Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar with Tory MP Matthew Offord
Kolkata: Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who is visiting London after nine years, has a panoramic view of London from the 39th floor of the luxurious Shangri-La Hotel, At The Shard, the capital's tallest building.
After a 40-minute wait in the huge drawing room of his suite, I am ushered in for my interview with the 60-year-old "Guruji".
Ravi Shankar, who was born in Tamil Nadu but now lives in Bangalore, speaks perfect English. He is in the UK to address public meetings in Manchester, Leicester and London and to speak to parliamentarians.
He begins: "The big question in everyone's mind is, 'What is the purpose of life?' This is when the journey towards the spirit begins."
He advocates meditation and yoga as a way of dealing with the stresses of modern life.
He patiently adjusts the wrap-around glasses round my head so that I can see a video of one of his immense gatherings.
He recommends his "apps" when I ask whether meditation can be self-taught.
"Do breathing exercises - take some deep breaths," he says. "And sit and meditate for a while. And how to meditate if you ask me, I make a number of apps. To give you an initial experience of how to meditate. So you can download them."
"Though yoga and meditation have their roots in Hinduism their outlook and approach are very secular," he tells me. "Secularism is not in contradiction to spirituality. In fact, secularism is part of spirituality.
"In secularism you respect all religions, you have a broad mindset," he goes on. "You see everyone as equal; this is the basic principle of secularism. And everyone has their faith. And India is an example of this. Even Hinduism per se is very secular in the sense it allows everybody to practise whatever they wish to worship. So secularism and spirituality go hand in hand. If you are spiritual then you will definitely be secular. You cannot be fanatic. You cannot be theocratic. Religion divides people whereas spirituality unites them all as one human family. The world is one human family with differences. Whereas religion does not seem to promote differences, spirituality promotes differences - allow the freedom."
How does he relax?
"Do I look stressed?" he laughs.
As I leave, his next visitor comes in - Matthew Offord, the Tory MP for Hendon, a north London constituency with a big Indian population.
Courtesy: The Telegraph
