Sri Sri: Politicians, especially in India, the situation today is very pathetic. From top to bottom corruption has ruined our country, and ethics is completely dead.
Is it possible to revive it? I say, ‘Yes’, because people at large are honest, loving, and have a lot of integrity. A large percentage of people in India still have integrity, and they all want the change. I would give you one example. There was a two month Kumbh Mela (a mass Hindu pilgrimage) in Allahabad and 100 million people visited that place. There was no crime or stealing registered.
Just imagine, with 100,000 people for two months, there wasn’t a single crime. This shows that people love to be ethical and honest. They just need some leadership in that. There is lack of such leadership and we must admit that. There is lack of good governance. You need to go to college if you want to be a good businessman, or an engineer, or a doctor, or a lawyer, or for any profession, but for politicians, there are no qualifications. That is why we (The Art of Living) have started a college of good governance where we are training the village panchayats for 1-3 months, so that they can go back and exhibit good governance. Change is needed whenever ethics gets eroded. Politicians needs to be spiritual like in Mahatma Gandhi’s time, then they will gain the respect.
I would say, spiritualize politics and socialize business. Every business should have corporate social responsibility, and they should give something back to the society, and secularize religion.
Religious people become so fanatic, close minded and they cause terrorism, extremism and fanaticism in the world. Religious people shouldn’t only pray for those following their religion, but for humanity.
So, secularize religion, socialize business and spiritualize politics.

Sri Sri: Actually, what The Art of Living gives in this course is something to develop their personalities. Their sharpness of intellect, calmness of their mind, and to bring an inspiration from within. That is what we focus on. So, you can be assured that they won’t run away, or become dispassionate.
Millions of people have done this course, we have not seen anyone run away. Otherwise World Bank would not have taken this program as a part of their leadership seminars.
It all depends on how you present the inner calmness. I understand when you say your inner calmness or liberation is important, and people may tend to go to in that direction, but here, it is all about finding the inner creativity and peace, and to be able to manage any adverse situation with a smile.

Sri Sri: It is okay if it is only sometimes. But if it is often then we need to attend to it.
First of all, know that as an individual, you have the capacity to multi-task.
If you think, ‘Oh, I am a mother, I cannot be good at the office. It is not possible for me’; or, ‘I am an office goer, so I am not doing justice to my children’, these sorts of conflicts weighs very heavy on your emotions and your mind.
First you should know that you have the capacity to be a mother, a good wife, and a good officer or a good businesswomen. Resolve the conflict right at the root, instilling confidence in your capabilities.
The second is that, it is the quality of time and not the quantity of time that is important in whatever you are doing. You don’t have to spend 10 hours with your kids. Even one hour that you spend with your kids, if you are there with them a 100%, that makes them more satisfied. The root cause of all this is stress. If you don’t relax and relieve stress, at least for a few minutes every day, whatever concepts you may have in your head, will be blown away by your emotions because our emotions are much stronger than our thoughts.
Many times we remain determined, but the surge of emotions, anger, frustration, desires, when they come, it just blows everything away. The intellect, or all our concepts, are like the gatekeeper of the house. Emotions are like the owner of the house. When the owner of the house comes in, the gatekeeper has no-way to stop him. You just have to let him in.
We have to set right the emotions inside. That is where meditation, Sudarshan Kriya, pranayama, come very handy.

Sri Sri: India is full of contrasts. We have snow-mountains and deserts. Similarly, we have extremes in life. We have very calm minds and you also find completely agitated minds too. India is a mixture of sand and sugar; you have to be like an ant; humble to pick the sugar. I would like to share the latest development from our R&D department. I would like someone to come up. Tell me how much poison does it take to destroy the human body of 80-90 kilos? A drop of poison can destroy the body right?
Our R&D department has come up with some distilled water of some Ayurvedic herbs, one of which is called Amrutha belli (nectar). This boosts the immune system in the body. It is called Shakthi drops. The Tata Memorial Cancer hospital in Mumbai is now doing research on Shakthi drops, and will be publishing a paper by the end of the year. They have found that in 48 hours, these drops have been able to reduce the cancer cells by 40% in the body. This has helped so many people going through chemotherapy, without feeling the side effects. It is able to reduce the mass of the cancer cells in the body, and has helped people with many things, such as reducing pain.

Sri Sri: The Government of India has setup an institution called Ayush, which is working towards this collaboration. Of course, if we have a tie-up between the two disciplines of medicine, there is a lot that can be done. The world will be greatly benefitted

Sri Sri: Ethics are universal. Ethics is that which you want others to follow as well. For example, ethics are exactly those things which you expect from others who are working under you, or are working above you. You don’t want your boss to be unethical or those below you to be unethical towards you.
When you expect a certain standard of behavior, an etiquette, integrity from people working around you, you too will not do the same things to someone else. This is common.
You don’t want your employee to lie to you. Do you like them to lie to you? No. You too follow this in your life. This is ethics. As simple as that.
Ethics is universal. There is no Japanese lie, Indian lie, or American lie. A lie is a lie. Integrity is integrity. In this sense, ethics is universal.

Sri Sri: Women have a very important role. One is to keep the institution of family. She is the central focus of the family. Like Japan, India is also women centric.
Women play a very important role in keeping the family and culture intact. That does not mean women should not be empowered. Women need to be empowered. Women can multi-task. Women will do very well in politics and would be very good business leaders. They should come forward and not wait for men to give them the power.
Nobody is going to give you power because you already have it. As an old English saying goes, behind every successful man, there is a woman. Women empowerment should be the tune of the music of today. One thing they could do is, in the legislation, they can reserve half of the seats for women; especially in the assemblies and parliament. Then because of reservation, men would make their women stand up for the votes and work from behind.

Sri Sri: Money alone cannot bring success or happiness. You need to do something different. Teach people how they can handle their own negative emotions. Our teachers are here and we can have a program for your employees, especially for those who are always negative. All we need is a couple of hours for three days. You will find a difference for sure.

Sri Sri: Some breathing techniques, pranayama, and meditation would help you improve your presence of mind. Doing pranayama in the morning and evening keeps you really fresh. I work for about 19 hours every day, and I keep travelling quite a lot, also. Do I look tired? It definitely helps!