. Giving away. Now I may have earned millions and millions. Even when I go to Sweden and make a speech, I. They give me a check at least hundred thousand or more. Today I don’t have anything in the world, except the house we live, nothing. Everything, millions and millions I earned, have been given to the community. So you have to practice dhana, or giving, detachment, renunciation. Without renunciation you cannot get happiness. By acquisition you can’t get happiness. Some idiots in Europe who are billionaires, I heard with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, are paying money to banks to live longer. To live 10 years longer, here I deposit 10 billion. After that I put another 10 billion to live another. First class idiots. They don’t know how to use their money. You know, give away. There are millions of millions of people hungry in the world. We have no right to enjoy luxury when so many people are without food, clothing and shelter, and so many are sick. So dhana is the first one. Dhana is then. If those people who are so rich come and meditate, I think they are cheating themselves. First give away what they have. Keep what you want. To have a comfortable, good life. Keep all that. Others get, give away. 67 people in the world own 50% of all household requirements in the world. What half the world’s population owns, 67 people own the other half. So what is this world? Them to come and meditate? That is the kind of meditation that I have seen being promoted in Europe, in America and in those places. But meditation is much more. Dhana giving away, beneficence, sila morality, you have to abstain from lot of things that we are used to. Dhana, sila, bhavana, meditation, third. Then comes another three, sila, samadhi, prakna. Sila is morality, samadhi is concentration, prakna is wisdom. So when a person meditates, and every moment he is able to catch up with the thoughts that come to his mind, whatever words he speaks, and whatever bodily movements he does, now such a person is a mindful man, mindful woman. So mindfulness leads to develop wisdom, and wisdom will take you to levels of consciousness which is a way from this normal life we lead, where you can clearly see how we are a part and parcel of a never-ending cycle of births and deaths. We can put a stop to this, births and deaths. Then only they will come true happiness and enlightenment. If there is no birth only, there will be no death. There will be no suffering. So in other words, without understanding the full Dharma, full philosophy, it’s not enough just doing my mindful meditation.

Axel Wennhall
Hard words for us in Sweden. I think a lot of people.

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
There is no, there is no, no simple way. No, if they don’t understand, very unfortunate they are. So you have to tell them that just like going for a game of tennis or playing a game of football for one hour, going and meditating for an hour, that’s not going to help you. Start with five minutes. Say, you can make Swedish people tell them, when you get up in the morning, you may go to the toilet, wash your face, come back, sit down. Keeping your, always your backbone straight. Keep your right hand on the left hand. Close your eyes very lightly. Then from the top of your head, to the feet, where you touch the ground, slowly look at your own body, with your own mind. My body is relaxed. Relaxed. First relax the body for a few minutes. Then, slowly start looking at your breathing in and out. I am breathing in. I am breathing out. Keep your mind at the tip of the nostril. We are, we are touchers as it comes in and goes out. Slowly, you start seeing only your breathing in and out and all the other sensations you get from your eyes, from your ears, from your nose or your tongue or your body or the mind itself. They don’t come. All those six sense organs have been silenced. I only look at breathing in and breathing out. Then think, My body is relaxed. My mind is relaxed. May the mind and the body of my mother be relaxed. May the body of my father be relaxed, my sisters, brothers, my friends, everybody in my neighborhood, everybody in this world. May they be relaxed in body and mind. May all of them be relaxed in body and mind. May the entire living world be relaxed in body and mind. May all living beings be relaxed in body and mind. May all human beings and other beings be well and happy. May all living beings be well and happy. May all living beings be well and happy. Now that kind of meditation, just for five minutes, can be practiced as you get up in the morning, to begin with. That anybody can practice. It’s no religion, nothing. It can be practiced. So this will be simple enough. Once you’ve gone practicing, then say as you go to work, you see some people coming. You don’t care whether you know them or not. That practice comes to your mind. May these people, they may be having hundreds of problems in their physical life. They may be having hundreds of problems in their mental setup. May they be well and happy, and solve these problems. So you spread loving kindness. So first thing to learn is loving kindness. Without your knowing, you are practicing it. What you practice regularly in the morning for five minutes, it becomes now ten minutes. As you go, because you begin to enjoy it. Then you begin to have every moment you walk to the office or factory or where you work, on your table there’s something to do. Then you begin to think, now this action I have to do is to kill hundreds heads of cattle today in the factory, and get them packet it, then export it to make money. You begin to think now, what I have meditated in the morning for well-being of all beings, I’m not practicing it. Out. You will never do anything that is against taking away life. Or you sit in the office and you feel that my boss is trying to steal from the people by charging something more than what he should in this business. That is stealing. Oh, this is not right business. It may be giving me some money, but it is ruining me as a human being. My personality will not be in any way developed as a result of this. Or then you see something to do with sexual misconduct, something to do with absolute teaching untruth or intoxication. So these five evils, if you could get rid of, what a beautiful well-being you will have. So that metta or loving kindness you practice in the morning should continue through compassionate action. So all the employment, whatever we do, will be translating that loving kindness into compassionate action. We call it karuna. Then you begin to get a joy, much more than what you get when you get your salary check. Much more joy you get than having a few moments with a woman or something like that. Much more joy. That is very temporary, but this one is much more. I am not saying that everybody should become bachelor, don’t get married. No, I am not meaning that. But having a control of your behavior, then you will get so much of joy out of it, detached, dispassionate joy. Some people will say, Look at that fellow, he has become a saint. He is going to go to heaven straight away. He has taken to meditation. Look, he doesn’t kill, he doesn’t steal, he doesn’t have nice time with a girl. He is always speaking truth. He is not taking intoxication. What is that? That fellow is mad. Some people will insult you. Say, Thank you very much. That’s my sir. What to do? Accept it. Some people will say, You are the man. You are on the right path. Go ahead, go ahead, my son. So some will appreciate you. So you begin to develop equanimity. If you can get the people of Sweden to develop these four qualities loving kindness, compassionate actions, dispassionate joy, and equanimity ability to accept name and blame, good and bad, with equal detachment those are the four qualities that build a human personality and such a human personality in any family will become a family awakening, that family will prosper. Individuals, families and communities with the so much of science and technology at our disposal.

Axel Wennhall
And these insights, is this the foundations of.

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
Exactly.

Axel Wennhall
Your movement.

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
So Sarvodaya movement was started, of course it’s much more than that. It’s first building a human being based on these four qualities which we continue. Second is going into the families with this. Thirdly coming into the community, the villagers. So villagers, we select people who are very poor, try to help them. Those who have no homes, we try to put up houses. Those who have no way to go to school, we help them. Those who are sick and ill, we look after them. Like that, lot of community services.

Axel Wennhall
Basic needs.

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
Basic needs. Yeah. So, individual awakening, family awakening, community awakening, and then they show their national awakening, and the world awakening. Now what we are doing is Vishodaya. That is trying to tell the world, let us go this way. That is awakening. Sarvodaya means awakening of all. Uddaya is all. Sarvra means all. Udda is awakening. Awakening of all. Awakening of all, how? Individual, the family, the community, the nation and the world. There are five levels of awakening, and for each country, each community, each family, according to their culture, according to their values, they can regulate this kind of work. So for the last, we have completed sixty years under the name Sarvodaya. And now at the end of the sixtieth year, I handed over my responsibility, all my responsibility to the next generation. So today I am a person without absolutely any income, no pension, nothing. I left my job quite early before I could qualify for a pension. So I’m living on what my second son provides for two of us. We have no properties, we have no shares, and we have no ambitions. We are there happily till we die. Having done our duty to our community, and I may have been to maybe hundred or even more countries in the world, and like this I shared whatever I experienced in life.

Axel Wennhall
And during these 60 years you’ve been working and founding this movement, what are you most proud of in terms of all the work?

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
Detachment. I never have been to a government office. I have been twice or thrice or something. I knew all the heads of state in this country personally, but I never asked anything from them. Never stepped into their houses. But I have been given every possible national award, including the highest award in the country. Only I have got. Internationally I have got maybe thirty, forty awards given from Sweden. August, for a award they call it at that time, that is for temperance. Those awards didn’t matter to me. Whatever the money they gave, I didn’t accept. I put it to the organization. I didn’t take it personally. So, I am so happy that I could not be a slave to money, luxury, fame. I had never been to a newspaper house. Even television people once or twice I went earlier days. If they want they can come and meet me here. I never go to a newspaper or see. So if they want they can. So I have never publicized myself. I never had an agent. Most of these Nobel Peace Prize winners have agents to canvas. I never had an agent. Whatever now I got the Nobel Prize for Asia. It’s called Magsaysa award. I didn’t know till it was announced in the radio. I didn’t know that I was getting. I got the Gandhi Peace Prize from India. I didn’t know till I got it. From South Africa I got it. From America for democracy. I never canvas for it. I and I just got it. I don’t know how I got it. And I didn’t care. So I am most proud that I am detached from all this. Power, fame and money.

Axel Wennhall
Can you tell us a little bit about how you worked with meditation? Because you told us before that basically.

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
For me, of course every morning as I said, every morning of course much deeper meditation I do every morning. Yeah, still. But I spend maybe the 24 hours of the day I spend, I spent mindfully. That is what is important. Not meditating at one time and then doing something else. No. It should be one thing right through life. So, meditation disciplined me. What to eat, what not to eat, when to sleep and when not to sleep. Meditation is a disciplinary process which should finally end up seeing truth. Hmm.

Axel Wennhall
But in terms of your organization, first when you went into the villages, you took care of the basic needs. Hmm. And and then but then you also work a lot with meditations, right?

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
Yeah. In villages, every program we do is start with meditation. Say, 200 of us go to a poor village from outside. From the village also maybe four, five hundred people join. Village has no access road, so from the main road to the village we have to cut an access road, say five miles of road. So we have no money. We find tools, we get people to donate the land, then with our physical body we start working. Right? So what the government does with machines, with our body we did it. But while doing it, we remember those four factors loving kindness, compassionate action, altruistic joy and equanimity we are getting. So we say we build the road, the road builds us. So that at the end of the, say one week, where we are living in the village, whole village gets transformed not only physically, but also mentally. And we remind them this was an old culture. Your ancient culture was this. But after Portuguese, the Dutch and the British came here, all that culture was destroyed. So we are trying to rebuild that. And people continue. So up to 18,000 villagers in, that is half the villagers in the country I have been, during my lifetime. Now they are still continuing. And government is cop, has copied almost everything we started. That they are doing it now. We don’t have to do a lot of things. Because the government is doing it now. Those days government never thought of doing it. And the government means most incapable people, who can’t do a job of work, who can only talk, only arouse public to vote for them, and then do whatever they want after getting into power. That’s why it’s a set of crooks. There are 100 people ruling this country. 98 are first class crooks. That’s why I keep away from them. And they don’t like me. They try to kill me many times, but I was alive. Even here they came and saluted, took the gun and said, we have orders to kill you. I said, Hello, what a great moment. Go and tell him I died with a smile. We all were shoot like this. And, Sir, how can I kill you?

Okänd
You have helped my wife.

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
I said, I don’t know who your wife and who you are in full uniform now. Deep outside. Those days our gate was, you can see outside. Today now it’s closed. Yeah. So, I have had such experiences. It’s so nice. And I’m still there. And those fellows who ordered to kill me are all dead, not even ashes. They got blown up by their own bombs. They got killed by their own people and I’m still there. No gun, nothing to protect myself. So, what a better life.

Axel Wennhall
Is that the highest, the attachment, the attachment to death?

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
If you are not attached, nobody can kill you. Even Gandhi got killed because at that time Gandhi was when that fellow took the revolver, Gandhi’s, for a second even fear came. If he didn’t come, he would never have died. I would have died if fear didn’t come to me. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Still they are hunting for me. I have no guards here. It can happen any moment. But at that moment, if I’m not afraid, this bullet won’t pierce you, can be sure. It won’t.

Axel Wennhall
What do you think we can learn mostly from your work and with Sarvodaya?

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
You should come and participate at least for three months. Nothing like student exchange, you know. Now here we have an international unit. Not to make any profit, but to cover our expenses for traveling and food and other things. So you can ask them to come here, but it should be at least for three weeks or more.

Okänd
Three weeks or more?

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
Yeah, three weeks is the minimum, so that at least one week you can see Sarvodaya development work. One week you can meditate, meditation center. The other week you can get a general idea about the country which will help them in their life. So it will be useful both wordly and unwordly things, spiritually and otherwise.

Axel Wennhall
Do you also teach meditation for children?

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
According to the age, if you can teach these children a little bit of self-discipline, it could be done now. Charika and in this meditation center they are doing it.

Axel Wennhall
Charika is your daughter?

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
Yeah. That’s very, very useful for children. Because the present education system is so much material that is pumped into a child’s mind at that age. They are restless. They are made sick mentally by this education system. So we are trying our very best to help these children by introducing meditation. But this should be done by the government, but they are not concerned with real education, they are concerned with power. Yeah.

Axel Wennhall
So can you tell us more about the family gatherings you had?

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
Yeah. The family gathering was an idea to break through caste, racial, linguistic, national class barriers. So that we all sit on the ground and say we are one family. And then there is like any other thing, they do a little bit of meditation, then discuss whatever problems you have and plan whatever you want to do. The word family was brought in to make people feel it. Now I have been to so many countries. Sometimes when you go to African countries, you feel so, so uncomfortable because those people don’t have even proper clothes to wear. But I never felt alien to them. I felt one of them. Similarly in America, Sweden, wherever I go, I have there are people, not Sri Lankan family, but they are families with whom I live. I didn’t live with Devadaya when I went to Sweden. I lived with other people, my friends. So family gathering introduces people to that universal outlook. Without feeling proud, we are rich, we are poor, we are depressed, we are like that. Make people feel free to be one with others. That’s the family gathering concept.

Axel Wennhall
So family gatherings was also one way to combine the villages with different religions.

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
Right. Oh, yeah.

Axel Wennhall
And also to explore meditation.

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
Right, right.

Axel Wennhall
Can you talk a little bit about meditation for all religions?

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
Now here, when you relax your body, when you continue to look at your breathing in, when you continue to look at how your eye works, there is no religion there. Actually, there is nothing to do with religion. True that, I am following Buddha’s teachings, but Buddhism is not a religion as such. It’s an explanation of your body, your mind, your universe. That’s all. There is no God in it. In religion, there should be a God. We have no Gods. We don’t believe in a creator, a God or anything of that sort. We believe that we create ourselves. Our actions cause an effect. If you do good actions, there will be good results. Bad actions, bad results. Religion is not actually religion. What Marx said was very true. Religion is an evil. I have to tell you this. Religion, the moment say I am Christian, I am Buddhist, I am Muslim, I am Hindu, then that’s an evil.

Axel Wennhall
For those who listen to this conversation and hear you speak now and they have never tried meditation and they are curious and they want to explore it.

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
Do that five minutes one. That’s a very good being. Just sit down in a relaxed way. Why you keep your hand like this is that facilitates the nervous. That’s the best position. But you must sit erect. Your backbone should be erect. You can sit on the ground or you can sit on a chair, doesn’t matter. First relax the body, then relax the mind, then look at breathing in and out and stop thinking of any other things that comes to your eyes or ears or nose or tongue or mind. Just keep on doing and then slowly think of the one dearest and nearest to you. First you give your loving kindness to yourself. May I be well in body and mind. Then the next person you love, maybe mother, maybe father, maybe wife, or brother or sister or friend or whatever. Then slowly extend it to the whole world. Then the entire energies, universal energies without knowing you enter your own body and mind. So you become a part of the universe. And every morning if you do it for five minutes, then you will have the urge to make it ten. Then three, four weeks later, no, no, no, I enjoy it. I want to do it 15 minutes. Then you will be wanting to find out more, more than loving kindness. Why all this? Why are we born? Why do we live? What is the best to be happy? You know, like that. Then comes dana-shila-bhavana-bhavana, what I told you, shila-samadhi-prakna. Those things come later. But just five minutes, loving kindness, all. They are related to the work. Then you might get fed up with the work you are doing now. You will choose a better. That’s a different matter. That’s a risk you take. You have to choose.

Axel Wennhall
What’s your advice for all of those who listens, who wants to make the world a better place?

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
First, love yourself. That love should be unselfish love. That is, give loving kindness to have a healthy body and a healthy mind. To have a healthy body, you have to be generous. You have to be compassionate. To have a healthy mind, you have to have enlightenment, not ignorance. So first, you loving kindness to yourself, your body and mind. Then to the ones who are nearest and dearest to you and to the whole world. That will open the way. You should proceed. You don’t have to ask anybody. It will come to you.

Axel Wennhall
Thank you. Thank you so much for taking this time.

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
Thank you.

Axel Wennhall
I know dinner is waiting for us now.

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
Well, I know you are hungry, so you should eat.

Axel Wennhall
Thank you so much.

Dr. A.T Ariyaratne
Thank you.

Axel Wennhall
It’s been a pleasure. Thank you for listening to this episode of the interactive podcast, Meditera Mera with Dr. Ariyaratne. We hope you have been inspired by our conversation or Dr. Ari’s lecture, his work and meditation. We had a tremendous time and got to meet half of their big family and even enjoy dinner together. And if you want to know more about Sarvodaya, you’ll find more information on their website, sarvodaya.org. You can also find their contact details at our website, breathein.se. This podcast is made by me, Axel Wennhall, who works as a meditation coach, and Gustav Nord, who runs the production company, Flip-Flop Interactive. I’m pretty sure Gustav and I will remember this day for a long time. But we will also try to follow Dr. Ari’s advice that if you want to change the world for the better, start by loving yourself and then others.