Column by Sri Sri Ravishankar

What is Precious ?

Preciousness within

Objects will gain value and lose value, but space will never lose value.
 
When you buy a cup, what do you give the value for?
Do you give money for the space inside,
or for the outer material?
Have you ever thought about it?
 
If you have a lump of clay in your hand, is there any value for it? But whenthe lump of clay

 is made into acup, you give value for the space. And that value will never diminish. Thepurpose of the space is always served.
Whether it is a stainless steel glass, stainless steel cup, or glass, or chinaclay, or silver cup, the space inside the cup is what really

serves,  isn´t  it?  Thatis what really matters.  Space can never lose its value.

So what is precious?
 
Whatever you think is very precious is very costly, very expensive.  The mostexpensive things are least used!  They´re least useful.
 
How do you put value on something - by its utility, or by its rareness  of  availability?
If something is available in plenty, you don’t value it more. Why do you valuegold so much, or diamonds so much, or any precious

stones  so  much ?  It isbecause they are not easily available. If diamond  is  just  found  on all over  the  street or if the mountains are just

diamonds, everywhere,who would value diamonds, right? So what is more valuable? It is that which isuseful.

Take, for example, iron and gold. Gold is more expensive and iron is basicallyessential and useful. Without iron, you will collapse.

Your body needs ironevery second to survive. Iron is valuable, because it is the most useful thing.And whatever is most useful,

 what is mostvaluable for your life is available in plenty.
 
Water is most essential in life. You value water, air etc which are soessential in life, and they´re available in plenty. Isn´t it?

Now which is precious -iron or gold? You can live without gold, but you cannot live without iron.

We have a whole wrong system of evaluation in the world! We value uselessthings a lot.
 
A piece of stone, red, or yellow, or pink, or whatever, is very rarely availableand so we want it even if it is so expensive!

We put all our earnings,all our money into it. But that is not essential to life at all! To have thatdiamond, emerald or jade etc,

people breathe in allthe polluted air all the time, work day and night ,  earn a lot of money, and putthem in the jewellery.
Is  this  not  utter  foolishness? 
What is most precious, your health, you are destroying.
You’re not breathing in good air, but you are buying diamond and whatnot...
those precious stones!
 
This is lack of education!

Jai Gurudev!!