March 2015

In an era where our lives can seem so frenetic and caught up in making a living, the fact that the volunteers of the Art of Living find the time and inspiration to support initiatives inspired by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar to make the world a better place can be a lesson for corporations on how to bring out the best in their people.

Everywhere he goes, he mobilises volunteers to take up projects of differing magnitude. Whether it be trauma relief in disaster hit areas or education in rural hinterlands or peace missions in terrorism ridden zones or stress relief in the our urban time-poor lives we lead, volunteers inspired by him take these tasks on with enthusiasm and skill, constantly expanding their spheres of responsibilities. The World Culture Festival in Delhi in March 2016 was a lesson in project management that organisations would do well to study and learn from. How an event – that involved hundreds of countries, thousands of dignitaries, millions of delegates and man-made challenges created at the eleventh hour by vested interests – could be pulled of in such a short time and with such success is difficult to even fathom.

World leaders and politicians reach out to him on policy issues, as do simple folk on their day to day problems. And in the midst of all this he can be seen smiling always, having the time to make small conversation with people around him and connect with every individual who wants to meet him at a personal level. He is a perfect example of how total responsibility and light-heartedness can go hand in hand. Something for us to ponder and emulate at least a small fraction of.