The Guru of Joy – Sri Sri Ravi Shankar & The Art of Living by Francois Gautier

Ok first of all… oh my god! My friends used to tell me that when I talked about AOL it sounded like I was marketing it. Well in a way coz the teachers tell you to spread the word you do but at the same time I see what they mean. The best example I can give you is one from Guruji himself… like when you see Grandparents talking about their Grandkids they make them out to be so special. Like say the baby kicked a ball… they’ll get all excited and say he’s gonna be good at sports and shlack… you get my drift right? Well that’s how it is… we have so much love and appreciation for Guruji and the course so it sounds like that… And so does the book.

Guruji’s childhood escapades and his life before he started teaching Sudarshan Kriya was so inspirational with so much fun and drama involved. Hell even some of the Teachers experiences when they go to the most dangerous areas and come back not only unharmed but changing hardcore murderers into people that spread the magic of breathing… it just takes you to a place of faith and centers you there. So the writer does put it in the way I mentioned earlier but manages to keep it objective enough.

Another new thing to me was this war stuff… I mean I knew we do a lot of seva/service to help people like 9/11, the tsunami, etc, etc. I just didn’t know they went so deep into the core where real danger with really funked up people would be. The book also covers the 5H program which is delivered by IAHV (International Association for Human Values), one of AOL’s NGO thing I think with the UN.

The 5 H’s stand for Health, Hygiene, Housing, Human Values and Harmony in Diversity. Through this AOL/IAHV have adopted so many villages to give them knowledge on health, help them build safe places to live with good clean water and… well the H’s explain themselves don’t they?! So yeah since most was familiar ground to me this time round what really caught my attention was this section on Religion… it’s a long bit so I might not transcribe it. But wow… if only Religious fanatics would read that bit and get some more knowledge on other’s beliefs, how they’re time bound and not to take the words of the enlightened that literally.

Oh and there was such an amazing explanation on why all these enlightened folks said ‘I’m the only way’. Also how Guruji explains how an Organization should be like a picture frame. The frame should not eat away the picture. Like without a frame you can’t hold a picture but don’t let the frame eat away the picture kinda thing. The final bit that caught my attention was the scientific studies before and after SKY (Sudarshan Kriya Yoga).

Most of us have seen the charts of how oxygenated our cells become after SKY but wow… curing cancer, depression, alcoholism… man! That list is pretty long. But it makes sense… oxygen would push out the bullsh*t. One things for sure, people do see the change in you but the bigger changes can be noticed in the things folks can’t see and after the course when things do stress you or move you, it’s so much easier to get back to your ‘self’. You get centred faster. Like Guruji says… the quality of your emotions change. And finally I learnt a new word… Disulfiram. Find out for yourself ;o)

Contents
– Prologue: A Boat Ride in Benares
– Chapter 1: A Sceptic’s Tryst with Serenity
– Chapter 2: Glimpses of Childhood
– Chapter 3: The Celebration That is Silence
– Chapter 4: Days with Maharishi
– Chapter 5: The Way It All Began
– Chapter 6: From Being a Student to a Teacher
– Chapter 7: The Frame That Holds the Picture
– Chapter 8: The Steps That Speak
– Chapter 9: The Disciples
– Chapter 10: The Miracles
– Chapter 11: The Search for Scientific Proof
– Chapter 12: Sri Sri’s Answers for the World Today
– Chapter 13: The Knowledge Sheets
– Chapter 14: A Glimpse Into Eternity
– Appendix 1: The Courses
– Appendix 2: Medical References
– Appendix 3