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COVER STORY: SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR

Sri Sri Seva Warriors

Like Sharmila Murarka, who teaches AoL to those between 16 and 21 years of age, who call themselves Sri Sri seva warriors. They, all in T-shirts with imprinted messages like Guruji Loves Me and Smile With Me, welcome him in the courtyard of Jain House with a stylish song and dance: On your path our lives are laid out, like flowers, and at your feet our hearts are laid out.

They, all students, have even made a business card for him-Name: Sri Sri Ravi Shankar; Address: Hearts; Dial: Devotion; Fax: Faith: E-mail: love@home.com. For Murarka, it is "utter bliss", the state of being an artist of life. She first met him in Bangalore, Sri Sri's headquarters, during her advanced course in AoL. "I saw people dissolving in his presence. I saw him reading my mind and making it a discussion subject of the day. One day, somewhere in the ashram, all alone, I was crying madly. It was three in the afternoon, guruji's siesta time. Guruji, come to me, I cried. Within five minutes, he walked towards me, as if from nowhere. As a child, I used to talk to the mirror in the bathroom. Today, he is truly myself. When I'm on a rapturous high during a satsang, I'm his beloved."

So many beloveds for a celibate lover. So you ask Sri Sri, "Have you overcome temptation?"

"The temptation is for greater joy, greater happiness. Consciousness is providing me that all the time. Consciousness is stimulating me. When you have such a stimulus, there is no need for external stimuli."

"Has celibacy taken you closer to divinity?"

"Nothing like that. Married people too can achieve divinity."

And Sri Sriites believe there was divinity in the marriage of Venkat Ratnam and Vishalakshi, who gave birth to Ravi Shankar on May 13, 1956, the birthday of Adi Shankara, at Papanasam (which translates into "destruction of sin"), in Tamil Nadu. As the birthplace was saturated with Shiva and Vishnu temples, his devout parents named him, on the eleventh day of his birth, Ravi Shankar Narayana. At the age of four, goes the Sri Sri legend, the Bhagavad Gita was his best friend.

He was special from the beginning," says his sister Bhanumati, remembering her childhood with her elder brother, who at the moment is having dinner in another room in the Jain House. She leans back on the sofa and relives moments of divinity and innocence. "Our mother was very religious, immersed in tradition, pujas and temples. Our father was spiritual. He would provide scientific explanations for religious practices. He knew astrology and said this boy would be very special." Shankar was apparently a born leader. "When he was in the eighth standard, students from the tenth standard would come to him for advice. In his company, everyone felt good. Now I understand it all. He was also very artistic. He would write poems, write and direct plays." But he had kept his family in "maya", for his journey would seek out the world that Bhanumati or his parents or his friends couldn't reach. The enlightened son has not disowned his family. "Whenever he is in Bangalore he comes home on Fridays and performs puja," says Bhanumati.

But the science graduate from St Joseph's College, Bangalore, had a choice: a job in bank or a job with God. He chose the latter, and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was the medium. Not for long.

In 1982, he went to himself, all alone, into silence, in Shimoga, Karnataka. On the tenth day, he spoke to the people who came to see him, and thus began sudarshan kriya, born in mauna. Today, it is the most vital part of the AoL. And doing it with Sri Sri's voice instruction is sheer privilege. One early morning at the Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata, the privilege spreads on the floor as thousands of devotees sit on their folded legs and breathe in to the guru's amplified swooo ... and breath out to his flowing humm ... and after 20 minutes of the lyrical air fest, lie on their backs, eyes closed, in mind-cleansing meditation, frozen in timelessness, and for a few heartbeating moments, they look like characters in a borderless tableau of the blessed.

MetroScape

Banglore: Pub

Delhi: Furniture Store

Kolkata: Restaurant