Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is an Indian spiritual leader, humanitarian, peacemaker, and founder of the Art of Living Center. During his recent visit to the Art of Living Center in Boone, North Carolina, I had the opportunity to meet with Gurudev on July 16, 2025, to discuss human fraternity, peacemaking, and his vision for a world in which all people flourish. 

At Capita, we affirm the positive contributions that religion and spirituality make to building a future of peace, justice, harmony, and friendship, and the responsibilities that religion and spiritual practice impose upon policymakers and other public leaders to be architects of a common good that is inclusive of all families and communities. As such, we were grateful for this opportunity to bring Gurudev’s spiritual vision into dialogue with our work.

Joe Waters: What’s the basis of the brotherhood, the sisterhood—the human family? What makes us a family?

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: It’s awareness. We just need to wake up and see that the whole world is one human family. 

But what I struggle with is what undergirds that? 

I’d rather ask: What keeps us divided? It’s a lack of connectivity that keeps us separate. When we realize we’re part of one human family, we already feel connected.

St. Francis said the drive to possess—to accumulate possessions—is the basis of division and war. Does that seem right to you? 

Yes. Limited possessions, but you should see the whole planet as yours.

Everybody is part of you. You have two choices: either expand your possession and feel everyone is part of you, or feel that nothing is yours. See life from a bigger context.

Clothes have more shelf-life than your body. Your shoes will be more long-lasting than yourself. So, when you see the temporary nature of human life, it feels foolish to fight over small things.

People lack this broader vision about life. 

How would you characterize that vision? 

See life from a bigger context. You’ve been here for 40 years—maybe you’ll be here 40 or 50 more. And that’s it. The planet will continue. The world will continue. The challenge is: what would you like to contribute to the world, to the happiness, and to make people more comfortable? 

I think a lot about future generations—my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, people I’ll never meet who may never know my name. I don’t know the names of my great-great-grandparents, but they contributed to my life. I’m indebted to them. So, what does it mean to be a good ancestor? 

It means giving a better world to the next generation than the one we inherited.

Technologically, we’ve advanced. Our ancestors had to do a lot of hard work to just survive— to sustain life. But that is no longer the case. Technologically, we’re comfortable. But on human values, we are down the hill.  

We may have made moral regress, not progress. How do we get back on track toward moral progress that matches our technological advancement? 

By giving life more importance than its accessories. By valuing life, improving communication, and creating a sense of belonging. These are, I would say, the basics. 

If you put a few animals together—they bond quickly. The same is true of children. Children of different races and religions bond easily. But as we grow older, we harbor all sorts of prejudice… gender prejudice, generational prejudice..Small children don’t want to speak to the elderly, and the elderly don’t care much about what children do. These gaps across society need to be bridged. We must see beyond belief systems and socioeconomic status to see that we are all human beings. 

One thing we focus on is the conditions for human flourishing. What are the conditions for flourishing today, in an age of AI, climate disruption, demographic shifts, and geopolitical instability? What should policymakers be doing? 

First and foremost: compassion. Without compassion, we can’t call ourselves human beings. Second: nurture commitment. Commitment to truth. People don’t have that commitment. Without it, corruption creeps in. Third: communication. People are intrinsically good, but they lack communication. That’s where misunderstandings creep in and distance grows.

You had a significant role in the Colombian peace process. What was that like? How were you able to bridge the divides and foster real communication that led to peace?

It was challenging at first. They saw how I dressed, and said, “We have nothing to do with people of faith.” They said they only believed in Karl Marx and Jung. They refused to meet with me. But then I had a talk at the University of Havana, and they sent two people to check me out. So they came, and I led them through a group meditation. They went back and told the others, “He’s harmless. You can meet him. He’s not imposing anything on us.”

Eventually, they agreed to talk. I said, “You want social justice—I do too. I want everyone to be happy.” But I told them the path of violence is unacceptable. We talked for three days. At the end, they unilaterally agreed to a ceasefire and to peace talks.

So, you didn’t just step in as a broker, but as another human being meeting them as human beings. 

Yes. I told them I understood their predicament and the pain they were facing. They weren’t having parties in the jungle. They were suffering, in their youthful days. They had a cause. I told them I understood their cause. And then I told them, “Come into the mainstream. Start a party. Make your demands known. I’m not saying no to that. But unnecessarily bringing down telephone towers, disrupting the water supply to the city, making millions of people homeless, and bombing—these are things that make your own country go down.”

If you had seen Colombia before 2015 and compared it to now—it’s a sea of difference.

What’s remarkable is that it wasn’t just about compassion. There was also a shared hunger for justice—and they saw that in you. 

Yes. It’s more than words. We convey presence, feeling, vibration. That’s what moves people. The press asked me: “Why did they agree to peace when the UN, the US, and the Colombian government couldn’t make it happen?” I said, “I don’t know—maybe divine intervention.”

We live in a time when global institutions—like the UN and EU—are under siege. They’re discredited in some eyes, but we still need them. How can we scale up the values you speak of—like compassion—through these institutions? Because we need them in a profoundly interconnected world. 

I totally agree, we need these institutions. We must strengthen these institutions and improve communication. 

I’ll share something: when the UN declared International Yoga Day, I inaugurated it with the Secretary General. I led them through a short meditation. Afterward, he said to me, “We need this before every negotiation—to calm the mind so people can listen to each other. That’s our issue—we don’t listen to each other. Most negotiations fall apart because of that.” So we need to cultivate patience, and that comes when we’re free of stress. And the only way I feel that we can get rid of stress is attending to your own mind and improving your energy level. Meditation is an excellent tool for that.

When I talked about meditation forty-five years ago, people raised their eyebrows and said, “What is this? It’s not for mainstream people, it must be for someone who is out there.” That was the attitude, the narrative. But now, 192 countries came together to declare World Meditation Day at the UN last year. Almost one-third of the world practices meditation. It’s essential for calming the mind and reducing anxiety, loneliness, and insomnia. 

We’re also interested in the stability, quality, and predictability of family life. The family really is the “seedbed of the city” and the nucleus of society. How can we promote stability, quality, and predictability in families themselves, particularly with young children? 

Limit screen time. Families may sit together, but everyone is buried in their phones. That’s not good for their nervous systems. Spend real time together. Engage in service activities. Involve kids in those activities. Random acts of kindness, I would say. Participate in music, sports, and dance. Share a meal together every day. That’s crucial for bonding.

Augustine talks about the human person is curved in on themselves and that movement toward God is an opening of the person. Our phones literally bend us into that curved posture, looking in on ourselves, that Augustine talks about. 

When we stare at screens too long, parts of our brain start to shrink. Creativity diminishes. We don’t blink while looking at screens, and that affects the brain. It is necessary to take time off the phone and relate to people. We also don’t get the same serotonin from social media. You need people in real life to connect to. 

To be close to God, you need to be close to nature and people, not just thinking about yourself all the time. I often say there is  a formula to get depressed: just sit and think, “What about me? What about me? What about me?” Instead, ask, “What can I do for everyone else?” If you only cave in on yourself, that is not helping at all.

The movement should be outward and open.

I’m also interested in the dialogue that needs to happen between East and West. In particular, I am interested in the spirituality of East and West. There’s a lot of Western interest in Eastern spirituality. How should we also renew our own Western traditions? 

There are two main philosophical streams. One says, “Believe first, then you will get an experience one day.” This is Occidental. The Oriental philosophy says, “Experience first, then you can believe.” This is why science and Eastern philosophy never clashed—because science also says, “Experience first, then believe.”

In Europe, science and spirituality clashed because their way of operating was different. Not that this is not right. This is also right—this is a path: you believe first and then you get experience, no doubt. To me, there’s no conflict between East and West. They complement each other.

In India, we believe Jesus spent 12 of his lost years in India. He went to a gurukula and studied there. That’s why there are striking similarities between Christianity and Hinduism—things not found in Judaism—like the bell, the rosary, and the reverence for the Virgin Mary. Jesus told the doubting Thomas (who is buried in India), “Go and see for yourself.” So Jesus sent him to India, to the same place where he had studied. Even today, the place where he is buried is called St. Thomas Mount in India. It’s the place where he sat to meditate. There are priests—descendants of St. Thomas—who wear orange robes, like Indian monks. From my angle, there’s no conflict at all. Whatever Jesus said, you can find similar teachings in the Upanishads.

One final question: what’s one project you’ve dreamed of but haven’t started yet?

There’s no gap between my dreaming and my starting a project.  I just want to keep bringing smiles to people’s faces—and I keep doing that as much as I can.

Joe Waters is Capita’s Co-Founder and CEO