Spirituality's economic bit

This blog is an amateur's thoughts on how a a wave of spiritual awakening can contribute at some level to the growth of an economy. Its more of an observation as opposed to a well thought out analysis of a man educated in the field.

I was associated in some capacity with Art of living for a while and some of the things I noticed was that, people who were heavily involved with the organization contribute generously to the NGO aspect of it. My view is unbiassed and just an analysis of what I've seen. While I was involved with them for a while I never really became a part of the euphoria there. So, of what I noticed, there were a few categories of people

- some who believed that Sri Sri Ravishankar is God and whatever bit they can contribute would only assist them in accumulating Good Karma.
- some who got associated with the organization for some gain health wise and through the time spent there, they were conviced that the NGO was doing good things and were happy to contribute.
- Guilt that they've done bad in the past and some of this would probably pay off the wrongs.
- Some who genuinely wanted to contribute to some of the causes just for the sake of it whether they believed in the spiritual aspect of Art of Living or not.

Whatever the belief or want, the NGO funds, I think, was growing by quite a bit. That said, I've heard from a few that Art of Living lacked funds. I am not however sure if they meant it lacked funds for some of the bigger projects that they wanted to start off. In any case for the community service that the NGO is doing, its my belief that they have sufficient funds for the present times. And the work being done is also pretty good.

Their contribution to the economic growth can be divided into two parts

- The first part is that the 'organization' attracts a lot of people. Call them devotees, seekers or people who are just curious. People get learning for their money. Be it of the stress relieving techniques or philosophical learning. While there are volunteers who don't get paid, there are teachers and staff who do get paid for the jobs that they do. So it is creating employment opportunities for quite a few people just as any other company does and hence puts money in their pockets to spend. They have expanded to multiple places in the country so in a way it could be perceived much like any other successful company.

- The second part is that, the people who work for the NGO bit of Art of Living, provide vocational training to under skilled and poor people and help them find a job to earn a living. The monies that these people earn is typically small and hence provides them with a relatively small consumption power. Nonetheless it puts money into people's pockets and that good for a start. I know for sure that they have helped a lot of people earn a good living alongside educating them about being good citizens. I don't know how much the second bit has worked but there would be some percentage of success atleast.

There is probably another aspect which is foreign currency coming into Art of Living. There is some NRI money flowing into the organization.

So summing it all up, successful spirituality can actually contribute to the economy just as any other successful business would.

Genius Erosion

For the last decade and a little over most people from my generation have grown up admiring some of the most brilliant cricketers. And I suspect that there never was a time when there were so many phenomenally good cricketers playing at one time. Most of us just took for granted the quality of cricket that was played. But in the last few months with the exodus of Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath (from test and soon ODIs as well I guess), Inzamam (from ODIs), Brian Lara (just announced retirement from ODIs), there already seems to be a huge void in the cricketing world. To make it worse, soon enough, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Gilchrist, Jayasurya and Hayden will be gone. If these players were taken out of the current cricket scene I find that my interest in the game dips tremendously. Shoaib Akhtar who is super exciting might not be in the game for too long as well given the way he is going. That would then mean that not a single exciting batsman or bowler would be playing the game except Muralitharan. The rest of the cricketers are very good cricketers but not quite in the same league as the guys mentioned.

From an Indian perspective, currently there are hoardes of people wanting Tendulkar to quit the game. Younger players might be good and they might even win games and that would be nice. But I don't think that would compare to the pleasure of watching Tendulkar bat. And the bottom line is that Cricket is just a game and the pleasure got out out of an innings like the one in Sharjah is far superior to a victory for the team. As I see it, patriotism has no room when it comes to a game. I'd be much happier watching a Brian Lara or a Tendulkar play brilliantly than seeing a favorite team win. Watching Shane Warne bowl was a superb pleasure. Watching the variations and the mind games he played was much more fun in my opinion than the equation of the game. After all how exciting is it to watch Ian Bell or Suresh Raina win a game? Yuvraj Singh is exciting but I dont think he falls in the league of Lara and Tendulkar.

Anyway in the next year or two we'll probably realize the reason as to why cricket was so much fun to watch in the last decade!