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FEATURE: Ravi Shankar attracts crowds seeking inner peace

The world is full of conflict, violence and other problems, but all of these can be solved through meditation, said Indian spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, founder of the Art of Living Foundation.

“All world problems — from military conflicts to domestic conflicts — are caused by violence. Through meditation we can remove the cause of violence. Thus, we can bring peace to the world,” he said in an interview at a meditation course in Taipei on Saturday.

“My method of meditation is different from others because it is easy and effective. It can relieve tension, refresh the mind and help one find true happiness,” Shankar said.

About 400 Taiwanese gathered at a hotel in Taoyuan County to learn a breathing purification technique from Shankar, who is called “Guruji” by his followers.

Shankar arrived in Taipei on Thursday, the third stop on his teaching tour in Asia, which includes visits to Singapore, Indonesia and Hong Kong.

The trip was his eighth to Taiwan, where his foundation has an office and tens of thousands of people are believed to follow his school of meditation.

On Friday, Shankar gave a talk on meditation to 2,500 people at National Taiwan University.

Unlike many Indian spiritual leaders, Shankar does not claim to perform miracles. He devotes his time to teaching meditation — Sahaj Samadhi, or breathing purification — and to promoting humanitarian values and world peace through social work and meditation lessons for prisoners, victims of war, and survivors of natural disasters.

“A wise man sees the past as destiny, sees the future as free will, but lives in the present moment,” said Shankar, 51, wrapped in a white gown, his dark eyes twinkling.

Shakar defines meditation as a state in which the mind is “in the present moment” and free of agitation, hesitation and anticipation. Meditation is different from sleep because when one meditates one is alert, he said.

“I sit down for one hour’s meditation daily, but throughout the day I am also meditating,” he said.

Shankar, who is single and a vegetarian, spends one-third of his time at his foundation in Bangalore, India, and two-thirds traveling around the world teaching meditation, promoting interfaith harmony and supervising his foundation’s humanitarian projects in 140 countries.

He has visited Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and Kosovo to teach post-trauma meditation to war victims and has toured prisons in Thailand and Taiwan to help inmates seek inner peace and find the will to start anew through meditation.

Those who master his meditation methods, Shankar said, find contentment and inner peace and see all human beings as part of themselves.
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