Art of Living

Art of Liv­ing is a world­wide ini­tia­tive led by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, its spir­i­tual leader who started the move­ment in India in 1982. It is not strictly phys­i­cal yoga because the cen­tral activ­i­ties tend to con­cen­trate on breath­ing exer­cises, med­i­ta­tion and the spir­i­tual realm. I am not even sure how to qual­ify AOL (its short­ened form is pre­ferred inter­nally) within the Indian reli­gious spectrum.

The Art of Liv­ing Foun­da­tion is an inter­na­tional non-​​profit edu­ca­tional and human­i­tar­ian orga­ni­za­tion run by vol­un­teers active in over 140 coun­tries. Its mis­sion state­ment is:

“Art of Liv­ing Foun­da­tion is ded­i­cated to serv­ing soci­ety by strength­en­ing the indi­vid­ual. We do this by offer­ing pro­grams that elim­i­nate stress, cre­ate a sense of belong­ing, restore human val­ues, and encour­age peo­ple from all back­grounds, reli­gions, and cul­tural tra­di­tions to come together in cel­e­bra­tion and service.”

This page has two pur­poses: to bring together a lot of diverse online resources about the Art of Liv­ing, both AOL’s and other sites, and to help some­one new to AOL and think­ing of tak­ing the Art of Liv­ing intro­duc­tion course. When some­one first thinks about tak­ing the course, lots of ideas flow through your hear:

  • Is Art of Liv­ing a religion?
  • Is Art of Liv­ing a cult?
  • Who is this Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and why does he look so weird? And does it mat­ter that he does not look like a yuppie?
  • Is there a sci­en­tific foun­da­tion to the breath­ing prac­tices taught by AOL instructors?
Photo: Sri Sri Ravi Sankar and the Dalai Lama

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and the Dalai Lama co-​​founded the Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion of Human Val­ues (IAHV) in 1997 in Geneva.

I took an AOL intro­duc­tory course in March 2004. It took about 20 hours, stretched over six days. I took a med­i­ta­tion course (four evenings, two-​​three hours each) in June 2004. I do a daily morn­ing prac­tice (45-​​50 min­utes) of breath­ing and med­i­ta­tion, and an evening prac­tice of 20 min­utes of med­i­ta­tion. I also attend a weekly kriya in down­town DC once a week where I join friends lis­ten­ing to a record­ing of Sri Sri that leads us through the main prac­tice. My involve­ment in AOL is part of a greater inter­est in yoga, med­i­ta­tion and other mat­ters. You can see my weblog for more details about my daily prac­tice. I con­tinue to be a prac­tic­ing Chris­t­ian, and my Art of Liv­ing expe­ri­ence has strength­ened my sense of being grounded and cen­tered in my life. I have not be brain­washed or sub­jected to any pres­sure to con­tinue my affil­i­a­tion with the group. Aside from my par­tic­i­pa­tion in group kriya, I have not affil­i­a­tion to the Art of Liv­ing Foundation.

Art of Liv­ing is gain­ing wide accep­tance around the world. Here in Wash­ing­ton, the World Bank Group has spon­sored many intro­duc­tory AOL courses. Sri Sri has spo­ken at NASA, Con­gress and other events. The orga­ni­za­tion is based on vol­un­teers scat­tered around the world, most oper­at­ing with inde­pen­dence. The instruc­tors do not receive any pay for their time and effort. Most are dri­ven by a sense of service.


An appeal­ing video explain­ing med­i­ta­tion and pranayama pro­duced by the YESPlus orga­ni­za­tion, part of the AoL Foundation.

What sets Art of Liv­ing apart? Its empha­sis on ecu­meni­cal out­reach of the ben­e­fits of Sudar­shan Kriya to those who can really use it: chil­dren, prison inmates, the HIV infected. The Prison SMART Foun­da­tion (Stress Man­age­ment and Reha­bil­i­ta­tive Train­ing) addresses the needs of indi­vid­u­als and pro­fes­sion­als affected by the crim­i­nal jus­tice system.

  • Reduced stress
  • Improved self-​​esteem
  • Greater cre­ativ­ity and clar­ity of mind
  • Increased health and well-​​being
  • Enriched spir­i­tual life

Sci­en­tific research into Sudar­shan kriya has found sev­eral effects. Since 1996, Indian research has shown it to be an alter­na­tive treat­ment for depres­sion. In Slove­nia it was found that it also helped Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis patients by improv­ing their mobil­ity, endurance lev­els, and lung capacity.

  • Reduced cor­ti­sol — the “stress hormone”
  • Relief of depres­sion and anxiety
  • Restores nor­mal sleep patterns
  • Increases EEG alpha and pro­lactin (“well-​​being hormone”)

Amy Weintraub’s Book

I came to AOL through read­ing the book Yoga for Depres­sion: A Com­pas­sion­ate Guide to Relieve Suf­fer­ing Through Yoga by Any Wein­traub. Wein­traub devotes Chap­ter Seven to “Art of Liv­ing — Breath­ing That Heals.” Over 15 pages, Wein­traub goes into the details of the daily prac­tices, sto­ries of how it affected people’s lives and health, and the sci­en­tific evi­dence sup­port­ing the practice.

Wein­traub points out that Art of Liv­ing method­ol­ogy is attract­ing sci­en­tific inter­est. Dr. Richard Brown, of Colum­bia Uni­ver­sity, has been a strong sup­porter of the kriya practice.

Wein­traub is a long-​​time yogini and instruc­tor. She taught for many years at the Kri­palu Cen­ter for Yoga and Health, which has long focused on the health and spir­i­tual ben­e­fits of yoga. She also preaches the val­ues of pranayama in gen­eral. The Art of Living’s approach is not going to appear unprece­dented. In the end, Wein­traub gives a very strong endorse­ment of Art of Liv­ing. She took the intro course and then took the inten­sive, advanced course at the Cana­dian ashram that AOL has in Montreal.

7 thoughts on “Art of Living”

  1. Hi Mitch,
    With all due respects to your faith in Jesus and belief in spir­i­tu­al­ity, I sug­gest you please stick to your faith. No where, nobody con­tra­dicts with you in AOL on your faith and belief.
    I even sug­gest out of my love and com­pas­sion towards you, Just drop all these thoughts aris­ing from Chat­ter­ing Mind. Ignore them for a while and just prac­tice Sudar­shana kriya and Med­i­ta­tion for few months and see your­self , where do you stand and what are you up to. Have a 1st hand Expe­ri­ence your­self. Dont believe in any Guru Con­cept and any ‘Clutish’ attrac­tions, sin­cerely. Pay dumb atten­tion to the one who­ever influ­ences you in this angle, if at all some­body does.
    This is how you can reap the ben­e­fits of ‘Sudar­shana Kriya’ & Med­i­ta­tion, prac­ti­cally. Please post your expe­ri­ence once have evaluated/​tested this over a period of months.– Don’t hes­i­tate even if the result is not happy , not sat­is­fied for you.

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  2. Guru aggran­dize­ment and guru-​​philia was the true trou­bling issue with my becom­ing involved in AOL.
    Hav­ing been raised as a Chris­t­ian, believ­ing that Christ, the Son of God, died dur­ing crux­i­fic­tion, then rose from the dead three days later to for­give the sins of man… has been the basis of my spir­i­tual belief. Now through dif­fer­ent inter­pre­ta­tions of his­tory, the lost years of Christ (age 13-​​30 approx.), and the will­ing­ness to give gurus the same ele­va­tion of Gods… There exists among AOL believ­ers that Christ at age 13 began a quest for Vedic knowl­edge and teach­ings from vedic lead­ers in the arts of med­i­ta­tion and heal­ing. “Issa” or Jesus, it is told, vis­ited the north­ern regions of India, where he learned to be God-​​like by gurus and vedic teach­ings. Jesus then returned to the Holy Lands at age 30 to col­lect his fol­low­ers and demon­strate his “vedic pow­ers of heal­ing” the sick and lame… Truth or fic­tion, one must decide. Does equat­ing Jesus or Issa, in fact com­par­ing His adult years to vedic or guru prac­ti­cies… ele­vate the “vedic knowl­edge” of your present day guru? Shoud we treat SSRS as a mor­tal God? Some would think so. They even sug­gest that Jesus NEVER died on the cross, but went into a deep, med­i­ta­tive state, which he then rose from! What a per­fect story to sug­gest that your guru is on the same plane as another Christ or God. Has the indus­try of west­ern guru-​​ship, exported into our west­ern think­ing, dis­cov­ered ways to warp our think­ing into believ­ing them to be “avatars”, the sec­ond com­ing of Christ-​​like teach­ers? SSRS has “per­formed heal­ings” and cre­ates senses and aro­mas… Are we to believe because we want to believe? I have seen noth­ing mag­i­cal… thus far.

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  3. AOL loves using MD or PhD con­nected to their follower’s names because they offer cred­i­bily where none is deserved, some­times. If Dr. Amy Wein­traub wasn’t a AOL/​SSRS devo­tee, she might too be cred­i­ble because of this fol­low­ing quote: “One prob­lem here is that when peo­ple, experts or not, decide to review the evi­dence on an issue dear to their hearts, they tend to see what they want to…”

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  4. In my expe­ri­ence with the Art of Liv­ing, hav­ing been intro­duced by a lady friend, who has been a follower/​devotee for nearly 20 years… I became skep­ti­cal of the claims, the peo­ple seek­ing “enlight­en­ment,” and the orga­ni­za­tion which sup­ports the facade. No U.S. agency has been able to col­lect enough infor­ma­tion from The Art of Liv­ing in order to rate or give legit­i­mate advice to the use of the char­i­ta­ble dona­tions. There is zero trans­parency in regards to the finances of AOL or Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.
    SSRS also asks all stu­dents to keep “knowl­edge” of any course or prac­tices within each course… SECRET… Shar­ing infor­ma­tion about the actual breath­ing tech­niques, “kriya” prac­tice, is for­bid­den, as is the “Silence” courses, etc.. I believe he even goes as far as to copy­write these breath­ing prac­tices, so that only his orga­ni­za­tion can col­lect the monies to teach.
    Devo­tees hang on each and every word that Sri Sri utters, but none of it is new nor pro­found. I both­ered to read two of his books… bor­ing exer­cise. Yet, he does pull quite a fol­low­ing of rabid boot, or in his case, foot lick­ers.
    With the aggran­dize­ment of His Holi­ness, Sri Sri, the fol­low­ers who defend his life here as “God-​​like” or an “Avatar” or “Jesus-​​like” … the secrecy sur­round­ing the use of money col­lected, the secrecy of lessons/​practices, and the claims made using pseudo-​​science… ALL point to a pow­er­ful, mind con­vinc­ing CULT/​or SECT, which shoul be approached with skill­ful skepicism.

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  5. You might be in a Cult if: Aggran­dize­ment of one leader is demon­strated by “holy, holy” titles, leader’s pho­tos in your home and car, excom­mu­ni­ca­tion of all oth­ers who refuse to believe-​​in your leader… and pre­tend­ing to be of the same cul­ture thru action and diet. These are the fol­low­ers of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and the Art of Liv­ing, designed to cap­ture minds/​lives/​money thru hyper­ven­ti­la­tion tech­niques called kriya/​ med­i­ta­tion, then “proven” with pseudo-​​science by their own “experts.” Expertly crafted for those who believe they are just as crafty.

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    • As most of us have learned in life, human endeavor always has the poten­tial for veer­ing off into a mis­guided, deluded ego trip for the guy (or gal) at the top, even if it has spir­i­tual trap­pings. In the case of Art of Liv­ing, many Amer­i­cans would be put off my some of the Indian cul­tural pen­chants: the cul­ti­va­tion of guru sta­tus, being the most rel­e­vant in this case. Sri Shri Ravi Shankar is not the only holy man on top of a multi­na­tional enter­prise that can some­times seem a money har­vest­ing machine: Ramdev and Mahar­ishi Mahesh Yogi are to that imme­di­ately come to mind. Per­son­ally, I have not wit­nessed the kind of group behav­ior that could be described as “cult-​​ish.” To the con­trary, my instruc­tors gave great lee­way to other people’s per­sonal beliefs, but offered Art of Liv­ing meth­ods as a uni­ver­sal tool. I was never “pur­sued” by AoL peo­ple, pestered for money or has­sled in any other way. On the other hand, I have seen some blogs and forum post­ings by dis­grun­tled for­mer mem­bers, but that can hap­pen in any orga­ni­za­tion. There is always a latent fault line between vol­un­teers in a non-​​profit and those who are brought on full-​​time to man­age an orga­ni­za­tion that spans the globe and requires major cash flow to keep itself running.

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  6. Pingback: The Meaning Of Namaste | MyLifeYoga

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