Love Moves The World

I was 16, when I first heard about Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Art Of Living. Yeh, both of them are two sides of the same coin they cannot be separated from each other. In our nuclear family, my father was the first person to get into AOL and I was the last. At first it appeared just to be a normal thing for me. But slowly the music penetrated my body and touched my soul and soon I was dancing into the tunes of Vikram Bhaiya.


Well, Guruji was born on May 13, 1956, in Tamil Nadu. He is an exponent of Advaita Vedanta and the spiritual leader of the Art of Living Foundation (founded 1982), which aims at relieving both individual stress and societal problems and violence, and which is an NGO (non-governmental organization) with UNESCO consultative status. According to his biographies, at the age of four Guruji could recite the Bhagavad Gita and then moved on to receive a baccalaureate in science at 17 from St. Joseph’s College, Bangalore University. He was even nominated for The Nobel Prize for peace. He has written various books on spirituality like "God Loves Fun", "Celebrating Silence", "An Intimate Note to the Sincere Seeker" etc etc.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar emphasizes breath as the link between body and mind and, therefore, as a tool to relax the mind, emphasizing both meditation and service to others. According to him, science and spirituality are linked and consistent. Emphasizing that joy is only available in the present moment, his stated vision is to create a world free of stress and violence, and his programs are said to offer practical tools to help accomplish the desired goal.

Sudarshan Kriya is a breath-oriented process, and a core component of the Art of Living courses. According to me its the best thing I have ever experienced in my life. Frankly speaking the feelings are beyond comparison. I can only tell u that, thousands and thousands of people across the globe have hugely benefited from this unique techniques. Be it a poor Indian farmer or a sophisticated American billionaire.

The Art of Living Foundation is one of the world’s largest volunteer based, humanitarian and educational Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO). It was founded in 1982 with the vision of creating a stress-free, violence-free society. The Art of Living has reached out to over 300 million people in over 140 countries with its various programs. AOL are dealing with hundreds of social problems across the globe. Prison courses of AOL are very effective, which deals with the stress level of hard core prisoners and terrorists and in many instances have completely re-structured there life.

As a member of such a big organisation I myself have visited its Tribal School in Ghatsila. Really the amount of labour and pain they have taken to educate those tiny tots is amazing. Most of them are the first one to get educated in their family. AOL have really offered a helping hand towards the building of independent citizens. Apart from the regular course work they are trained in vocational studies which will later help them in earning their livelihood. And let me tell you that this is just one example and there are probably a thousand more, occuring every day every hour at different centres of the world.

The Green Kolkata Clean Kolkata campaign was other learning experience and a positive initiative from the youth members of AOL, Kolkata. Yes, the journey so far is undoubtedly without any hurdles and there are always a thousand things which you can learn while you are standing under the banner of "Art Of Living". Self Confidence is the main thing which I got from meditation apart from clarity of mind. I could really feel the shift after doing kriya (meditation). Science also says that meditation has a positive effect on the various chakras of our body. So the young health conscious society is getting more and more inclined towards these stress booster techniques.

The satsang or the bhajans, rejuvenate my soul and feeds happiness into my body. The feeling after half an hour satsang session @ Bangalore ashram is simply beyond words. You just need to feel it. The aura there is so different, its bound to shift your mood.

Thanks Guruji! for radiating my life with so much of knowledge, faith and love.
Jai Gurudev!