The world culture festival

Art of Living celebrated its 30th anniversary in the form of world culture festival on 2nd and 3rd of July 2011. Here is a short video of the celebrations.

Also, checkout what Austin's own Anoop Iyer had to say about the memorable event.

Sri Sri Ravishankar interviewed on Tehelka

Sri Sri Ravishankar, the founder of Art of Living foundation and a humanitarian of the highest order. Recently he was interviewed by Tehelka, a leading independent weekly news magazine in connection with the on going stir in India against corruption.

The interview is worth a read for the balanced and wise answers he has given to the journalist asking questions. My favorite is the last one, “Will you ever join active politics?”,

 

Here is a link for the interview.   

Knowledge snippets from Texas Ashram

Yesterday was Rama-Navami and guruji gave a beautiful perspective for Ramayana.

Rama stands for light/shine inside us (or as Rajima puts it that which is shining in us is Rama)

Dasharatha is Rama’s father, the name means lord of ten chariots. We with our 5 external senses of 5 senses of perception form the Dasharatha

Kausalya is Rama’s mother, the name means skill (which can be attained by purifying, I will get to this later)

Hanuman is the breath

Sita is the mind

Ravana means the one who does not listen to anybody, he comes up with 10 different types of logic to prove he is right (stands for his ten head). He stands for Ego

So, if we look at the story of Ramayana in a nut shell, we (Dasharatha) with the skill (Kausalya) can give rise to the light (Rama) in us and this light with the help of breath (Hanuman) will rescue the mind (Sita) from the ego (Ravana)

Now the skill, the skill can be attained by act of purification, here are things we can do to become pure.

Seva – Purifies the action, self less action

Satsang – Purifies the mind

Sadhana – Purifies the thought/memory, he mentioned pranayamas, Kriya and meditation

Knowledge – Purifies the intellect, Ashtavakra Gita, Bhakti Sutras, Bhagavatam, Yoga Vasishta and so on

Charity – Purifies the money, guruji said at a minimum 1% of our money should be donated to charity

Fasting – Purifies the body, guruji said to listen to the body and fast 1 or 2 days every six months.

He also spoke about calm with in and action outside and not the other way.

ps: I may have Satsang, Sadhana and Knowledge jumbled, it doesn’t matter just do it all.      

Guruji in Hartford

(Crossposted from Anoop's blog)

We are in Hartford, Connecticut. Guru Poornima celebrations are in full swing. A few hundred people are now in silence, in the Art of Silence course. Guruji is here.

Here is my transcript of what Guruji said in satsang yesterday... starting with:

Look around and see who is not smiling... Now for the next few days, you take care of them.