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Published on December 4, 2007

 Sri Sri Ravi Shankar established the Art of Living Foundation in 1981 with the aim of formulating and implementing lasting solutions to conflicts and issues faced by individuals, communities and nations. Since then, interest in his teaching has spread: the foundation is now one of the largest volunteer-based organisations in the world, running activities in 140 countries.

The Art of Living Bangkok chapter was established over two years ago. So far its activities have included mind/body harmonisation breathing courses for inmates at Bangkok's Bangkwang Prison as well as the residents of the Fatima Home for underprivileged women. Its volunteers also make regular visits to the Pakkred Baby Home to help out.    

At the core of the organisation's mission is the spiritual teaching it delivers to the public. Recently, Swami Sadhyojatah, one of the leading teachers at the Art of Living Foundation in Bangalore, travelled to Bangkok to spread the message. He kindly agreed to talk to The Nation about his work as a spiritual teacher.

"It started 14 years ago after a meeting with his holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar that changed my life completely," he begins.

Sadhyojatah, from an aristocratic Indian family, went by the title of Prince Raghu Raj then, and was studying engineering at university. His main interest at the time was with Marxism, he recalls  with a smile.

"My spiritual awareness was born with that meeting with the master," he says.

Having sat and listened to the teaching, he got up to discover an unfamiliar feeling. "It was a joy that I'd never experienced before."

"I hadn't arrived with deep troubles or suffering like many who turn to spirituality for succour. At the time I was just a university student who'd never experienced failure in life. But nevertheless, the teaching brought a kind of happiness that was new to me."

As a result, he decided to devote himself to the Art of Living Foundation, and since 1993 has worked at its headquarters in Bangalore, determined to find ways of sharing with others the joy its founder had brought to him.

Once the director of the Sri Sri College of Ayurvedic Science and Research, these days Sadyojathah travels to countries around the world, spreading the message of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar through meditation courses and lectures on spirituality.

Three years ago he travelled to Barcelona, Spain, to address an international conference of world religions.

In November this year he arrived in Southeast Asia for a visit that will include trips to Singapore and Malaysia.

Sadyojathah's explanation of his work is simple yet powerful:

"The technique we teach is very natural - how to handle the mind using only your own breath."

At a public talk last month in Bangkok, he explained that the practice of this technique was all that anyone needed.

"It's not about sitting and meditating for an hour or two a day - people just don't have the time. It's a deep, 10-to-15 minute rest in the mind, more restful than sleeping, more dynamic too," he says.

Stress, he has realised, is not something suffered only by those with life-threatening problems; it is universal, afflicting those who consider they lead perfectly normal lives.

"People don't need to be doing anything for stress to arise, it just comes up naturally as our thought processes run along. So our teaching is to bring the mind back to the present moment.

"Breathing is the same thing for everyone - it's a universal experience," says Sadyojathah. He teaches "Sudarshan Kriya", the name given to the rhythmic breathing technique said to have been revealed to Sri Sri Ravi Shankar 25 years ago.

Those who practise Sudarshan Kriya, according to Sadyojathah, will find that it brings tranquillity to the mind which in turn produces chemical messengers that travel from the nervous system to the immune system, resulting in an overall feeling of harmony in both body and mind.

For us, meditation is the relaxation of the mind - the opposite of concentration, Sadyojathah explains. "As such, it's possible to meditate even surrounded by disturbance, say, on a bus or a train. It is all about finding your own harmony with natural rhythms. If we can restore the harmony, our minds will relax." Sadyojathah acknowledges that there are different forms of meditation; what's important is that "people meditate everyday, as it's food for the soul".

It is vital to emphasis, he says, that the quality of our life depends upon the quality of our mind; and the breath is the secret key to both. 

Vipasai Niyamabha

 The Nation