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Spellbinding pictures of Guru Purnima Celebration 2014 has been uploaded exclusively for you on Art of Living Universe Website!

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An Interview with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

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Recently I had the honor to talk to one of India's most respected teachers Sri Sri Ravi Shankar while he was visiting the Art of Living Retreat Center in Boone, North Carolina. His mission and work has spread around the world as he offers yoga and meditation for a stress free world of peace. I wanted to ask him why silence was so central to his teachings. He said, "In silence we get back our energy which is lost in the outer world. In being so busy in daily life, we do not see the center core of who we are. We are more then our five senses. It is important to go to the source of our being, beyond the mind, beyond emotion."

I explained that in the West, people have difficulty going into silence. He agreed, saying "mental busy-ness is contagious". I pointed out that there are few teachers like him that embody silence. When his students sit with him, they can feel for themselves his presence. His inner silence is contagious and this is a support to find the presence of silence within the students. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said,"People can find this silence on their own through breathing exercises and yoga. They find silence as they slow down. It is important to find silence if they want to find themselves."

I asked him to explain further and he said, "There are actually three kinds of silence.
First is the silence of no talking. This is very beneficial for people just to be aware of what they are saying and how much energy they spend talking. Second is the silence of stillness. This is the silence inside of us that is detached from the noise in the world. This inner stillness is very important if we want to understand and grow as a spiritual person. Inner silence frees us from the noise of the world. And thirdly, there is the silence of oneness, oneness with the entire universe. This is the course silence takes inside of us. Oneness is the goal of silent practice."

I then asked how does one stay in this silence of oneness and he responded, "It is practice. Retreats and then longer retreats and soon this oneness is always present no matter what is going on in the world around us. As we find this silence of oneness we also find patience, blissfulness, contentment, and very important, we find our creativity. Silence opens the place inside of us of creativity.

Then he shared how he offers these courses in silence to veterans of wars and how upon finding the silence of oneness, their emotional wounds were healed. "After a few brief sessions," he said," they were much better."

Then I asked, what the process looks like as we go further into silence. He said, "As we go deeper in silence there is deeper contentment. Oneness is Godliness. There is no God separate from this. The questions we have are answered in this place of silence and oneness."

My time with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar was brief but in these minutes, I could feel his pure silence & joy. He is speaking, simply, directly, true words for a noisy world. His teaching is true words for the noisy world inside of us. He offers the Art of Silence Course at the International Meditation Center in Boone, North Carolina. Although I have no relationship with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and have never attended his retreats or been part of his organization, meeting him briefly I was reminded of the best of India and Hindu teachers. They follow a long tradition of skills and understanding developed many centuries ago which are as relevant as ever to our modern era. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is famous for his commitment to silence and his joy. Talking to him it was clear how they come together. Finding the grand oneness inside of him there was an obvious joy in his speech, his being, his abundant presence.

Source: Huffington Post

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Sri Sri Ravi Shankar holds peace talks with Iraqi religious leaders

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At the ‘Art of Living Retreat’ at the scenic Blue Ridge Mountain in North Carolina, Ravi Shankar met two Iraqi Shia leaders.

Deeply perturbed by the ethnic violence in Iraq, Indian spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has met senior Iraqi religious leaders in the US and said that dialogue is the only way to establish long-term peace in the war-torn country.

At the ‘Art of Living Retreat’ at the scenic Blue Ridge Mountain in North Carolina, Ravi Shankar met two Iraqi Shia leaders.

He has plans to hold talks with Iraqi Sunni leaders too, initially through Skype and will travel to Europe next week to continue the dialogue process as part of his effort to impress upon Iraqi religious leaders to convince their followers against violence to achieve their goal.

“The way the killings are happening there (in Iraq), we are trying to push for the last chance...if there is any chance to bring them (Iraqi religious leaders) to negotiating table and have a dialogue,” Ravi Shankar said.

“Keeping that in mind, we are making all our effort to make a dialogue between the warring factions,” Ravi Shankar said after the initial round of talks with Iraqi religious leaders at Bonn city of North Carolina.

“Religious leaders have a big role to play here. They can give orders to their followers to stop violence. Peace can’t just happen only with the politician. It has to come from the ground level. The trust needs to be rebuild upon and the religious leaders should come together,” the Indian spiritual leader said, adding that he has also spoken to Indian Muslim religious leaders in this regard.

“Start the dialogue and put an end to the ongoing violence,” he said with Iraqi religious leaders standing by his side at the Art of Living Retreat.

Participating in the peace dialogue, Sayyed Mohammed Al Attar, a Shia leader, said that Shias of Iraq want peace and live in harmony with the Sunnis in the country and sought the help of Ravi Shankar in brining all the religious leaders of the country on a table for a peace dialogue.

“This is a great peace mission (by Shankar),” he said.

The Bonne dialogue was also attended by Sheikh Mustafa Akhnoud of the Imam Ali Centre in Virginia.

Al-Attar said that the Sunnis in Iraq have adequate representation in the government and the political set up.

But they want full control over power, which they can get only through democratic means and not through violence and ethnic cleansing, which is currently being attempted by the leaders of the Islamic militants.

“It (situation in the country) would be worse, if they (religious leaders) do not start the dialogue,” Al—Attar said.

“The situation could be even worse without a dialogue. It is high time to initiate dialogue. So we being very neutral between both the parties, I thought we could play a role and god willing hope to get some success,” said Ravi Shankar.

The Art of Living Foundation has quite a few centres in Iraq with about a hundred of its teachers working inside the country.

Source: The Hindu

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