The Art of living & my association, work

Motivation behind social and community services is the sense of responsibility and satisfaction I get while giving back some time, and helping society to which I owe my being.

The Art of Living foundation is a non-profit, volunteer based organization founded by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. It has regional centres in more than 140 countries and is one of the UN's largest volunteer-based NGOs. It works in special consultative status with the UN. Since 2004 I have been a regular volunteer for the Art of living activities in the cities I have lived in.

Art of living happened to me. I met, rather saw, Guruji (Sri Sri) in 2003 Feb. But didn’t do the course till Nov 2004, why? Because, I met Guruji as well as Nitin Bhaiya because of a person who told me this about Nitin Bhaiya – If I too take 4-6 years from my life and do something like this I would also become like him. That was a deterrent, because I believed in his statements.

Then why this change after 7 quarter years? My sister who was on a temporary duty at Kolkata called me in Sept 04 saying, rather was forcing me, to do the art of living course. She was new to the art of living and she happened to reach there through some of the Osho’s book shop, strange! She did part I and II courses there only and asked me to register. I did that with little bit of hesitation. Post my course I took my parents to do the course and thus we associated with the art of living.

Effectively, my sister is the reason for my being into the art of living, and I grew over the deterrent statement made earlier.

Now, I am an art of living devotee, whenever I get time I do some or the other seva. I have been involved largely in the following:

Organizing and supporting programs – The Art of Living conducts several self-development and stress elimination

Mission Green Earth Stand Up and Take Action initiative –

In the year 2001 UN member states adopted the Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

The MDGs aim to spur development by improving social, environmental and economic conditions across the globe. The Mission Green Earth initiative is one of the goals amongst MDGs.

For supporting this initiative, we built teams, organized initial meetings and trained the teams on the proceedings. I was part of one team. We met schools and communities informing them about the program and suggesting them the actions. We organized "Stand Up and Take Action" initiative wherein we informed the participants about the environmental sustainability, distributed seeds for plantations, besides the administrative documentation.

Fund raising for various social activities – The Art of Living is involved in many social welfare activities such as Community empowerment, Prisoner Rehabilitation, and Education etc. By organizing different activities volunteers arrange for the donations and these donations are used for different social activities.

Recently, I am raising fund from individuals for the tribal and rural school developments.

Art of Living activities have been a learning experience for me. I have realized that somewhere we all are closely related (lesson of ‘dependent co-arising’ of the Buddha). Since I grew up in a small town I realized the need for helping rural and under privileged people and communities the Art of Living has given me the opportunity to do that. In all these initiatives I have played the roles of team member as well as leader.

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