One of the perils of reading newspapers in India is that you are exposed to some rather mindless nonsense. Last Sunday morning in Ahmedabad, throwing caution to the winds, I picked up a newspaper, DNA Sunday. To my horror but not to my surprise, there was Sri Sri Sri Ravishankar’s hirsute image atop a column titled, “In love, losing is winning.”
You caught that, didn’t you – that there are three sri’s where there used to be only two sri’s? That’s not a typo.

It’s been a while since I wrote a post on SSRS. To remedy that neglect, here’s something about the man.
Ram Guha wrote a funny entry in his Oslo diary with the title “Nobel Longings.” (Thanks to Sushant for the link.)

Did you know that this blog features prominently in search results on Sri (repeat n time) Ravi Shankar? Without intending to, I have stumbled upon a subject that simultaneously delights and enlightens. Aside from the usual hate mail, I quite frequently get mail from people who want to share their experience of the Art of Living and their opinion on SSRS. I will share two recent one’s with you.

Time for a little diversion, don’t you think? Of late this blog has been too involved with serious matters and I think it is time for something entirely different. Many of you regulars know that SSRS — a.k.a Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, a.k.a Param Pujaniya Gurudev Sri Sri Ravishankarji, a.k.a His Most Exalted Holiness the Maha Param Pujaniya Gurudev Bhagwan Sriman Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji Mahadevji, etc etc — is a favorite diversion for this blog. As luck would have it, another of His Most Exalted Holiness Sri Maha Param …

Some readers have been asking, “Atanu, when will you write more about SSRS?” As luck would have it, I got an email from someone who has actually met the man. He wrote me a very nice email saying that he has read all the SSRS posts patiently and then proceeded to inform me that he disagrees with me. That is not the least surprising as I am sure that an overwhelming majority of people won’t agree with me on anything of substance. That’s because my point of view is different …

“Does the breath have any religion,” asks His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. “Is the air we breathe around us Muslim, Christian, or Hindu?”
No, I did not make it up. That is what is reported in a recent rediff article. The questions are so profound that I found myself moved to ask such questions. Mine are modest efforts, naturally, as I am not blessed with the immense holiness of SSRS. I am sure that you can also add to the list I present here.

In a few days, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living will be right outside my door for an entire week. The AoL is having a huge gathering not just within Magarpatta City but in the common area in front of the building I stay in. I will have a bird’s eye view of the proceedings from the balcony of my 11th floor apartment. Lucky me.
SSRS’s followers continue to send me unsolicited mail. Lucky me once again.
They don’t seem to understand that I express my views on my …

Since the last few days, I notice that this blog is getting a lot of visitors from esatsang.net, a site devoted to Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. I am not sure why but my blog does get a lot of attention from the followers of SSRS. It is interesting that my knowledge of the Art of Living organization and its leader is only impressionistic. I never studied the organization or its head. I had a general idea that SSRS was one of the many gurus that India produces fairly consistently. There …

One of the rewards of writing a blog is the occasional email expressing gratitude for something which resonated with the reader. I get those emails fairly regularly on a variety of topics. The flip side is of course the rant from some disgruntled reader who finds something objectionable about my opinion. I get these very rarely but when I do, it is always from a follower of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. I believe that the most commented post is the one titled “A Letter from a Sri Sri Ravi Shankar …

Not having the gift of foresight, one rarely knows how far one will stray having embarked on an ill-advised direction. So it is with me and my simple assessment of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar many years ago. I began with concluding that SSRS is very skilled in marketing a good and ancient Indian technique generally known as yoga. Many others from India have done so and I approve of all of them because I approve of good ideas being shared. Some made huge fortunes (self-styled “Bhagwan” Rajneesh AKA Osho, for …

HELLO,
PLEASE STOP WRITING NONSENSE ABOUT OUR GURUJI SRI SRI RAVISHANKAR JI. HE WILL NOT EVEN GET A SINGLE PENNY OUT OF ART OF LIVING ORGANISATION. HE IS STRUGGLING SO HARD DAY & NIGHT TRAVELLING ALL OVER THE WORLD FOR PEACE AND A SMILE FROM HEART. I GUESS YOUR LIFE MUST BE FULL OF TROUBLES..NO DOUBT ABOUT IT….STOP JUDGING ABOUT GURUJI..YOUR LIFE WILL BE PATHETIC AND IT IS ALREADY PATHETIC…STOP ALL YOUR BULLSHIT AND RUBBISH. ATLEAST JOIN THE BASIC PART 1 COURSE YOU WILL CHANGE. MY LIFE TOTALLY CHANGED …

The time has come for me to bring to a close the matter of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and his Art of Living as discussed on this blog. It began with a simple enough request some years ago from my brother who asked me to check out AOL since he was (and continues to be) a big admirer of SSRS. I checked out the site and I realized that I had indeed heard of SSRS before. It was at an Indian classical music concert in San Francisco. The concert was …

AOL refers not to “America On Line” but rather to “The Art of Living” as taught by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (SSRS, in short).
A simple straight forward piece I wrote some years ago (Is Sri Sri Ravi Shankar a Con Man?) does get a lot of attention. I get emails from people, some of which is the average “I agree with you” type. Then there is the “How dare you even suggest that SSRS is not god almighty himself and that the sun does not shine out of his …

I expressed the idea that Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is not a supreme being endowed with the power of the Almighty God in my article titled “Is Sri Sri Ravi Shankar a Con Man?” I concluded that he is doing very useful work and as evidence I pointed out that he has very large numbers of followers who are willing to pay good deals of money for his guidance. But that rubs his worshippers the wrong way. Fortunately, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is a Hindu and therefore his followers are …