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Ethiopia: Stress-Relief Teacher Meets Citizens
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The Reporter (Addis Ababa)
15 December 2007
Posted to the web 17 December 2007
Yelibenwork Ayele
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the Indian founder of the Art of Living Foundation, was here this week speaking in parliament and with Christian and the Muslim leaders. What he calls the art of living is the skill to lead a life free from stress even in adverse situations.
Shankar's presentations included a short speech focusing on human values and eliminating stress which he said was the cause of all human misery in the modern world. "We have to bring a human touch in our society. There is deficiency of vitamin H - human value. We have to create a sense of belongingness for everybody. We need to create a sense of belongingness, the cordial environment of love and compassion, of caring and sharing. In spite of differences in religion, nationality, color, we all belong to one human family," said Shankar in his speech at the Hilton Addis on Thursday.
Stress is the main cause of division in families and mistrust among people. "When you try hard to do so many things, but the time is too short, you think you do not have the capacity to do what you are supposed to do. Then you are stressed."
He said that stress could be eliminated if people understood something about themselves. "Not just intellectuals, but the common men in the society need to know that they have seven layers of being body, breath, mind, intellect, memory ego and self. If we know a little bit of all, life will become so natural."
People are angry about the past or anxious about the future. "But by being angry about the past we are not going to gain anything except exhausting ourselves," he said quoting a scientist who said that an hour of negative thinking was equivalent to eight hours of hard labor.
Born in 1956 in Papanasam, India, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar studied with many spiritual masters and became a scholar of Vedic Literature. By the age of 17 he obtained an advanced degree in modern physics and later received an honorary doctorate from Kuvempu University, Karnataka, India
The Art of Living Foundation is an international nonprofit educational and humanitarian organization offering programs in 146 countries. As an NGO, it works with the Economic and Social Council of the UN, participating in a variety of committees and activities relating to health, education, sustainable development and conflict resolution.
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The foundation will offer courses here on yoga and the art of breathing for relief from stress.
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