Mahasatsang at Orrisa, 22 November 2011
Satsang means the uniting of hearts with hearts, communicating through the heart. All these formalities are only on the surface but your meeting with your Self is satsang.
This year the Art of Living has completed thirty years.
I remember thirty one years ago, one year before the Art of Living started, I had come here to Bhuvaneshvar. Bhuvaneshvar was a very small city at that time. There was only one street. There weren't as many houses then.
I stayed for a month in a house on the road that went to Puri. There I used to be in silence throughout the day and in the evenings I used to meet with people. Many learned people used to come and visit me from Puri, and we used to have discussions. Many people wanted that I should be appointed to the post of Shankaracharya of Puri but I did not want it at all.
When I visited the Puri Shankar mutt, it was mismanaged and run-down. Swami Niranjananand Saraswati has managed it extremely well now. But back then, thirty years ago the mutt was in a very bad condition. Many people wanted and tried to get me to take it over. But in my heart I felt that I had come here to do something else. Something else was yet to come.
So in the last thirty years, Art of Living has spread to 151 countries in the world. If you go to the last city of the Arctic pole, Tromsø (Norway), you will find people practicing pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and chanting ‘Om Namah Shivaya’. If you go to the southernmost city of the Southern hemisphere, Tierra del Fuego in Argentina, there also you will find Art of Living.
I myself was surprised, when we went to Tierra del Fuego; one thousand people were sitting in the hall singing bhajans, doing pranayama and satsang. I said, 'wow, so it has reached this far!'
There is an old saying, ‘Swadeshe pujyate raja, vidwan sarvatra pujyate’. A king is honored only in his own country, but one who is learned is honored throughout the world.
And who is learned? Not one who has only read books, but a learned person is one who has applied this knowledge to his life.
And with this goal in mind, our University has been started.
Our main goal will be not to turn out individuals with only knowledge from the books, but learned individuals who have implemented this knowledge in their lives. In whose life there is joy, happiness and creativity - a personality that would win wherever he or she goes. Such a personality has to be developed and this is the objective of our university.Taking the very best from the West and the best from the East and combining it to make an effective educational system - this is my desire. So a combination of science and wisdom; just one will not do.
In science alone, the entire western world has remained incomplete. People are so unhappy. In spite of so much scientific progress they are facing such economic degeneration and are so heavily in debt. 30-40% of the population is suffering from mental diseases and problems.
So our country should adopt the good things from there like their science. Their deficiency is because our knowledge is not there. So we should given them the knowledge from the East and incorporate the knowledge of sciences from the West in our country. Then we can be complete as individuals.
This is the reason why I want this university to strengthen individuals through both self-knowledge as well as science.
Since ages Anga, Vanga, Kalinga were renowned for education. In India, one used to go for education to Anga, Vanga, Kalinga, but now for some time Kalinga has fallen behind.
It is now time to come forward once again and for this work all of you will have to get involved. Everyone will have to participate and it is my desire that we should bring 100% literacy to Orissa and for this we all have to work.
Read more at Wisdom from Sri Sri
© The Art of Living Foundation
Satsang means the uniting of hearts with hearts, communicating through the heart. All these formalities are only on the surface but your meeting with your Self is satsang.
This year the Art of Living has completed thirty years.
I remember thirty one years ago, one year before the Art of Living started, I had come here to Bhuvaneshvar. Bhuvaneshvar was a very small city at that time. There was only one street. There weren't as many houses then.
I stayed for a month in a house on the road that went to Puri. There I used to be in silence throughout the day and in the evenings I used to meet with people. Many learned people used to come and visit me from Puri, and we used to have discussions. Many people wanted that I should be appointed to the post of Shankaracharya of Puri but I did not want it at all.
When I visited the Puri Shankar mutt, it was mismanaged and run-down. Swami Niranjananand Saraswati has managed it extremely well now. But back then, thirty years ago the mutt was in a very bad condition. Many people wanted and tried to get me to take it over. But in my heart I felt that I had come here to do something else. Something else was yet to come.
So in the last thirty years, Art of Living has spread to 151 countries in the world. If you go to the last city of the Arctic pole, Tromsø (Norway), you will find people practicing pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and chanting ‘Om Namah Shivaya’. If you go to the southernmost city of the Southern hemisphere, Tierra del Fuego in Argentina, there also you will find Art of Living.
I myself was surprised, when we went to Tierra del Fuego; one thousand people were sitting in the hall singing bhajans, doing pranayama and satsang. I said, 'wow, so it has reached this far!'
There is an old saying, ‘Swadeshe pujyate raja, vidwan sarvatra pujyate’. A king is honored only in his own country, but one who is learned is honored throughout the world.
And who is learned? Not one who has only read books, but a learned person is one who has applied this knowledge to his life.
And with this goal in mind, our University has been started.
Our main goal will be not to turn out individuals with only knowledge from the books, but learned individuals who have implemented this knowledge in their lives. In whose life there is joy, happiness and creativity - a personality that would win wherever he or she goes. Such a personality has to be developed and this is the objective of our university.Taking the very best from the West and the best from the East and combining it to make an effective educational system - this is my desire. So a combination of science and wisdom; just one will not do.
In science alone, the entire western world has remained incomplete. People are so unhappy. In spite of so much scientific progress they are facing such economic degeneration and are so heavily in debt. 30-40% of the population is suffering from mental diseases and problems.
So our country should adopt the good things from there like their science. Their deficiency is because our knowledge is not there. So we should given them the knowledge from the East and incorporate the knowledge of sciences from the West in our country. Then we can be complete as individuals.
This is the reason why I want this university to strengthen individuals through both self-knowledge as well as science.
Since ages Anga, Vanga, Kalinga were renowned for education. In India, one used to go for education to Anga, Vanga, Kalinga, but now for some time Kalinga has fallen behind.
It is now time to come forward once again and for this work all of you will have to get involved. Everyone will have to participate and it is my desire that we should bring 100% literacy to Orissa and for this we all have to work.
Read more at Wisdom from Sri Sri
© The Art of Living Foundation
