India: Happiness is a Contradiction

India's famous Taj Mahal

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's ashram

India holds significant sentimental value in my heart as this was the first country I was assigned to as a youthful, enthusiastic national correspondent. The India I lived in was overflowing with outbreaks of bubonic plague, questions of nuclear weapons, and economic tribulations. I was always vaguely aware that there was a whole other side to India, but I made the decision to pay no heed to the land of gurus and miracles. I decided to return to India to pay this mystifying “other half” homage and explore how, exactly, contentment and desolation could contradict one another and exist side-by-side, forming two separate worlds that seldom cross each other’s course. When I first arrived in India I went to visit a popular guru named Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. I took a taxi to his ashram in India’s Silicon Valley near Bangalore. The ashram had a breathtaking garden with just the right amount of quiet in contrast to world outside its gates. I went to a speech the guru gave explaining success without stress. When I first saw him he was wearing a graceful white robe and a colossal necklace made entirely of flowers. He told us that a baby smiles four hundred times a day while an adult only smiles seventeen times a day. This is a result of stress. Perhaps stress causes much of the world’s unhappiness and this is why youth are happier than adults. I liked where this idea was going but it was time to head back home. America here I come.

This is a video of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and him talking about his secrets to happiness.