Guru Purnima Special Online Meditation and Breath Workshop

including Live Session With Gurudev Sri Sri Ravishankar ji .

2nd July to 5th July

️Morning Charge Batch 7:30 am to 9:30 am www.tiny.cc/gpsm		Late Evening Soothing Batch 8:30 pm to 10:30 pm www.tiny.cc/gpse

️Contact: 9987026313 / 98335 01668

Let's Make Some Noise About Peace

We were enthralled! We were blessed! We couldn’t believe what we have just heard. It was live, right in front of our eyes. Vikram Hazra on his electric guitar and his troupe on percussion and flute together created energy in the audience that is rarely experienced. I knew that it is not just music that he is playing but also the way he is involving the audience in the music that is making the difference.

It was a collective effort of each and every soul in Yogi Sabhagriha that I felt, that one cannot have this experience by choice. One needs to be blessed to experience this musical phenomenon.

Then Vikram Hazra took the microphone in his hands and said, “Imagine the energy created by just 3500 people …” and he paused. The audience started laughing and applauding to his way of bringing the WCF topic. “Imagine 1000 such musical concerts happening in parallel. Imagine the noise of those 3.5 million people and imagine the silence of those 3.5 million people.” We held our breath for a moment.

What a vision H H Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has! It is phenomenal. We generally struggle to get an audience of 20000 for any major event. He envisions creating a stage for the capacity of 20,000 people. 

How many countries participate in FIFA? We had 43 nations participating in the 2014 world cup. In which event do we have people from 155 countries flying in to celebrate humanity, to celebrate diversity and work towards the direction of world peace?

If you still haven’t understood the gravity behind what World Culture Festival is going to do, let me tell you what Guruji said in UN during the World Yoga Day last year. “The term religious tolerance is of the bygone era. 

You tolerate something that you don’t like. Now the time has come for everyone to celebrate diversity.” Imagine 3.5 million people who would assemble in Delhi carrying this vision ahead. I believe that this one thought can prove path breaking. When we start appreciating each other’s cultures, we start appreciating the goodness in every part of the world. There blossoms hope for us to be comfortable with each other, to belong to each other despite of the differences.

I wonder how come such event was not organized by UN all this while! Especially in the world ridden with terrorism, events like these sow the seeds of hope. Be a part of this hope. I urge each and every soul on the planet to be a part of this event in whatever way they can.

Let us make some noise about peace 

Jai Gurudev!

Celebrating #35YrsofArtOfLiving - Pursuing Happiness

Pursuing Happiness

- Aggremma Sethi

Happiness is not momentary, rather it is a constant. At least that is what I have come to believe since a while now. Happiness is not just an emotion, but a way of life. I consider myself very fortunate to have come across this knowledge at a young age.

It was in the summer last year that an opportunity came knocking at my door literally by chance. My parents were both associated with Art of Living. I grew up in a household where ‘kriya’ was an often  used word, Bangalore Ashram was a dream destination, and my younger sister was put to sleep not by lullabies, but rather the lyrical bhajans my mother used to sing to her. So, having already done the Art Excel course years ago, it was now time to do the Happiness course as soon as the opportunity came along, at least that is what my mother hoped for.

I on the other hand had way too many things on my mind to bother about this; after all I was finally enjoying an extended summer break with no school to go back to! But as they say all things destined to happen will find a way. A small leaflet came in with the morning paper one day, announcing an upcoming happiness program. I took the paper to my room and without noticing the leaflet was soon engrossed in the world of current affairs.

My mother happened to come to my room looking for something and spotted the piece of paper that had unwittingly fallen from within the sheets of the newspaper. She let out a gasp sure enough to pull me out of any political drama I was busy catching up with (this might be a bit more dramatic in my memory, I agree!) and went on to tell me about ‘being aware of my surroundings’.

Long story short, two days later I found myself in a Happiness Program along with my mother.

Anybody who has had the experience of attending an art of living course knows that the hours fly by way too quickly. Not only did I look forward to attending the next session, I also started feeling like the duration was a bit too short! This six day journey was as blissful as it could be, and it’s after effects were even more satisfying.

Not only had I learnt the art of calming my mind with just having control of my breath, I had also become a part of a community of happy and contented people who worked towards spreading this cheer all around. It was in this happiness course that I found a rare friendship with someone I would probably have not had the chance to meet otherwise, and an ever increasing family that formed connected by just one man, and three little words “jai guru dev”.

The continued works of seva, and regular satsangs, were all I needed to keep myself happy. I realized  that taking out just 20 minutes of my day to do ‘kriya’ not only made me more calm and stress free, but also increased my capacity of working drastically. No longer did I need an hour of afternoon naps to replenish my energy but just 20 minutes in the morning dedicated to myself were enough to keep me going the whole day and longer!

I came to realize that stressing about something does not make it happen any faster, rather keeping your head clear and working towards it does. This six day happiness program gave me all as promised on the leaflet, and a lot more. I still feel grateful every day for having been brought onto this journey.

I don’t know if it was my mother’s wishes, my teacher’s last minute efforts, or some cosmic play of both, but whatever it was, I am utterly grateful.          


Courses done: Art Excel course, Happiness program, DSN course, and Sehaj Samadhi Meditation
course.

The freedom of applying simple yet profound knowledge

Ever since I did my research on ill effects of cigarettes, alcohol and drugs on human body, I started loathing these aspects of human evolution. This happened to the extent that I started feeling uncomfortable and unnatural amidst such a company.

I always cherish the time I have in a party devoid of all this. The energy of that party is altogether different. It is so pure, so very enthusiastic. You can totally sense difference in both the environment. One seems to be pulling evolution down while the other clearly uplifts the spirit. I slowly started feeling why on earth do people get into these stupid activities! Why can't they understand that is something really bad for them and in turn for the rest of the world? All these thoughts cramped up the space in my mind when I used to sit in any such parties. It became increasingly difficult to be natural and interact with the same set of people with whom I used to spend most of the time before I did my research. Educating them did not work and their mockery to my sensibility fuelled my detachment towards them. At the same time I found it difficult to come in terms to the fact that these are my old time buddies and I cannot just be away from them. I was getting anxious about my straining relationships with them. I closed my eyes and asked for help from within. Sri Sri's soft voice made a soothing tune from inside while saying, 'Accept people and situations as they are'.

I opened my eyes with a smile. Yes they drink, smoke etc, so I just need to accept them as they are. This is how they are, these are their choices. I realised that I was loosing my peace of mind just because I didn't accept the fact that my friends are smoking and drinking. I realised that the real fight was on the question 'why?' "why are they doing this?" "why can't they understand what is good for them?" "Why can't they understand that this is spoiling the whole world?" Acceptance dissolved all the WHYs. And thus dissolved all the questions taking all the frustration with it. "OK, they don't understand. Now I have to make my choices instead of getting into whys."

This may seem like a common sense to everyone. But so many times in our lives do we crib over, "why my boss did this?" "Why can't my dad can't understand my dreams?" "Why my girlfriend always does this?" "Why does he always shout on silly things? " etc. And we end up being in agony. The way Sri Sri puts up this knowledge point, it becomes very obvious and yet something that we can easily apply in our daily lives easily with full awareness.

This piece of knowledge has helped me a lot to take faster decisions, crib less and move on quickly in situations like missing flight, traffic, unhygienic toilets, angry colleagues, work burden, bus delays and almost every daily life occurrence. For me this point has become the fastest way to instant piece of mind.

This is the beauty of the way Sri Sri delivers knowledge. It comes out when we need it. And not comes out in its best answer easiest form.

Once while working I got little scared of the amount of load on me. The anxiety didn't let me even start the work. I then remembered the steps Sri Sri suggested in such situations. First move away from desk. Relax. Break the work into smaller parts and execute one part at a time. I was able to finish that work very comfortably.

I make a point to watch at least one video of Sri Sri everyday. His knowledge is inclusive, it is something you can apply anywhere and everywhere. It is simple to understand, yet it is deep enough to understand the aspect from all situations.

The ease of managing stress

I knew the answers but couldn't remember them. The clock on the right hand side corner of the screen was trickling down faster than what it ideally should have . The stakes were high. "If I am not able to clear this exam today, I must forget my annual appraisal." Every minute spent in that exam center now mattered more than ever. But if I'm not able to remember these answers, it's a total waste of time, money and effort. "Why am I not able to remember these answers now? I studied them last night only."

I came to the awareness that stress is building up. And in stress you cannot do anything, remember anything and hence you cannot act productively on anything. I realized that I now need to take care of my stress first. I removed my shoes, got into the folded legs position over the chair, and started mudra pranayam. I knew that the security camera overhead was watching me, but at that moment clearing that exam was more important to me the anything.

The night before I had barely studied for an hour. Based on that I marched out towards the exam center. My biggest strength in the morning was my Guru - Sri Sri . I prayed to him that I should clear this exam. And I knew that he would answer my prayers. So I was not entirely surprised when only the questions I studied last night popped out in front of me. I was more surprised with the fact that I was not able to recollect the answers. Sri Sri always says that stress overshadows intellect. Fortunately I retained the intellect to invest my time in the mudra pranayam. It's because of those 5 minutes that I when I opened my eyes, I started remembering certain points and from those points I remembered all the answers. I cleared that exam and got a whopping bonus because of that.

I never knew that the knowledge of mudra pranayam can bring such a significant shift in my career. Breath is such a wonderful technique to take care of stress. People always knew this that long deep breaths take care of stress to some level. But which breathing technique can take care of what kind of stress is something I learned when I came to The Art of Living. These different breathing techniques help me when I get caught by cops, when I have to ask for a long leave, when I have to go and present something crucial, when I conduct my trainings, when I wait in the traffic for hours kissing the front car's bumper, when I sit patiently to a 8 year old's questions etc.

Apart from breathing Sri Sri's timely wisdom helps big time. Once during a Satsang, as if listening to all of my mind chatter, he said "Take all the mind chatter, collect it and dump it in the sea." A devotee from the satsang group needed clarification in this, "But won't that give us instant gratification in turn leading us to inaction. We would again have to pick up the matter to work on it." "OK, why do you have to eat again and again? " "Because the food gets digested and the I need more food. But that is a different context since that process gives me energy" " Aaah! Precisely, do you get the point?" and everyone in the satsang started applauding to the simplicity of the process to get that renewed mental energy to resolve our problems.

Earlier the only option I knew to take care of stress was desserts. I knew eating something sweet would take care of my stress. Today I have a platter in front of me that contains a variety of tools to take care of my stress.

My idea of h@ppiness

"Live life as an expression of happiness and not in the pursuit of happiness" stated Bawa in my first yes plus and I was blown away by this line. I so admired the movie 'In the pursuit of happiness' But somewhere I pondered is this state of frustration, agitation mandatory on the path to success? Why am I really here on this planet if I am supposed to go through that agony?

Everyone is doing some or the other thing for happiness. Some struggle to get decent job while some struggle to excel in it. Some strain hard to have a perfect marriage while some strain harder to get out of it. Some prefer to sit in the Himalayan cave while some prefer to booze in an urban cave. Rather every activity of the human race is in the pursuit of happiness. Sri Sri goes ahead in saying that every creature on this planet craves for happiness and peace. He chuckles further, "Those who want happiness, pray. While those of who forgot to pray invented alcohol." We pray for a variety of things. But those who pray for happiness and peace know the true essence of the being.

But this prayer also comes to soothe an agitation in our minds. So does this mean that life is journey of agitation? Because this agitation doesn't settle down until either our desires get fulfilled or the desires become insignificant. And by the time this desire settles in, a new desire takes up the space of agitation and frustration.

"What do you mean by that of course I am happy many a times!" I know this thought would pop up in your mind. You would naturally tend to think that your life is not as miserable as I am putting it here. Rather let's assume that your life is not miserable at all. Are to you smiling right now? When was the last time you had a hearty laugh! When was the last time you danced like crazy and sang irrespective of whether you have audience! When we laugh without reason, dance as if there is no one around and sing as if this is the last chance to sing we get in the state of natural self. If we meditate, we can harness that natural self. With meditation we get to comprehend our natural being. And as Sri Sri says, happiness and peace is the state of our being.

So while we look for happiness somewhere outside, happiness is actually deep within us. Thus meditation is the most reliable way to remain happy. When we are deep in meditation, we get close to what our true self is. The joy in meditation can only be expressed in gratitude people have after meditation. Happiness index is scientific term to quantify how happy a person is! And the person highest on this index so far is a meditator practicing meditation since past 30 odd years. Hence Sri Sri says joy is in this moment.

Coming back to the movie 'In the pursuit of happiness' Chris Gardner finally experienced the tears of joy at the end of the movie. It took him a long struggle to finally reach that state of mind. If he were meditating, he would have been smiling all through his path of success. Being happy brings equanimity in mind and balance in our thoughts and decision. We seldom need frustration to pump our efforts to get out of a miserable situation. But we certainly need joy to get out of misery. And where is joy? With you right now. Then why live life in the pursuit of happiness? Be little smart and live life as an expression of happiness.

The notes of stress beat

He was aloof, alone, sitting with his head down in the Ram Temple at Hyderabad. One of my friends, Kiran approached him and asked him to join us for the meditation centre. As a new project we started running free meditation centres at different places with an intention to reach out to people who are yet to experience meditation. We call this club as Meditating Monday. When I initiated this project in Hyderabad in the year 2011, I had no idea about the gravity of this idea until this boy decided to follow Kiran to the room where our team was conducting the meditation. A simple 10 minutes meditation and we could see wrinkled foreheads becoming soothing smiling faces. This is quite a regular experience for us now. People do recognise the peace within them during guided meditations by Sri Sri. All the participants hugged the volunteers and expressed their intention to join us again. This boy did not seem to move. When Kiran approached him, he hugged Kiran tightly and started crying profusely. "I was planning to jump from 6th floor yesterday. Today I came here to say my last prayers." He had no idea then there exists something in this world that can take him out of his depression.

If this is the impact of a 10 minutes meditation, then imagine what the unique breathing technique of Sudarshan Kriya can do to us. "Nice, but I'm not depressed, what can AOL do to me?" Comes a natural question. If a depressed person can get life then can you imagine what it can do to you. Because of all these techniques, normal people have become super dynamic and dynamic people have become instruments of change that are bringing waves of positive energy to masses.

In 2013 after the Uttarakhand floods, a team from Mumbai took out time from their busy lives with a mission to bring some change in people. My sister was a part of that team. Together the team of 8 boys and 5 girls in 8 days reached out to more than 800 people bringing peace in their minds and hope in their hearts. How is it possible to generate this level of dynamism from the otherwise dormant crowd?

What makes us inactive is the inability to handle stress. What really happens when we cannot meet deadlines at our work place? Assuming that the deadlines are reasonable, we tend to reduce our speed in the fight between focus and relaxation. When we get relaxed we lose focus. When we get focused, we get anxious leading to stress. Breathing techniques taught at The Art of Living really increase the focus and at the same time keeps us relaxed. Thus we get more productive leaving us ample time to do all the things  that we always wanted to do.

We start with full enthusiasm to learn a guitar. But soon the guitar becomes a wall hanging. We end up spending more time on things that we have to do. Focus comes on ways to earn money and how to survive in the rat race. When we delink stress from our lives, we discover the gaps in our day which we generally miss, since they get covered in anxiety, worry, regret etc. This newly discovered time gives us the opportunity to do things which we always wanted to do. Be it preparing for an extra curricular exam, learning Krav maga or taking up some kind of social responsibility. The Art of Living through its stress management programs have brought in vibrancy amidst so many people that today are leading lives much higher than their potential.

Thanks to these techniques that today we are leading lives that we want to live and not the ones that we have to live.

An Infinite Moment Passing By

Let us take every morsel with the taste,
Let us make every move devoid of haste.

Let us revere life in every breath we inhale,
Let us surrender worries in our every passing exhale.

Let us discover music within the noise around,
A symphony of various instruments limitless & unbound.

Let us listen to everyone with care and concern,
Let empathy dawn as their life we learn.

Let us lighten our thoughts as the future worries float goodbye.
Let us loosen our fist so that past regrets heave a relieved sigh.

Let us smile back to every moment of anger and fear,
Let us fight back lethargy while keeping our intentions clear.

Let us feel divinity in every stranger we meet.
Let us experience the infinity in every moment we greet.

My Major Take Away From Ashtavakra Gita

Disclaimer1: This blog is meant only for those who have completed Ashtavakra Gita. For those who haven’t, please go through the discourse of H.H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on Ashtavakra Gita before reading this blog.

Disclaimer2: Ashtavakra Gita is not Bhagwat Gita.

“Music is harmony in sound” – Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

When there is no harmony in sound, it simply becomes noise. It is the tune that brings this harmony in sound. The way the sound goes high pitch or low pitch, you can virtually draw a graph in air as your favorite song beats the speaker. This graph basically comes from the fact that the song is jumping up and down over few notes. In Indian classical singing, these notes are Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa. So you take any Indian song, it is basically permutation combination of these 7 notes or Sapta Suur as we call them. The other day after we completed one of the pieces of Ashtavakra Gita, this aspect just struck me very hard. Whether we like a particular song or not, whether the song is comedy, tragedy, romantic, blues, classic or whatever genre it may belong to, it is finally a composition of Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa. At the root, it is nothing but Sapta Suur. 

When I tweeted this piece of realization, Ajay replied, "Nimish, knowledge oozing out?"

For those who couldn't relate well to the above example, here is another realization that dawned on me few days ago.

Remember the birthday song we sing, "Sagar me ek leher oothi tere naam ki"

Let us take a dive in this Sagar. Nice blissful ocean with amazing flora and fauna right within. The flora and fauna in an ocean differs from the flora and fauna in the river. Reason being, the water differs from the ocean to river. We generate tons and tons of salt every day from the great ocean and yet it generously produces salt again and again for our sake.This level of salt differs from ocean to ocean. The salinity in the Bay of Bengal is lower as compared to that of the Arabian Sea. So if you take a bowl of Arabian Sea water in one hand and a bowl of Bay of Bengal water in another hand, you'd agree that the waters are different. What would happen if both of them go through distillation plant? Now try to compare both the bowls, its no rocket science that the distilled water is just the same. So what differs the Arabian Sea water from the Bay of Bengal water is the salt and mineral content or anything which is not water. Let us call this "anything which is not water" as impurities. So if we are able to remove the impurities from both the sea waters, there is no difference in any of these oceans.

I can see few nodding their heads and few smiles by now, as this is something they can relate to.

Now think, why is it necessary to do Sudarshan Kriya daily and advance courses regularly? What sort of distillation we go through when the master says, get back to your source? Why do we feel blissful and pure after every advance course? And what is that purity?

It is the impurities that create distinctions. So imagine, tomorrow a bucket of water from Bay of Bengal flies to the Arctic Ocean and says, "The water there is very hard in nature. It is very stubborn." A bucket of water from Hawaii flies to the coastline of Mumbai and says, "The water there is brown in colour." In all these comments, is it really the water that's being judged? No, water is always H2O. Poor water gets the attributes of its impurities.

"Love is not just an emotion, it is your very nature. Just like this table is made up of wood, our body is made up of flesh, we are made up of a substance called love." - H. H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Journeying Between Rest and; Awareness

-Nimish Inamdar  22^nd May 2012

“The overall experience was wonderful. I feel energized. While feeling the happiest moment and sensing it, brought tears to my eyes. Now I have lot of energy for the day even after lot of sleepless (less sleep) nights.”

 Many a times to reach the happiest moment of our lives we spend thousands on a vacation trip, throw parties, buy our dream home, dream car etc. Ask Madhavi on what did she do to reach this state of mind and her answer would be that, “I closed my eyes for 15 minutes.” Of course buying house, vacations are all important aspects that drive the overall growth of our life. But Madhavi and many others participating in the Meditating Monday initiative realized that happiness is merely a game of 15 minutes of closing your eyes.

The Meditating Monday Club founded in July 2011 is the initiative founded by the YES!+ (Youth Empowerment and Skills) volunteers of the Art of Living Foundation to promote the knowledge and experience about meditation. The pilot of this concept was first launched in ISC-2, Hyderabad with support from Pavan Joshi. With encouraging feedback from the participants, and a personal strong backing from Amarnath Juluri, we launched this club in DLF, Hyderabad. With close to 20 successful meditation sessions so far, the club is gaining popularity as more and more realize the benefits on meditation.

While there have been varied responses over how people feel after the session, the common factor amongst all of them was an outcome of a perfect healthy and peaceful mind. Research says that 20 mins of deep meditative rest equals the rest of 8 hours of sleep. Participants are seen energized right in the morning to face the day. “It would be a good idea to have this session every time before the project delivery” chuckled Swathi. “I think my manager needs it very badly” reported another participant on the condition of anonymity. Although it is a good idea to practice meditation every day, the Meditating Monday Club has ensured weekly meditation sessions in CSP since past 3 months, enabling CSPiites to soothe their mind ironing out their weekly frustration and discover a lot of things about themselves.

As it is rightly said, “Sometimes to open your eyes, you simply have to close them for a while.”

I am devoid of anger, I am incapable to hate,

I communicate in silence, I love to Meditate