Investing in social work will bring joy and happiness: Sri Sri

Visakhapatnam: Founder of Art of Living Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said that investing in social work can bring more joy and happiness than investing in business. There is also joy in contributing back to the society.

“The purpose of wealth is to create wellness. Finding balance and inner peace is essential for entrepreneurs as well as citizens. Both are a pre-requisite for growth and development,” Ravi Shankar said.

Addressing a session on ‘Special plenary with a social icon’ on the third and concluding day of the CII’s Partnership Summit-2018, here on Monday, he explained how health becomes wealth. Good health means not just an absence of ill-health, but a soul functioning at the highest level of one’s consciousness, he pointed out.

“You cannot squander half of your health to earn wealth and then squander half of your wealth to regain health. It just does not make business or economic sense,” he said and pointed out to the problems that a blind resort to development can produce. He said that the

UK government had to create a department solely to tackle the problem of loneliness in society. Responding to questions by the moderator of the session Pranjal Sarma, Ravi Shankar said that the purpose of creating wealth is to protect health and wellness and suggested all to take a stroll into nature or beach and get rejuvenated.

Ravi Shankar outlined three ‘mantras’ to achieve success. One: Trust in oneself; Two: Trust in the Indian system; and Three: Trust in the resilience and dynamism of the Indian people.

On the prevailing quest for “instant gratification” by both citizens and businesses, Ravi Shankar said that while that was a ‘normal human instinct’, developing an attitude of “patience” was a necessity. “We need passion, but not feverishness. There should be no apathy. We need dynamism infused with patience and consciousness,” Ravi Shankar cautioned.

Speaking in the session, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said that the only way to lead one’s life is by adopting integrity and ethics as a life skill.

Creation of ill-gotten wealth will create problems. Naidu explained that one of his government’s aim was to create a ‘happy society’ even while maximising growth and development and that he had announced a ‘Happy Sunday’ to encourage citizens and their families to come outdoors and mix with the community as “human interaction was a critical ingredient in upping the happiness quotient of the people.”

Answering to a question, how to invest in oneself? The Chief Minister answered that stressing on the importance of ethical values in all aspects of life. Wealth acquired illegally and unethically would create problems. Tons of money and tons of gold acquired illegally and unethically would make one sleepless and added that “If I can do good things I could get six hours of good sleep.”

Talking on the usage of mobile phones in the present era, Ravi Shankar said that the problem is with the attitude and not with the technology. Addicts of technology should switch off mobiles and peek into the other world, and then they would find another dimension of communication.

He said he always advised that children should play with other children and not with games in the computer. Eating, sleeping and anything excessive would result in problems.

On the concept of Seva (service), he said that the joy in contributing to others happiness without expecting anything in return is Seva.There should be more and more CSR activities leading to creation of more and more happiness and prosperity to people, he added.