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The Art of Living Singapore has spread H. H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s knowledge to over 5000 people. The ever enthusiastic volunteers with the over-zealous efforts have embarked in organizing various projects, events and courses that have done The Art of Living Singapore proud.
In 1990 Mrs Padma Bhatia introduced Art of Living to Singapore through her yoga classes to many small groups on a weekly basis. In 1991, The first basic course was delivered to 150 participants, devotees and followers from all races and religions from this multi-racial lion city, at the ‘Jain Hall’. The participants of this first ever basic course by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar were overwhelmed with the knowledge and powerful techniques.
And in 1992 One more basic course teacher was added to the local scene, Mrs Vasanthi Narayanan. She along with Mrs Padma Bhatia spread the wonderful basic course to many more Singaporeans. By now the main working committee for Art of Living, Singapore was growing bigger and stronger.
Sri Sri visited Singapore in December along with his mother, also fondly known as ‘Amma’. During His visit he conducted another basic course. He also gave a satsang at one of the devotees house for the core AOL members and devotees which made up a humble group size of 150.
In 1993, Sri Sri made a visit in October. He gave a talk at the National Univeristy of Singapore’s Hall. He also gave satsangs at a few devotees houses. In 1994, Sri Sri had a stop-over in Singapore on His way back from HongKong. Sri Sri had a meeting with the core committee members to encourage them to start an official society for Singapore. He advised them on how to go about this vision Sri Sri had for Singapore.
In December, ‘Art of Living Centre’ was officially registered as a society in Singapore. In 1991, An interim committee was formed to welcome Sri Sri Ravi Shankar for his first formal visit to Singapore. In 1995 On March 9th, Sri Sri came to Singapore and officially inaugurated the society with an opening ceremony at the PUB Auditorium. The guest-of-honour for this function was Mr. K.S. Rajah. The auditorium was packed with more than 700 people.
In 1996, Sri Sri visited Singapore to give a public talk and also a public satsang to packed temple hall.
Sri Sri’s surprise visit to Singapore in February 2004, saw a very large number of people when Sri Sri agreed to meet all devotees at the Jalan Ampas centre. Sri Sri formed a working committee to work on the Public Programme in March. It was all work from then with great enthusiasm.
In March, was the South East Asian Teachers Meet for 3 days held at the Rasa Sentosa, Shangri-la Hotel. At the same time Sri Sri gave a Public Talk and a Musical evening by Mrs. Bhanumati Narasimhan at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, Singapore’s 6 star hotel where more than 4000 people turned up. Several hundred of people and cars were told to leave as there was no place.
In July Sri Sri was again in Singapore for 3 days for a conference organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce. During those 3 days, one evening Sri Sri had a session with all the AOL devotees at the RELC Auditorium and for the first time such a big event by AOL was organised completely by the youths.
To start the ball-rolling of the society, the first management course was by Mr Arun Madhavan from Bangalore. Mrs Innira Nair took over to organise all Management courses and organising big events for Sri Sri . Singapore also groomed up our own set of 3 Basic Course teachers, 2 for English courses, Neela and Shailaja and one for Chinese, Karen Lee. Rhea Pillai taught her first basic course in Singapore, she did many more such basic courses until year 2003.
In 1996, January, Mr. Kishore Mukherjee came to Singapore to introduce the then newly developed Art Excel Program. It was taught to a group of about 50 children. In April, the weekly follow-up classes were started at the Dutch Club. This strengthened a hard-working and efficient volunteer workforce. Two Art Excel programmes were conducted for 120 children in each programme. Such big sized Art Excel programmes are a common feature every year in AOL, Singapore.
Another professional course also conducted by Mr. Arun Madhavan. Several more professional courses were conducted by Mr. Arun Madhavan yearly until year 2001.
In 1997, Sri Sri gave a public talk to a packed RELC Auditorium. Sri Sri also sat in the advanced course organised by Singapore but held in Mersing, Malaysia Courses continued to go on in Singapore. An advanced course was held in Singapore once a year and they were taught by various travelling teachers. The local teachers who were meticulously trained to spread the knowledge and teachings of Sri Sri together with the facilitators did a remarkable job in recruiting members for courses and in this manner Sri Sri Ravi Shankar became a household name for everyone.
2 residential advanced courses and 2 non-residential advanced courses were held in 2004. In 2005 also a advanced course by Sri Chayapathiji at Batam was organised by Mrs. Innira Nair. There was also a non-residential advanced course by Itiji. In November Jyothi Sanwal, from Calcutta conducted another non-residential advanced course.
 In 1998, Sri Sri visited Singapore to give a public talk at SLF Auditorium. Bhanumati Narasimhan came to conduct the first Sahaj Samadhi Meditation course in Singapore. She did a Sahaj course once every year in Singapore drawing big numbers to each of her course. In 1999, Sri Sri gave his first outdoor talk at the Yio Chu Kang Stadium with more than 2000 people. 2000: Sri Sri gave a public talk at the Rock Auditorium. 2001 & 2002: Sri Sri made short trips to Singapore, and during those visits He conducted a Mahakriya followed by Mahasatsang.
Our biggest event in 2005 was our Sahaj Samadhi meditation course conducted by Bhanumati Narasimhan. There were 124 particiapnts. She was interviewed by one of the main newspapers in Singapore. She travelled to Singapore with her son Arvind Varchaswi who together with her gave a wonderful musical evening to 250 of our devotees and seva members. Arvind was also featured on a TV show to promote the YES programme.
Once a week the teacher used to conduct the Prison Smart Programme to a drug re-habilitation centre called ‘Ashram’ and now the programme has been moved to the Changi Prison of Singapore.
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Vikram Hazra conducted the first DSN programme for Singapore. Also two very vibrant DSN courses was held by Neha Pendse in 2004.
Art of Living conducted a blood donation drive.
Several seva projects like helping at old folks homes, mental hospital, orphanages, SINDA etc.. were started off by one of our devotees Mrs. Tan Siew Khim, a very hard working seva warrior. These seva projects are still being carried out by her and her group of volunteers. |
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In 2005, the year started off with all volunteers and seva warriors packing of 540 feet containers of relief goods for the tsunami affected areas, namely Sri Lanka and Chennai. Sri Sri had requested our constitution to change along with the organization’s name. This took place in 2005.
2003: Singapore had it’s first YES Program conducted by Ajay Tejasvi and Arvind Varchaswi. It drew a small crowd of 18 students.
Art of Living received the President’s Challenge award from his Excellence, President of the Republic of Singapore, S.R. Nathan, for charity work organised by Mr. K.K. Chay. Arun Madhavan conducted 4 Managemnet Courses.
There was 1 YES Programme by Arvind Narasimhan which had a crowd of 60 students. Also 1 Sahaj Samadhi Course by Bhanumati Narasimhan was conducted in 2004. The biggest ever YES Programme in Singapore was with 84 youths in 2005, conducted by Arvind Varchaswi. He was interviewed by two radio stations in Singapore, namely, Newsradio 93.8 and Oli 96.8.
The first ever Sri Sri Yoga course conducted by Kashi.
A Mahakriya and mahasatsang was held to celebrate H. H Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's birthday and had an overwhelming crowd, Sri Sri was able to speak to the whole crowd over a speakerphone and all the devotees sang him happy birthday. A dance show by Reshme Hegde was held to raise funds for the Silver Jubilee. B.K.S. Varma was at the centre to perform his talented art, he was sent to Singapore by Sri Sri.
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