Meet the Speaker
About Sri Sri
Since 1981, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has been teaching breath-based meditation techniques for health and well-being. His approach blends lightness, humour, inspiration, and ancient wisdom. Through his work, millions of people around the world have found calm, peace, and resilience.
The Beginning
Born in 1956 in Southern India, Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar was a gifted child. By the age of four, he was able to recite parts of the Bhagavad Gita, an ancient Sanskrit scripture and was often found in deep meditation. Gurudev’s first teacher, Sudhakar Chaturvedi, had a long association with Mahatma Gandhi. By the age of seventeen in 1973, Gurudev had graduated with degrees in both Vedic literature, and physics.
Founding The Art of Living and the International Association of Human Values
Since 1981, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has been teaching breath-based meditation techniques for health and well-being. His approach blends lightness, humour, inspiration, and ancient wisdom. Through his work, millions of people around the world have found calm, peace, and resilience. Over the years, his vision of a stress-free, violence-free society has ignited a global movement that has reached 180 countries. His ongoing humanitarian and conflict-mediation initiatives have helped strengthen communities in places as diverse as Colombia, India, the Ivory Coast, and North America.
Gurudev founded The Art of Living in 1981 as an international, non-profit, educational and humanitarian organisation. Its educational and self-development programs offer powerful tools to eliminate stress and foster a sense of well-being. Appealing not only to a specific population, these practices have proven effective globally and at all levels of society. In 1997, Gurudev co-founded the International Association for Human Values (IAHV), a sister organisation of The Art of Living. The IAHV coordinates sustainable development projects, nurtures human values and initiates conflict resolution.
IAHV’s mission is to provide interventions that ensure people have access to tools to deal with anxiety, stress and isolation and cultivate innate human values of kindness, compassion, friendliness, understanding and service to others.
Inspiring service and globalising wisdom
A globally renown humanitarian leader, Gurudev’s programmes have provided assistance to people from a wide range of backgrounds – victims of natural disasters, survivors of terror attacks and war, children from marginalised populations, and communities in conflict, among others. The strength of his message has inspired a wave of service based on spirituality through a huge body of volunteers, who are driving these projects forward in critical areas around the globe. As a spiritual teacher, Gurudev has rekindled the traditions of yoga, breathwork and meditation and offered them in a form that is relevant to the 21st century. Beyond reviving ancient wisdom, Gurudev has created new techniques for personal, and social transformation. These include a restorative breathing technique known as the Sudarshan Kriya which has helped millions of people to find relief from stress and discover inner reservoirs of energy and inner silence in daily life.
A Figure of Peace
As an ambassador of peace, Gurudev has played a key role in conflict resolution around the world as he shares his vision of non-violence at public forums and gatherings worldwide. Regarded as a neutral figure with a sole agenda of peace, he represents hope to people in conflict. He has received particular credit for bringing opposing parties to the negotiating table in Colombia, Iraq, the Ivory Coast, Kashmir, and Bihar. Through his initiatives and speeches, Gurudev has consistently emphasised the need for reinforcing human values and recognising that we belong to a ‘one world family’. Fostering interfaith harmony and calling for multi-cultural education as the remedy for fanaticism are significant parts of his efforts to achieve sustainable peace. Gurudev has touched the lives of millions around the world through a reawakening of human values and service. Going beyond race, nationality, and religion, Gurudev has rekindled the message of a ‘one world family’, which is free from stress, and violence.
Inspiring Empowerment
Gurudev’s impact is seen in over 30,000 instructors and a million volunteers worldwide, all committed to nurturing empowered individuals and communities. Through their collective efforts, work is happening in areas of need, including our schools, colleges, veterans associations, prisons, and environment. In light of his contributions, Gurudev has received honorary doctorates, government honours, and been an invited keynote speaker at distinguished venues.
In Aotearoa New Zealand there are more than 50 teachers facilitating breath work, meditation and development programmes for adults, children and in communities ranging from prisons to corporate workspaces. Regular courses are held in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch as well as online for participants around the country. Art of Living courses have been run on marae and the breathwork and meditation practices have been supported by several prominent Māori leaders.
Find out more about Gurudev and his work
International Association for Human Values (IAHV)
The methods of IAHV are effective, proven and practical. Their processes release the trauma and bring deep relaxation and renewed energy. The result is that people are empowered to achieve peace and wellbeing within themselves and those around them, and cultivate the innate human values of kindness, friendliness, understanding and service to others,
The IAHV’s mission is to transform lives worldwide of people affected by disasters, conflict, trauma and stress, and children not in education. In these situations, positive human values are overtaken by fear, anger and regret, leading to aggression, intolerance, stress, hopelessness or depression.
The Art of Living
The Art of Living courses inspire a profound ethic of service, adding an enriching element to our lives. Through our programs, participants not only find inner peace and joy but also develop a sense of responsibility towards the community and the world at large. By integrating service into daily life, we believe individuals can achieve a deeper and more meaningful existence.
The Art of Living Foundation, in partnership with the International Association for Human Values, is dedicated to sharing our powerful breathing and meditation techniques along with our comprehensive empowerment curriculum with communities in need.
This collaboration extends our reach and impact, ensuring that our holistic approach to well-being benefits a diverse range of individuals and communities globally.
"The Art of Living, it's a principle, a philosophy of living life to the fullest. It's more of a movement than an organisation. Its core value is to find peace within yourself and unite people in our society - people of different cultures , traditions, religions and nationalities. To remind us that we have one goal: to elevate human life everywhere."
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar