New place for south/central Austin II

As we all know, Art of Living Austin is growing and expanding, even though we loved to gather around Shraddha and Anoop’s home for the weekly long kriya, there were times (very frequently) that we were running out of real-estate and had to place yoga mats creatively to make space for more.

So, the thought occurred to move out of the private home and move to a neutral location like a community center (like we used to do) and may be probably find a place few miles north that way it would be equally convenient/inconvenient for every one. 

We combed through churches, schools, fitness studios, yoga studios, Pilates studios and dance studios. Surprisingly a lot of the churches had availability but not at the time we required (Sunday evening) for they were booked for their youth ministries. as for the yoga studios, they didn’t want to entertain us for the conflict we may have with their practice (fair enough, I guess). Schools would have been ideal but the rates were not conducive enough for our operations. While some Yoga studios were willing to work with us, it was either the location or the lack of air circulation (core to our existence)  prevented us from signing the place.

So, Austin we believe we have found the ideal place in terms of size, location, cost and accessibility.

Please do join us every week for long kriya follow ups on

Day and Time: Sunday’s at 5:30PM

Location: 4544 S Lamar Blvd #200, Austin, TX 78745 Studio 1

And help us prove that we made the right decision in renting this studio. 

I would not be fair if I didn’t thank Shraddha and Anoop on their generosity for letting us use their place every Sunday evening for the long kriya.

Thank you Shraddha and Anoop for lending us your space and wishing you luck on the new phase of your journey. 

As with any new thing it would be a learning curve for all of us so please do bear with us for the location is as new to you as it is for us :).

Art of Living Austin steering committee nominations

It is that time again, nominations are currently open for the following positions for the Steering Committee:

1) Outreach

2) Event (Program)

3) Secretary

4) Treasurer

We kindly request y’all to nominate suitable candidates to take up the lead in steering the chapter to new heights.

Please submit your nominations in private by sending an email to nominate@artoflivingaustin.org. The last day for submitting nominations is 10/31/2016.

Any member of the Art Of Living Austin Chapter can submit nominations for the positions shown above. 

We are very thankful for the hard work and time invested by our current committee. We wish them the very best in their endeavors.

The criteria in the bylaws is listed below

• Nominees must be Austin Chapter members, and must have experience in organizing courses and events. They should not be a member of any regional or national committee, and should be willing and able to serve for at least 1 year.

• The Nominations and Elections Team will strive to ensure nominations of suitable candidates for all open positions, prior to end of the nomination period.

thank you

Nominations team

New place for south/central Austin

Austin, specially south and central Austin time to get excited. Yes we heard you and your concerns and we have taken steps to address one of your comments/concerns, we have started negotiations for a new place for weekly follow ups. Yes, this location will be north of our current location, will be easily accessible through freeways, will have natural light and fresh air circulation and most of all it is not someone else’s home. 

Stay tuned we are in final steps of our negotiations and will be posting the details very soon.

ps: it could be as early as this weekend

Second International Day of Yoga celebrations

They say everything is big and better in Texas, so why should our yoga day be an exception? you read it right, Art of Living foundation in collaboration with HSS and ISHA foundation along with ~45 partners celebrated the International Day of Yoga on July 30 2016.  Did I tell you there were ~800 people in attendance doing yoga. 

Back in May 2016, when one of our teachers raised the point that we need to celebrate international day of Yoga and it will not be done on June 21st when the rest of the world celebrates but on July 31st, I admit, I was one of the few who was some what disappointed and didn’t want us to sign up to lead the effort for I didn’t see us becoming another event management  organization.

Thankfully they didn’t listen to me and took it up in a stride to organize the event, soon enough we had a Facebook page, a website,  few collaborators and lots of partners which kept on growing over the next month or so. In the end we had over 40 partners and 3 other organizations which were actively collaborating with us.

Within the limited budget we were able to flyer, conduct TV interviews and unlimited sharing and advertising on Facebook.  The only avenue I think we left untapped was Twitter. In the end, all of these created enough awareness amongst Austin crowd that we had ~800 people showed up to do yoga on a hot summer Saturday evening. Needless to say we are thankful to all those who showed up to do the yoga.

The event day truly saw each organization bring out their expertise to the game. We from Art of Living brought our expertise of overall organization and had our hand in every single aspect of the event, be it on stage with yoga, music and meditation or the ground work of  crowd management. HSS and ISHA had the man/woman/student power to handle the masses of people who were heading to the capitol  (on a side note, volunteers of HSS had come from Houston and San Antonio to help out/assist the event), Agni the dance studio handled the whole stage setup, microphones, speakers, the yoga dance and the other logistical side of the event, last but not the least our yoga partners who spread out on stage and all around the capitol grounds leading the Yoga.    

Yes we did it, the second ever yoga day celebrations was a grand success beyond all metrics. We do have a lot of people to thank both inside our organization and outside and more importantly he Counsel General of India, Houston. 

Keep an eye on this area for I will be posting the pics and videos as and when I receive them.

Art of Living center address – update on Google

Some reason, Google believes that our new Art of Living center is located at 13699 Pond Springs Road Austin TX 78729 and it is permanently closed.
You all know our new center address is 13091 Pond Springs Road, Suite 208 Austin TX 78729 and our center is open and thriving. I request your help in fixing this. It is a simple 3 step process,

1. Search on Google for Art of Living Austin and it comes with permanently closed link like below  
   

   
2. Please click on the feedback and suggest the new address 13091 Pond Springs Road Suite 208 Austin TX 78729
3. Hit submit and you should get an email in your account saying that your feedback is being reviewed

I have done my part and few of us have done it too and I am hoping if more people do submit the change then hopefully Google will act on it fast and change to the right address and show us open.
We appreciate your effort.
We have one more issue with Yelp which believes we are still in our Lamar location, if you are the owner of Yelp account for Art of Living Austin please ping me.  

Podcast on Creativity

I am a recent convert to podcasts, turned to them specially after my good friends visit from California. Anyways, off the many things I subscribe to now one thing I am regular with is Ted Radio hour from NPR. The podcast runs for an hour or so in which they combine multiple ted talks on a particular topic, in essence it is a superset of ted talks. 

One such Ted talk that I recently heard were on Creativity, they covered few different aspects for creativity

1. Not being selfish, no me and mine 
2. Ability to fall on your face and make mistakes
3. Frontal cortex of brain or as we call Ego which monitors me and mine to be off
4. Practice a lot of it also helps
5. Creativity needs to be nurtured
6. Showing up every day and being consistent about the process

All good points, one thing I really loved if they had covered was aspect of meditation. For a good meditation more than a few criterion listed above are to be met and in my experience more and more creative ideas flow right after a good meditation. As Shri Shri Ravishankar says for a good meditation, you want nothing, you are nothing and then sit with that attitude and meditation will happen. 

Our Art of Living center here in Austin do offer Meditation courses among others. Needless to say there is the Happiness Program which is also offered on a regular basis which helps one with the awareness of interaction between the different layers of existence.

On other hand people say, meditate on the issue that you want to solve and I believe that is the most useless thing to do.

One world meditation

The title might seem off but no it was an actual event hosted by Art of Living foundation on January 17 2016. The event was a curtain raiser for the bigger event World Culture festival to be held in Delhi, India from March 11-13 2016. As you may already know we in Austin are also planning our own local curtain raiser and our folks decided a face to face meeting to be had right after the meditation.

My mind was completely occupied with the logistics for the event and how best we could make this event a grand success and so on, on top of it somehow we didn’t have the right link and when we tuned in for the meditation it had already started. This I believe was the first time that Facebook was hosting, unlike the previous times when youtube used to host and there were some delays in the audio. All in all when everyone else in the room was feeling wonderful after the meditation I didn’t pack the punch.

It was as though the universe heard my dilemma and on screen Sri Sri started talking again (we didn’t realize then but were re telecasting the meditation event) and out of curiosity the volume was increased and lo behold there was one more meditation to be done and this time with no breaks in the telecast and don’t know however many minutes later I opened the eyes and it was a peaceful and beautiful moment.

In case you missed the meditation and the Q and A that followed, don’t worry you can find it here. 

World culture festival–curtain riser in Austin

Every 4 years there is a Cricket world cup, same goes for Football or for that matter Olympics too but is there a world wide get together for culture and spirutuality?, I am not asking the question but the question is being asked by a great humanitarian Sri Sri Ravishakar.

Sri Sri Ravishankar (fondly known as Guruji), founder of Art of Living and other organizations operating under the umbrella of Art of Living. If I may steal his words, March 11-13 marks one such historical get together with cultural and spiritual events from all over the world, from Japan to South America showcased on a single stage in Delhi, India.

As a precursor to it, we started off with a bang today morning with 1 world 1 meditation event. The event was watched live from over 155 countries.

That said, as a next level in the run up to the festival we plan to do an official curtain riser here in Austin.

Date: February 6 2016
Venue: Art of Living center (13091 Pond Springs Road, suite 208, Austin TX 78729)
Time: 4:00-6:00PM

At a high level the plan is to get community and spiritual leaders from all over Austin under one roof and inspire and inform them about the world culture festival.

We would love your help in organizing and executing this event. There are multiple levels in which you can help (all the way from invites to planning and execution), Please contact Art of Living Austin for more details.

In case you are still wondering what WCF or world culture festival is,

World Culture Festival (WCF) will bring together over 3.5 million people from 150 countries representing different global cultures, nations and faiths as a one world family to celebrate cultural diversity and the Art of Living Foundation's 35 years of service to humanity. The Art of Living is a global movement founded by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar – an Indian humanitarian leader and peace ambassador.

The three-day celebration will open with a one-of-a kind peace meditation, for 3.5 million people, setting a new Guinness record for largest mediation gathering ever. The concert stage will host more than 10,000 artists who will play 40 traditional instruments in a never before seen symphony collaboration. WCF will also host an all-inclusive inter-faith meeting where international spiritual and religious leaders will participate in discussions on global concerns. Lastly, the Global Leadership Forum will occur on the second and third day of the event and will bring together leaders from varied backgrounds such as business, government, politics, sports, science, NGOs, spiritual and religious organizations, media and academia.

You can find more details by visiting the website

Welcome to the new Art of Living Austin center

Remember the blog post “Bye bye Lamar center”, in that I had mentioned in the last sentence “its time to translate the learning to a newer and better center”, we the Art of Living family are proud to announce that we have to a large extent (in my eyes) have exceeded that expectation and are almost ready to welcome you all to the new center, got to wait a couple of weeks before it will be officially open for business though. For the impatient few the address is 13091 Pond Springs Road, Suite 208 Austin TX 78729

I think that was a good teaser, now to the actual reality of things. We worked for almost 6 months and churned out 3 different Realtor's before narrowing down to Travis Waldrop who I must say almost miraculously found a space, negotiated a good deal and made us set for the next five years.

What did we gain from this new center? a fair question to ask and here is the list

• 2600 SQFT of open customizable space, mind you even in retail spaces it is not easy to come by. 
• A good retail location, there are advantages to it including extra parking spaces and one contiguous self contained space with better visibility 
• Bigger meditation hall (~300 SQFT bigger than Lamar center) with cross ventilation for fresh air
• Recessed lights in the meditation hall
• A break room/kitchen (no cooking though) with counter tops and cabinets
• Wood laminated floors for the whole center
• 3 independent areas for conducting courses and events
• In terms of sheer square footage we are almost 800 SQFT bigger than Lamar Center
• All the above without substantially increasing our monthly operating expenses

Some of us did visit the under construction center today and were blown away the way it looks. Thanks to some of the volunteers who worked tirelessly in the search and planning phase for the new center. Apart from all the above good things that are coming with the center, it is an achievement to close 1 center and open an another one with only 2 months of non availability. 

February 1st is when we will officially get the keys for the new center and that is when we will be officially open for business. 

My Marma Practitioner Journey...

The Texas US Ashram welcomed me in its usual manner with the chirping of the hill country birds and the cool meditative breeze. Run Singh ji had made his customary concoction of Spinach Dal and Sabji. As I sat there enjoying the perfect setup that nature had created for me, little did I realize that the journey that I was to embark upon was more magical than I had ever imagined. I was at the Texas US Ashram for the mystical “Marma” course to be taught by Mrs. Revathi Veeraraghavan.

Simply put, Marma can be described as an ancient Indian system of healing – similar to acupressure. Putting gentle pressure on different points on the body opens up energy blocks and balances the system. I had taken a treatment many years ago from Sage Houston (who also gave a guest appearance on our course and left us with a lot of useful tips). I had been through a very traumatic car accident and had trouble sleeping through the night. One treatment from Sage was all that it took to get rid of my shock. Since then, I had taken a few marma treatments for general well-being. I had always been intrigued by this method of healing and when I saw that this course was being offered at our Ashram, I was one of the first ones to sign up.

The course itself was a treat. Seriously, what’s not to like about giving and getting treatments to each other every day of the course? In addition, we also learned a lot about Ayurvedic principles such as prakruti (nature), doshas (imbalances), how to tailor the treatment according to body type to name a few. It was a nice blend of learning about Ayurveda and doing hands-on practice. Learning the whole routine was nothing short of a miracle – definitely His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s (Guruji’s) grace in the works!

The teacher – Mrs. Revathi was absolutely amazing! She was a storehouse of knowledge and made sure each and every one of us got the positions and concepts right.  She also made sure we got our physical workouts done for the day (did I forget to mention the late night dance parties?!) Throughout the course, I tried really hard to find that one word that described Mrs. Revathi – Loving? Methodical? Beautiful? Striking? Composed? Mystical? Bright? Gifted? All of the above.

The Marma practitioner journey continues as we all came back to our cities well trained under the able care of Mrs. Revathi to become certified Marma Practitioners. We all promised ourselves to bring Mrs. Revathi to each of the Texas cities in the near future in an attempt to bring more awareness around healthier and happier living (and continue the dance parties)!

About the Marma treatment:

Each Marma session takes about 45 mins (+ 15-30 mins rest) and the introductory suggested donation of $50 goes to the Art of Living.

Wear comfortable clothes (no undressing is required) and no heavy meal within 2hrs of the appointment.

If you are interested in getting a marma treatment, contact:  

Priya Vijayaraghavan | treeshav@gmail.com | 512.968.2863

Uthra Mohan | uthras@gmail.com

Manisha Soni | manisha.soni@artofliving.org

Shveta Sharma | chawla.shveta@gmail.com

Priya Jai | priyajaitv@gmail.com

Vyom Kumar | vksmbox@gmail.com

Service project with Breath of Life Ministries

It is the time of the year to spread happiness and joy and for kids it is the time mystery Santa is going to get gifts. It is sad but true that there is a considerable size of population who cannot afford gifts for their kids during Christmas.

Art of Living Austin volunteers partnered with Breath of Life ministries to help them distribute Christmas gifts to single moms, Below are some of the pics from the event. The volunteers said, the act was powerful at the same time empowering. In their own words cannot describe the happiness on kids faces when they received the gifts.  

On the same note we do partner with other organizations throughout the year and volunteer. If you are interested either in partnering with us or volunteering with us please contact us.  

Outreach co-ordinator nominations

As the chapter announced during the annual thanksgiving dinner back in November 2015, our present outreach co-ordinator has decided to step down. We are in active look out for new coordinator.

If you know someone or you yourself would like to contribute towards the chapters growth, please send your information to email 

If you have questions about the process or want to know more details like who is eligible and what it entails to be the new coordinator please contact email

Support your Art of Living Austin chapter

Dear Patron

The thanksgiving dinner fundraiser was a wonderful homecoming time! A big thanks to all of you for opening up your hearts and wallets to enable this noble pursuit.

Your contributions (as little as $30 per month) go a long way to help us deliver the quality service that a lot us value so much.

While the dinner might be over, the season for giving is not. If you have not done so yet, make your tax deductible donations now, here!

Thank you for enabling us to serve Austin.

Click Here to Donate!

With gratitude
Teachers and Volunteers

Art of Living retreat at the Ashram

Come celebrate Christmas with us at the Art of Living retreat in the Art of Living Ashram, Raegan wells Texas. What awaits you on this retreat is beautiful Texas hill country with plentiful nature around with hiking trails and nature walks and also a fully functioning organic garden.  Weather and nature permitting you may be able to go tubing in the Freo River and enjoy the fall colors. 

Come join us with family and friends in celebrations between December 24-27. On the other highlights we will have a camp fire with singing and dancing on December 25th. Come one, come all, bring your favorite musical instrument, your dancing shoes and most importantly yourself to the Art of Living Ashram and enjoy the serene pristine nature and our hospitality.

Appeal for Chennai flood relief

The South Indian city of Chennai and neighboring coastal regions have been ravaged by Cyclones and torrential rains for the past few weeks and is still continuing. This downpour is the worst that the area has seen in the past 100 years.

Many parts of Chennai have been hit very hard and people have been marooned in their own houses. Thousands of homes have been completely flooded and several areas are without electricity and basic access to food and water. The Chennai airport and train stations have been shutdown and the Indian Military has been deployed for disaster management.

Volunteers from IAHV and The Art of Living Foundation have been actively involved in relief and rescue efforts. Over 200 volunteers are working on the ground and have helped feed over 20,000 people over the last 3 weeks. They have also distributed over 1000 medical kits and are continuing to rescue stranded citizens everyday. Our local volunteers have also been actively supporting the Indian Coast Guard, Fire Department and Rescue Teams with food and logistics as required.

Your contributions towards this relief effort will go a long way towards bringing Chennai back to normalcy.

IAHV is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. All contributions are fully tax-deductible. Please donate generously.

ps:For latest updates and more information click here

pps:IAHV and AOLF have actively responded to natural disasters and other traumatic situations around the globe. In the past, IAHV & Art of Living volunteers offered relief, rehabilitation and trauma relief to the people affected by the natural calamities around the world. To learn more about IAHV's disaster relief program please click here

Bye bye Lamar center

Back in November 2009,  we started our Art of Living center in Austin and fast forward 6 years later and the time has come to say good bye.

Yes we had great run for 6 years which included innumerable weekly follow ups, happiness programs, yoga and meditation programs, knowledge series to name a few along with a few volunteer training sessions, DSN’s and pre-TTC’s.  

As many would know, this was our first effort in maintaining a physical real estate of our own, proud of the fact that we were the first in Texas and amongst the first in nation to have a physical center. The most important one for us was maintaining the finances in order over the last 6 years. Many thanks to all the volunteers for donating and doing donation drives and most importantly to volunteer their spare time in upkeep and maintenance of the center.Yes it is a great achievement.

We did learn a lot from owning and maintaining the center and we have grown leaps and bounds in terms of memberships and the activities we are doing as a chapter. Most of which can be attributed to having a physical space of our own we could use barring the calendar conflicts.  

As with anything long term, we had our ups and downs, I personally like to believe we had more ups than downs. It wouldn’t be fair if I don’t thank our landlord PS business parks with whom we have maintained a very cordial relationship from the beginning to end. 

Now that we have wound up this place, its time to translate the learning to a newer and better center. It is coming and stay tuned for updates on the same.

International Day of Yoga Celebrations in Austin TX

Some came because Narendra Modi, PM of India had called
Some came because Sri Sri Ravishankar called
Some came because it's adventurous
Some came because they were organizing it
Some came because it is probably the one and only event they were looking forward to (for personal reasons)
Some came for they were tasked with documenting the event
Nature said, I can't be left out and it rained and poured before and after the event

Yes, I am talking about the first ever International Day of Yoga celebration at our city Austin, TX. In case you missed it, it happened on Capitol grounds on Sunday June 21st at 10:30AM.

75 odd yogis from Art of Living, Bea Love Yoga and more importantly from Austin showed up to celebrate the very first ever International day of Yoga here at the lawns of the Capitol of Texas.  

We have a saying in Art of Living, “from chaos comes creativity” and this yoga event was no different. On Thursday before the yoga event scheduled for Sunday we were not 100% sure of the logistics and with rain in forecast didn’t have a plan B, to top it off nature wanted to do some rain dance for the event and on Sunday around 10:00am it started raining cats and dogs.  

But, when 70 odd yogis decide to do yoga on the first ever International Day of yoga, nature had to listen and give way for yoga. Come 10:30, the rain turned to drizzle and the lawns started to drain out just enough for us to get on with the yoga. The parking was free and plenty (I guess the rain turned some visitors away) and all other finer logistics, didn’t really matter. Can you imagine the state senator joining us at the yoga event.

The yoga was beautifully led by 3 senior yoga teachers from Bea Love Yoga. I have full respect and regards for Bea Love for if there was 1 person who was 100% sure they will be doing yoga that day, I would say it would be her. Once the yoga started, the event moved on with clinical precision, the teachers taking turns to lead the yoga and before we knew it was time to do the chanting of om and final resting. At which precise time, nature decided to join the party and started to drizzle and it poured again.

Later the party was moved indoors where folks from our own Art of Living band filled the rotunda with ancient chants and hymns.

It wouldn't be fair if I don't speak about the precursor to this event, it was called the sun never sets yoga which happened a week ago Saturday as a gearing up event for the international day of yoga, around 20 odd yogis gathered on the banks of town lake in the morning at 7:00AM and an hour long yoga was lead by our own graduate yogi Ritesh Seth.

All in all, a grand successful event for the Art of Living Austin. Kudos to the team for pulling this off in a very successful manner in true Art of Living style.

ps: yes, picture speaks 1000 words and yes I will be posting them soon 

pps: here are the pics

The tendency of mind is ....

Back in December, one of the parents from my daughter's playschool started the initiative about kids soccer. They said they were enrolling their kid to soccer camp starting in April, a 8 week camp played one weekend every week, they suggested if all kids could join in it would be lot of fun. We all got excited with the idea and jumped on it right away. Majority of the kids in the class enrolled with the camp.

Since we were all enrolling we requested all the kids to be together in the same team. The wonderful folks at the camp people honored our request and even better some of the dads became the coaches for the team. Keep in mind the whole idea behind was to let kids have fun outside school and some socializing for us too. The kids are truly having fun, specially since the soccer practice ends with donuts and drinks (snacks provided by different parent each week).

It's been 5 weeks, the kids are enjoying the games and having fun. I would definitely say, they have been improving every week, but our team hasn't won a single match. To put it bluntly we get our butts kicked by the opposing team. We would be lucky if our team makes 1 or 2 goals in the process and we don’t self goal during the match.

I think the reason is simple, each team that we have played against so far has 2 to 3 kids who are much older than the kids in our team and also have played multiple years of soccer. If only we hadn’t made the request during enrollment, may be our team would have gotten couple of older kids too and we would be tough competitor too but if that had happened it no longer would have been team “Kangaroos”, would it be?.

Now, the real point of this blog post, I realized I am going away from the original intent of the whole exercise "having fun" and getting to the mode of winning and analyzing why our team isn't doing as good as others.

I think this is called awareness which my good friends were trying to drill into me a decade ago. Of course life is such "aha" moments and that's what makes it fun.The secret is simple, to breath, want more information visit artoflivingaustin.org

Relevance of Yoga in Modern Life

What is the relevance of yoga in modern life?  First off, what is yoga?  What is the meaning of modern life?

Yoga comes from the ancient Sanskrit word Yuj, which simply means union / to join.  Yoga ultimately means uniting the mind, body, breath, and spirit…and for modern life, I would add to that statement, “in the present moment.”  At a much deeper level, which may not be applicable here in this modern worldly life, yoga gives us the realization of truth, or the ultimate reality of consciousness and non-duality.  We are so often caught up in the duality of life seeing nearly everything as separate from us.  This keeps us chasing after material worldly desires, things, people, pleasures, status, and other “things” that ultimately keep us away from waking up to the reality, to our own self, to the realization of the belongingness, to the dharma or purpose of why we are actually here on this planet.  If we deeply realize our dharma or purpose in life, then a much larger view of the universe opens up to us; but let’s keep with the inquiry regarding yoga in modern life.

What is modern life?  Modern life, or the worldly life we live, often involves raising children, focusing on our career, managing a home, filling that home, and keeping our relationships going.  Modern life often also involves many hours in front of electronics like cell phones, sitting in front of a computer (which I am doing now) and the TV.  One of the most significant aspects of modern life is the feeling of multi-tasking and being very busy…always prioritizing what to do and when to do it.  We spend so much time worrying about the future or dwelling on the past.  We are rarely in the present moment.  That’s where Yoga comes in.

There are many aspects of yoga.  There are also many different levels of utilizing yoga.  One who fully dwells in yoga could be called a Yogi.  One who also manages both the worldly life, but with non-attachment and contentment might also be called a Yogi.  So both possibilities exist.  The key here is utilizing the breath and being present to each and every moment.  This present-mindedness while being established in the self is the ultimate formula for yoga in modern life.  I would also argue that the simple journey of becoming present to each moment and taking care of your mind, body, breath, and spirit can all be tools to integrating yoga in modern life. 

There are several ways to incorporate the yogic sciences into your modern daily life.  Some broad ways to incorporate yoga into modern life include paying attention to what we eat, how much we sleep, how we breathe, and being more aware of our thoughts, words, and actions.  The major yogic techniques also include satkarmas, asanas, kriya, pranayamas, and meditation.  Through lifestyle changes, one can realize a happy and fulfilling modern lifestyle while still being in the world.

Even 20 to 30 minutes a day of yoga practices combined with conscious choices like getting six to eight hours of sleep each night, keeping the mind in a calm and meditative state of awareness, keeping a healthy and sattvic vegetarian diet while drinking plenty of water, and helping others through selfless service, can have a tremendous impact on our ability to live a happy and fulfilling modern life.

A Month at the Bangalore Ashram

A Month at the Bangalore Ashram

Just back from a little over a month at the Bangalore Ashram…I had an amazing time and can’t wait to hopefully go back this Fall.  I received Darshan from Gurudev three times.  Simply amazing.

I arrived on January 29^th and started doing my Netra eye treatments at the Panchakarma Spa and Resort (http://www.srisripanchakarma.org) right next to the Bangalore Ashram.  After just 12 days, my eye sight prescription improved by 1 point.  I went from a -3.5 to a -2.5 power.  The eye doctor there thought I was too old to see any improvement and was so happy when I improved by a point.  The eye treatments and exercises coupled with the Ayurveda café are a treat.  The 12 day treatment was like a vacation.   Seeing Gurudev many evenings at Satsang was a gift.

After one week at Panchakarma, I shifted to the Ashram housing and stayed with 3 roommates including a senior teacher from Argentina.  I feel lucky to have met Ishmael from Argentina.  During this time, I finished up the balance of my 12 day treatments and did Seva in the kitchen.  I loved serving dinner in the kitchen and had the chance to serve some of our North America senior teachers including Pierre, Rajshree Didi, Michael Fischman, and the Frasers.

In early February, I was able to attend the evening events during the International Womens Conference (http://iwc.artofliving.org/).  The events were over the top and I felt like I was at Navratri again.  The conference hosts went all out and had really impressive performances, dinners, speakers, singers, flyers, and décor.  The Womens Conference was so well organized and so well decorated that I felt so proud to be a part of the Art of Living.  I hope many of the women I know will attend next year!

After Panchakarma, I checked into the Sri Sri Ayurveda Hospital (http://www.sscasrh.org/sri-sri-ayurveda-college/ - great video with Gurudev) for 5 days.  I had 4 full days of Ayurvedic treatments to alleviate my back pain.  The physiotherapist there, for the first time in months after many different doctors, accurately diagnosed me with postural scoliosis.  He laid out a plan with exercises to alleviate the postural scoliosis within 6 months.  I was so impressed with the Ayurvedic doctors and staff at the hospital that I setup a meeting with the hospital HOD (Head Of Department).  I am hoping to sponsor some updates to the meditation hall at the hospital.  For the first time in almost a year, my back spasm is completely gone.  The full body in-patient Abhyanga massage, other hot oil Ayurveda back treatments, and daily exercises healed my aching spine.

I had a day to spare and signed up for the Eternity process.  The process is too sacred to share / comment on, but I hope everyone gets the chance to do this lifetimes opening process.  We get to the Eternity process only three times in one lifetime. 

I then convinced my cousin-nephew to join me on an Art of Living Yes+ residential course at the Ashram.  Here’s where is gets GREAT.  The Yes+ teacher let me partly co-teach the course and I led the first Long Kriya process, wrap-up, some knowledge points, and the paper plate process.  I had such a blast and felt like a dream came true that weekend.  I made some great young friends and will hopefully get my other nephew to do Yes+ in the US later this year.  Our Yes+ students had Darshan with Gurudev and I got the chance to give Gurudev my new wooden business card and ask Gurudev to bless my nephew for his university studies in the US.

Next up, I checked in for the Shivatri AMC (Advanced Meditation Course) – Silence Course with Gurudev.  The silence was ok, but seeing Gurudev and doing one to two daily guided meditations with Gurudev everyday was GREAT.  On Shivatri day, after evening Puja (my first Shivatri Sankalpa), Gurudev gave everyone that was at the Ashram Darshan from midnight until 2:30am..I remember reading about how Mikey stayed up all night for Shivatri in Stumbling into Infinity and Gurudev even mentioned the tradition during Satsang.  So I stayed up all night doing seva, meditations and Kriya.  At 5am, we had a Puja and I took my 2^nd Sankalpa during the Puja.  By 8am or so, I was exhausted and hit the sack! J

The last two days of the Shivatri AMC, we did Shakti Kriya and the experience was once again very powerful.  I could barely sleep the 2^nd night and had to rest and skip the afternoon sessions of the silence course.

We finally ended the last evening of March 3^rd with the remaining 2/3 or so of our Silence course getting Darshan with Gurudev in the Vishalakshi Mantap (VM) building (http://www.artofliving.org/bangalore-ashram/vishalakshi-mantap).

I feel so lucky to have met some of our TTC classmates at the Bangalore Ashram during the stay there.  I hope we can all meet in Bangalore for Navratri or Shivatri. 

Feeling grateful and blessed beyond words…

Love & Jai Guru Dev,

Ritesh Sheth