From spearheading a ‘World Happy Day’, organizing awareness events around Earth Day and World Health Day as well as distributing gifts for Christmas and New Year: Goran Popovski has galvanized numerous projects in Macedonia.
An Art of Living teacher, Goran has been awarded with the philanthropist of the year title in Macedonia three times.
With The Art of Living since 2007, Goran is passionate about volunteering and social service. The Ministry of Labor and Social Policy honored Goran with a certificate of gratitude on World Day of Volunteering (December 2012). Here Goran speaks about his inspiration and dynamism.
How did you go about creating and executing service projects?
My intention was to develop the humanitarian aspect of Art of Living Macedonia in addition to the educational part, as this would be very useful to society. I started with setting the base of these humanitarian actions and projects in order to take a larger sweep. Many of the projects are still in progress and new ideas and projects continue to come forth.
What is your role in this project(s)?
I play different roles in each project - from creating the idea, to the implementation, organizing, managing and driving and even advising. So I have countless roles which I am able to play with the support of a great team.
What inspires you to commit yourself to seva?
Seva gives a wonderful feeling of completeness, satisfaction, joy and unforgettable smiles on the faces of people. There is a feeling of doing a good job for the environment and people around, as well as of sharing with others. I have learnt what is needed is attention and communication which is “eye to eye” and “heart to heart”. Most importantly, they need love.
We maybe not be able to beat someone’s hunger, but we can provide a little bit of help to the socially disadvantaged families and make their daily struggle a little easier. For them, it is very important that somebody shares their pain. They are happy when you exchange a kind word with them, when you share and they feel a part of you. The greatest inspiration is the smile on their faces, and the warm looks in their eyes.
How has your community benefited from this project?
People in the community are learning how to be more humane. We encourage human values in them. When they participate in a humanitarian action, they feel good and uplifted. This inturn motivates them to take more humanitarain activities and utilize their time being useful to society.
Could you please tell us something about yourself?
I am from Macedonia. I studied veterinary and I run my own company. I have always wanted to be creative in my life, and thus I created a company that is now doing quite well.
During my long years of hard work while I was building my career, I led a very stressful life. As a result of which, my health started getting affected with serious diseases. The most serious was pituitary adenoma.
Knowing that such a lifestyle would destroy me, I started to search for solutions to deal with anxiety and stress. In the meantime, medical results kept getting worse. I started taking strong medications but I felt that my body was getting poisoned. I was falling apart. The doctors advised me to go for a surgery as that was the only solution to improve my health.
Then Art of Living happened in Macedonia. It took a long time for my teacher to make me visit a seminar. Living a stressful life as a successful businessman, only one breath at the seminar was enough for me to feel what I had been missing.
Once I began practicing the Sudarshan Kriya, I immediately stopped taking medicines. I was doing my spiritual practices daily and life just became more beautiful.
I was deeply touched by The Art of Living. I enrolled for the Teacher’s Training program and started conducting seminars. I wanted to spread the knowledge and reach out to more and more people. I wanted more people to expereince this powerful knowledge which changed my life. I felt the disease disappear completely.
For three years, I did not take the medicines, although the doctors were very persistent . After three years of regular practice, I decided to convince everyone that I was healthy. I went for the examination and the results were as per my expectation. Adenoma had disappeared without drugs or surgery. It left the doctors surprised.
I realized that the remote control of my life is in my hands. I became happier, began contributing more to the society. I felt much calmer and peaceful. Life became a stress-free beautiful journey.
What else do you like to do apart from sadhana, seva and satsang?
I love being with nature and spending time with plants, working in my garden. Painting and photography are my other passions. Being in the company of animals and traveling to exotic places is what I look forward to. I am also interested in alternative medicine and I want to explore alternative approaches to treat various diseases. Whatever is cheerful, playful and mystical is what I love.
