Given the enormous power Sri Sri Ravi Shankar had over many Indian ppl, he did not display the radical courage needed to change the set ways Indians think about menial work and cleaning which is so deeply tied to purity, class and caste. It was a huge opportunity, wasted.

I'll give an example.

When I did my first TTC1 in Canadian ashram, my TTC teacher, Michael Fischman had us cleaning the public restrooms in the ashram as our seva. When one person said 'I am from IIT, I don't need to do this', he was solely tasked with cleaning the men's restroom every single day. Now, Michael Fischman is a despicable person (my personal opinion) in many ways, but this was a truly admirable thing to do.

I came home overawed at the goodness in AOL, it has long been a problem with Indian society that 'educated' ppl refused to do menial work like cleaning restrooms. I was so happy AOL was busting those boundaries.

But then I went to India, and guess what I saw.

Indian course participants never had to clean Bangalore ashram restrooms as their seva. There was a separate cleaning staff.

What a huge opportunity Art of Living and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar wasted, to educate and reform Indian society.

The boundaries they spoke abt busting in DSN and TTC, should have been these boundaries. Instead they mindlessly indulged in more marketing of courses, more pyramid schemes and more fundraising.

A chance at greatness.... lost.

I want to make an app called Main Hoon Na. It will be a social media/ networking app for those who want to volunteer their time for clean up in India. Ppl can log their cleanups, or schedule cleanups, that other ppl can respond to and join in. They can post before and after pictures. This includes small solo cleanups as well, so that we don't always have to wait for other ppl to join in before we start taking action.

But it will help create a sense of community for those who volunteer their time to clean up so that they feel supported and encouraged.

I honestly believe that the only way to change things is by giving our own time and energy. I was really inspired by this Irish guy who came to Jaipur, fell in love with the ancient wells and dedicated his life to cleaning them. https://www.instagram.com/p/DaSmKs8tsC3/?hl=en

Pls give your feedback, is this something you would like to use?

When I was involved with Art of Living a few years back, enormous amounts of money would be raised in programs like TTC (Teacher training ) in the USA, with no accountability and no explanation as to where the money would be going. (Except for saying that 'Gurudev' himself would decide how this donation was to be used - that was supposed to settle all questions)

For example, the TTC fees were $5000, for a 2-3 week program. Additionally, during TTC, participants would spend all their time on registering ppl for AOL programs, and a fund-raising project.

The TTC that I attended, I would say that I saw many ppl give $3000, and this was matched in many cases by the companies they worked for. So now, in a course of 150 ppl, you can do the math as to how much money was raised in just 2 weeks, for a cause which participants were not even informed about.

Additionally, volunteers who worked for companies like Microsoft could enter their volunteer hours, and Microsoft would donate $20 to AOL for each volunteer hour. So if an Microsoft employee who was also an AOL teacher spent 15 hrs a week organising and teaching the course, AOL would get $300, apart from course fees. Given that several ppl would spent enormous amts of time volunteering for AOL, the dollars added up pretty fast.

Some provisions that I like in FCRA are:

-Funds should go into only those projects that they are collected for. eg, AOL cannot collect funds for Care for children, and then redirect those funds somewhere else. While "purpose diversion" was always banned on paper, the pre-2026 system suffered from weak regulatory tracking, making it easier for large NGOs to mingle general donor pools. The 2026 framework eliminates this flexibility entirely by introducing:

• Mandatory Project-Wise Reporting: AOL must now map out exact activity-wise utilization in their annual returns, explicitly proving that money meant for free schools went specifically to those schools.
• Ultimate Donor Disclosures: Every single international micro-donation or dollar-a-day child sponsorship must be explicitly traceable from the point of origin straight to the end project.

- Annual returns must now explicitly disclose project-wise spending, activity-wise utilization, the identities of ultimate foreign donors, and verified links to the organization's official websites and social media accounts.

- Blanket, nationwide approvals for foreign funding will no longer be valid. The organization will have to register and log the exact activities and the specific States/UTs where incoming foreign funds are intended to be deployed

- The management and trustees can be held personally liable for regulatory non-compliance or accounting errors.

Given the discrepencies I have observed in AOL and its fundraising, I think FCRA would be excellent for strengthening accountability and transperency.

Is that even a sub for brown women?

I know another brown woman who got banned for the same reason and her comments deleted.

Is that sub actually being run by brown women, or by someone else?

Whether we like it or not, Indian kids in school do face casual racism eg

-Indians eat with their hands

-Indians poop outside

-Making fun of the accent etc

What do folks do to educate children abt these stereotypes?

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cq634oFg7Jd/?hl=en

Translation :

We left the "Art of Living" cult and are freer and more awakened than ever. This live video tells how we, four women who were victims of systematic abuse within Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's worldwide organization, managed to free ourselves from that prison without bars.

On April 9, 2022, after being manipulated by Ravi Shankar (self-proclaimed Guru of Peace) to prevent us from revealing the sexual abuse perpetrated by his right-hand man, Swami Paramtej, we outraged and LEFT THE CULT. We're here to tell you how it happened, the secrets of this INTERNATIONAL NGO, and that it is possible to be very happy without following any Guru on the spiritual path ❤️
Thanks to   u/lunacordobav
We recommend watching "The Luckiest Girl on Earth" starring Mila Kunis on Netflix, and also the documentary "Wild Wild Country," especially if you are in an institution that claims to be spiritual and is led by a Master or Mistress.


(To find out how the sexual abuse occurred and to see the video of the Zoom meeting with Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar where he incriminates himself, please see my highlights "ART OF LIVING")

Anyone remembers this?

Sri Sri's 'mediation' effort in Kashmir which led to him 'hugging' Yasin Malik?

Now Yasin Malik has been charged as the prime accused in the murder and rape of Sarla Bhat.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/raped-killed-branded-an-informant-yasin-malik-is-key-accused-as-sarla-bhats-case-reaches-court-after-36-years-101782732359854.html

I wonder how Sri Sri's much-lauded intuition and enlightenment did not tell him that he was actually hugging a rapist and murderer?

I flew in to the USA from London last month in a flight which had several elderly Indian parents in it. . There were fumes in the aircraft's back cabin bcos of an equipment malfunction while we were over the Atlantic and the flight turned back and landed in Scotland where we were stuck for a day until the plane was repaired.

Many people probably did not understand what was happening when the announcement was made. We were given strict instructions to stay in our seat, and follow emergency protocols, but many Indian older ppl were repeatedly walking down the aisle.

The air hostesses were extremely frightened and stressed and were screaming at them to be seated, but they did not seem to get it. Some ppl had language issue, they were not able to understand English, that may have been the reason why.

But this just added to the overall panic.

The flight did land safely, but I felt it is extremely important for us to make sure that our parents have a travelling companion when they fly esp when they r very elderly or have issues with understanding English. A lot of elderly ppl had a very hard time, and that was difficult to see.

In some cases though, the refusal to follow directions even in an emergency seemed like it came from a lack of caring instead of a misunderstanding.

After landing in Scotland, while we were standing in line for our hotel, a non-indian person who was using 2 crutches to walk, stood with us in line. I and a couple other Indian women entreated him to go to the front of the line, bcos we could see he would be in pain after standing for so long. But he refused, saying ppl ahead of him would get angry.

Now contrast this with the Indian aunty-uncle, who did not hesitate to jump the line while boarding the aircraft from Scotland to the USA, even thought they were in perfectly fine physical condition.

This post was deleted from a couple of FB grps, after I started getting angry comments asking me to be grateful that I was alive instead of complaining. Someone also suggested that Indian ppl jump the line bcos they grew up in a scarcity situation.

Sorry, the ppl who jump lines are not always struggling, in India u can see plenty of middle-class ppl following rules, while those who are more privileged do not.

Thanks for reading.

I lived in India for 4 yrs, my children went to a very expensive international school in Bengaluru. My children did not share much while they were in India, but share more now, after we returned to the USA. My elder one completed high school in this IGCSE/IB school, and my younger one studied there from 4-7 grade.

The one thing which was easily obvious was the immense stress. The curriculum, even for a school which claimed to implement IB/ be based on IGCSE, relied a lot on information to be memorised than on projects or true understanding, esp in science. Being constantly on top of every little thing which was being taught was a must for parents, esp for those whose children were not naturally well-organised.

This school had an impressive list of USA and UK univs where their students got admitted, so that was what drew us to it. And frankly, it did work for my daughter, as she got admission in a very good univ along with a substantial scholarship.

But the general atmosphere in school was harsh and toxic and not respectful to students, to say the least.

My younger one experienced bullying which was glossed over by the teachers bcos the students who were the bullies belonged to influential families with contacts.

There was a general attitude of we-know-best or disrespect. for example, the school's trustees are non-christian, but the principals were christian. There would be regular bible readings in this school, which was extremely disrespectful, as parents sent their children to this school, thinking it was secular. In fact my children said that christianity was pushed much more on them in India than they have experienced in the USA.

There were very good and caring teachers too, my elder one made good Indian friends, who she is still in touch with. But I could not complain to the principal if my children faced issues as my elder one said that their college admission depended on teacher recommendations.

Another thing I noticed was how the admission counseller insisted that we apply to T20s and private colleges, and was perplexed when I said that we prefer a good in-state univ, bcos of the tuition. These counsellers force kids to apply to expensive, top private univs , as that acts like a marketing tool for the school to attract new parents.

So my suggestion if u r planning to move to India would be, to speak with parents in the school u r planning to send ur child to. Don't just prioritise good college admissions, but also prioritise a healthy environment.

Edit: It was not bible readings during assembly time, it was Christian-style prayers.

https://preview.redd.it/pg5d280n6z9h1.png?width=1114&format=png&auto=webp&s=4d1e4f3402955a1b59827af03e44446c4764d4cb

Right before I left Art of Living, I had a couple of experiences which led me to realise how I had become locked into an echo chamber and had lost touch with reality.

My first experience was when a certain rishi passed away. After his passing away, when I opened facebook, my entire feed was filled with tributes to him, calling him the greatest devotee, the greatest teacher, the greatest sevak. Heaping, effusive, non-stop praise by all my AOL friends (and I had about 600 of them)

That was very jarring to me, bcos I had heard from one of those very friends how this rishi had cheated on his wife and had even got a girl pregnant. Something felt very off, and I called up a senior female teacher, and asked her why were AOL volunteers praising this man to the heavens when he had been so problematic.

What if a newcomer actually believed false praise and trusted ppl they ought to never trust?

One thing led to another, and I quit AOL. This small incident made me realise how my life in AOL had become one big lie.

I had to praise AOL, Sri Sri, Bhanu, AOL courses, techniques, volunteers and teachers whether they deserved praise or not. I had to do it in public and on social media, bcos that is what was being expected of me, from my AOL social network. The line between truth and lies had become so blurry that I no longer believed in myself and my own perceptions of people and reality.

Because my perceptions were being shaped by my echo chamber, if I criticised anyone, I felt guilty bcos I was not being 'positive' enough.

I had another experience with a youth programs TTC teacher at this time. This person was looked upon as a very senior teacher, close to 'gurudev', blessed beyond belief. He seemed calm, collected, serene and centered. All of us volunteers believed the very best of him, believed he was far more spiritually advanced than us, bcos that is the way AOL presented him. His social media posts had hundreds of likes, were filled with glowing comments, priasing him and his wonderful work for humanity. I felt small in comparison.

It so happened that I started working at a we-work where this TTC teacher would work at . I spoke with him about coding, and he described some great s/w projects that he and another teacher were working on. He introduced me to another developer in that we-work, suggesitng we work together on his project. But when I spoke with this developer, who was not involved in Art of Living, that developer had a very poor view of this AOL TTC teacher. It seemed that this AOL ttc teacher would talk grandiosely as if he had amazing, solid projects to work on, but nothing would ever materialise. He would simply leave ppl hanging w/o having any concrete projects in hand.

This suddenly made me realise, that senior teacher who are praised to heavens in AOLwas looked upon as unethical by his collegue according to the standards of the external world.

This again shook me, I realised to what extent I had become influenced by my echo chamber, that what was unethical in the external world, seemed to be something I had to accept bcos the person doing it was a 'highly evolved' AOL teacher.

There are times in one's life when the social conditioning, the peer pressure and the lies fall off, and one can actually give oneself the permission to think and feel our actual thoughts, unbounded by social expectations.

I got a clear glimpse into how the AOL cult had controlled my life, and with that one glimpse, I left AOL, knowing I would never look back again.

The worst thing is to be cheated and then be told that one must be grateful for having a positive experience. My one wish is that AOL volunteers understand this one truth, that their time, money and life is being used for someone's else's profit, and they are so blinded by their echo chamber that they are actually grateful for this.

So this post is based on what I could glean from AOL's rumor mill + actual statements I have heard from Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Writing this post to illustrate how the top echelons of AOL work, where misdeeds matter only when it hurts the bottom line, and infinite lies are told to preserve non-existent reputations.

Long time ago, in a beautiful AOL ashram in North America, there was bought in a swami. Tall, radiant, fun and seemingly kind, he was the apple of all of us TTC student's eyes. When he sang bhajans, tears of devotion flowed.

We heard someone say that he was bought in bcos he was an accountant to fix the ashram's financial difficulties. This was hard for us young and naive TTC1 ppl to believe, after all, weren't we sacrificing our time and money to do 'seva', in order to save the world from stress? But of course we trusted Sri Sri and believed that he had to attend to practical matters also.

Then after a few years, Sri Sri announced in a summer satsang in the same beautiful ashram, that the 'happy swami' had been , horror of horrors, not just demoted, but thrown out of the org. Why? Bcos he had been planning to leave AOL and start his own business, sorry, spiritual organisation. There had been some allegations of financial fraud against him too, affecting the AOL bottom line of course, which I heard from other teachers.

Of course, the story I had heard earlier about this was different. In the version I had heard, the 'happy swami' had fallen in love with an east european teacher and has renounced his swami-hood in order to marry her.

We all were very sad at this turn of affairs, how could something so beautiful be sullied? But life moved on.

Later, I heard from another East European teacher that there had been complaints about the 'happy swami' , supposedly he had behaved in an inappropriate manner with a woman training to do ayurvedic massages in the ashram. The woman had complained to senior AOL ppl and even Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, but no action had been taken. When I asked this east-european teacher about the woman that the 'happy swami' had supposedly run away with and whether they were still married, she said that he had in fact, never married her. IN her version, that woman had died of cancer. By this time, I had been in AOL for more than a decade, so the rose-tinted glasses had fallen off and the lies and rumors did not shake me to the same extent.

Still I was disturbed by the fact that Sri Sri did not take reports of inappropriate behaviour seriously, but took action only when it threatened his business interests. Because I still believed that even if senior teachers were corrupt, Sri Sri was an enlightened master.

Now, an year after this, I was talking to a TTC teacher in India. And that teacher mentioned in passing that the 'happy swami' had now been made into a DSN teacher. It seemed that he had come grovelling to Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and said 'sorry', and Sri Sri in his 'magnanimous' way, had 'forgiven' him and made him into a DSN teacher.

So again, complaints about fraud/ inappropriate behaviour with women did not matter. The only thing that mattered was Sri Sri's image and profits.

Soon after this, I left AOL. By now, I had come to recognise spin when I saw it. I was no longer the naive, innocent and trusting young soul, and saw clearly how lies and whitewashing told by top officials eventually ended up destroying lives of ppl who were at the bottom of the ladder.

I flew in to the USA from London this week. There were fumes in the aircraft's back cabin bcos of an equipment malfunction while we were over the Atlantic and the flight turned back and landed in Scotland where we were stuck for a day until the plane was repaired.

When the purser made the announcement that the place had to be tuned back bcos of fumes in the back cabin, many people probably did not understand what was happening. We were given strict instructions to stay in our seat, and if necessary, follow emergency protocols, but many Indian older ppl were walking down the aisle.

This seemed to be because of not being able to understand what was happening bcos of language or health issues. I feel the Indian ppl seated near them should have translated and made sure the elderly ppl were following directions, though I understand it is difficult to know what to do in an emergency.

The air hostesses were extremely frightened and stressed and were repeatedly shouting at them to be seated, but they did not seem to get it. There was quite a bit of fear and confusion. Given what was already happening, this just added to the overall panic.

The flight did land safely, but I felt it is extremely important for us to make sure that our parents have a travelling companion esp when they r very elderly or have issues with understanding the American accent. A lot of elderly ppl had a very hard time, and that was difficult to see.

In some cases though, the refusal to follow directions even in an emergency seemed like it came from a lack of caring instead of a misunderstanding.

After landing in Scotland, while we were standing in line for our hotel, a non-indian person who was using 2 crutches to walk, stood with us in line. I and a couple other Indian women entreated him to go to the front of the line, bcos we could see he would be in pain after standing for so long. But he refused, saying ppl ahead of him would get angry.

Now contrast this with the Indian aunty-uncle, who did not hesitate to jump the line while boarding the aircraft from Scotland to the USA, even thought they were in perfectly fine physical condition.

Another young man, after landing in Scotland, asked if his drinks would be reimbursed along with his food and hotel.

I wrote this post, not to blame anyone but to illustrate how imp it is to have travelling companions for elderly parents.

This post was deleted from a couple of FB grps, after I started getting angry comments asking me to be grateful that I was safe instead of complaining. Someone also suggested that Indian ppl jump the line bcos they grew up in a scarcity situation.

Sorry, the ppl who jump lines are not always struggling, in India u can see plenty of middle-class ppl following rules, while those who are more privileged do not.

Thanks for reading.

This may come across as a rant, but I am writing it in the hope of sparking some introspection/ conversations, as I feel it is important to discuss such things. Pls take it in that spirit.

Imagine this for a moment.

There are 2 couples in a satsang, they are part of a big friend grp. The woman from couple 1 (lets call her A) has an affair with the man from couple 2 for about 2 years. (let us call him B )

Now, the affair is outed and the whole satsang comes to know about it. That is, everyone knows except B's wife. (Let us call her C)

C's friend want to tell her about B's affair. But here lies Art of Living's special twist.

It turns out that B is planning to go for the TTC (teacher training course), and is quite skilled at getting registrations and funds for Art of Living. So the local state-coordinator, (let us call her X) flips out.

She calls C's friend repeatedly and pressurises her to keep quiet about B's affair and not tell everything to C. Why? Bcos if C got upset and upset B's plans of doing TTC, then that would not be good for Art of Living at all.

So she tells C's friend to keep mum about the affair, as TTC, it seems was a way that B could wash off his bad karma. Bcos in Art of Living, getting registrations for courses, was one sure-shot way to gain good karma and get closer to the Master!

C's friend gets angry and tell X to stop her 'karma crap' and tells C about B's affair anyways. C talks to Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who, in his usual insipid way, tells C to 'be patient with B'.

The fact that C and their 2 children are hurt doesn't deter B's TTC plans at all.. B does TTC, and is promoted heavily by Art of Living, and is now a 'senior' Sudarshan Kriya and Sahaj Samadhi meditation teacher.

Telling ppl in courses undoubtedly, that love is not an emotion but it is your very existence.

B and C get divorced.

Now as is normal in such scenarios in Art of Living, C's erstwhile friends don't keep in touch with her any more bcos she is bitter (understandably) and criticises Art of Living and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (oh the -ve vibes)

So the poor women not just lost her marriage, but also lost her friends.

And the icing on the cake is that X's husband was on Art of Living's ethics commitee when this happened and was a national teacher coordinator. So much for ethics and dharma!

I want to start with saying that Tina Parekh and Vikram Hazra sound like really wonderful and kind people. This post is not about trying to hurt them or cast aspersions on their marriage. Rather it is an effort to look at whether following Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's advice/ directives always works out for the best in people's lives.

Tine Parakh's interview with Siddharth Kannan : Listen from 1:05:00. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wiex6aHnuac

Tina starts off by describing how she and Vikram got married. They were friends and Vikram was looking for a match for her. When she was visiting the Bangalore ashram for Navaratri, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar asked Vikram Hazra to get married. Now when Sri Sri said that to Vikram, and asked him if he had any girls in mind, Vikram said that he was talking to a friend, but hadn't thought of her 'that way'. So Sri Sri asked Vikram to call her on stage.

Vikram called Tina on stage, and Sri Sri looked at her and said 'You both get married in 6 months'. Remember, all this while, Tina had never thought of marrying Vikram, and did not even know what Sri Sri was talking about. But her opinion was never asked for, in her own marriage. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar removed his garlands and put them on both Tina and Vikram.

Tina describes being shell shocked and lost for words. When she asked Vikram what just happened, he basically said that now that Guruji said they had to get married they must do it. And sure enough the rumour spread in 6 hrs to her parents that she was engaged.

Tina mentions in the interview that Vikram is a wonderful person, so their story could have been a lovely success but for one thing.

Tina Parakh says that she married to be a mother.. She even says in the interview that she doesn't feel the need to be married if there were no children. She never had a conversation with Vikram Hazra before marriage about whether they would have children. After marriage when she mentioned it, Vikram Hazra said 'Why , there is so much to do in this world, there are so many children in this world , there is so much seva to do, why do you want a child ?'

To his credit, he listened when she insisted. However, she could not conceive because she was ill and when they thought of adoption, Vikram's age was such that they could not adopt an infant. They would have needed to adopt a 8-9 yr old child which they were not ready to do. She went through 5 years of major depression because of not being able to have a child of her own or adopt one.

So if we look at this rationally, was Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's intuition truly for the best in Tina's case? Maybe if she had married someone else, closer to her age, even if she could not conceive, they could have at least adopted a child.

But will this even be a topic for discussion in Art of Living? Or did Tina/ Vikram and Art of Living devotees just accept what happened as the best outcome bcos Sri Sri said it?

Is blind faith really the best way? Does it always give the best outcomes?

The point of this post is not to insist that she should have had a child. The point of this post is to ask why the outcomes of Sri Sri's directives or intuition are never examined in a rational manner.