GURUDEV Sri Sri Ravi Shankar ji told me: “Mere saath kya guilt? All I want from my teachers and volunteers is to be happy and be active.” Read this touching account by POOJA TOLANI, leading faculty from The Art of Living’s Canada Chapter.
I have never had a job in my life, hence never faced any of the ordeals office-goers talk about. I’ve been a full-time teacher with the Art of Living for about 20 years now and there isn’t a thing I would want to change about my life. It’s perfect! But there is one person who works overtime to make it this beautiful – My Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar!
He has taught me to recognize and celebrate the many miracles that life brings, and there have been plenty of them. He has taught me to notice and be grateful for the unconditional love that nature and he constantly showers me.
CANADA CALLING Ever since I became a faculty with The Art of Living, he would ask me to share the stress-elimination techniques on different parts of the world to bring smiles on people’s faces. Initially, I traveled on my own and then with my husband. We traveled and taught The Art of Living Programs in India, Europe, and then North America. With his blessings, wherever we went, we were fortunate to be able to teach many people. We were by now, so to speak, a “successful couple”.
In 2009, Gurudev asked us to go to Canada to teach these life-transforming techniques. Canada was somehow more challenging than anywhere else we had been to. It took us a lot more effort to organize courses and get things moving. While in other countries, within days of arriving, we would have people gathering in large numbers, in Canada, it had been over a year and we were still struggling to put courses together.
I began to feel stressed, burdened, impatient, and unhappy about the fact that Gurudev was taking such good care of us, yet we weren’t able to offer anything back.
MEETING WITH GURUDEV – This drove me to a point where eventually when Gurudev visited Canada Ashram in the summer of 2010, I spoke to him about this. I had to. I couldn’t take it any longer. So, I said to him, “Gurudev, I’ve been feeling very guilty that we haven’t been able to perform well here. Courses are so small, nothing is happening. I feel guilty that so much effort and money are being invested in keeping us in Canada but we are unable to be useful. Perhaps we should return to India or go to another country”. Gurudev, after listening very intently, looked at me with his eyes full of compassion and yet a sense of authority, and said, “Mere saath kya guilt?” (How can you feel guilty with me?). Then he went on to glorify the little work we had done and boosted us up by telling us how well he thought we had done. We were surprisingly, within minutes, feeling uplifted. And then he looked at me in a way that I will never forget and said, “All I want from my teachers and volunteers is to be happy and be active! Are you active?” I said yes. “Are you happy?” I looked at him with my eyes welling up with tears of love and gratitude and without even pausing to think, said, “Yes Guruji!”. “That’s it then”, he reaffirmed.
I walked to my room so full of love and purpose. But this time the purpose was not to organize a course or quantify the work I was able to do or not do. The only purpose I was focused on was “To be happy”. I kept thinking, of how many relationships do we have in our lives where the other wants NOTHING from us but our happiness. Here was Gurudev who has been unconditionally and continuously only giving, and all he wants in return from me is to be happy! I have to be able to give this to him. I will be happy simply because he wants me to! And that’s enough for him and for me. So that day I decided I would be happy despite everything – whether courses happen or not, whether I am able to perform and live up to my ego or not. I will be happy! I AM happy!
BE HAPPY! A few days later Gurudev left for India and we returned to our city in Canada. To my surprise, as soon as we came back, I felt different. I didn’t know how, but I was happier, lighter, and more at ease. This is when courses began to happen effortlessly, people started coming, we were now organizing big events, we started getting media coverage, and the face of AOL Calgary changed! I didn’t have to do anything, but sit and watch it happen.
Since then, Gurudev has visited Calgary twice, in 2013 & again in 2018. Both were extremely successful visits with multiple events, meetings with Government officials from the Mayor to the Lieutenant Governor, corporate leaders, social change-makers, and media personnel. All in all, Calgary moved, grew, and was ready for Gurudev!
Soon we attended a North American Teachers’ Refresher Meet with Gurudev where he asked us to share with everyone how we work and organize courses. I went up on stage and all I could say was, “By being happy – that’s it!”
Recognizing Our Worth: A Lesson Learnt with Gurudev
