I recently attended the Art of Living (AOL)’s Yes+ course. YES+ stands for Youth Empowerment and Skills Seminar. I had heard about AOL a long time back when I was in my engineering college. AOL representatives had come to our college and had given a very nice talk. But at that time I had not attended the course because (1) there was a donation involved with it, (2) I thought Yoga and meditation are for old people, and (3) most of my friends had not done it. Now that time has changed and I got to realize my mistake in perceptions, I didn’t miss attending it. This time AOL was conducting sessions very near to my home (as well as our office). At the end of the program, I came out with a rich experience and very useful knowledge.
Yes+ course is designed for the youth (18-30 years). So the program is packed with life-changing thoughts and ideas most applicable for the youth. We had talks on how to make most of life; how to have good relationships; keeping gratitude towards parents; active role in society; and also what kinds of food are the best and why. I liked the scientific manner in which the trainers explained each concept – from why to avoid leather articles, or meat eating, or even tea/coffee. Youth are at very inquisitive stage but the knowledgeable trainers could clearly satisfy all the queries. Along with the talks which were mostly demonstrated with performing some practical exercise or tasks, we learnt many enlightening Yoga techniques. Most of the participants had wonderful experiences with the Yoga session.
The powerful spiritual flow into the content was really amazing. (I am not sharing much of the activities otherwise it may subdue the surprise element in newcomers.) Every day we were given some very interesting home-works. We also had Q&A sessions with the trainers in which we could ask them any doubts in our mind. I also loved the way trainers answered some controversial questions. They were also very much supportive of other Gurus, like Baba Ramdev. It was heartening to realize that the AOL guys practice what they preach. No surprise that when our teacher shared his own life story and his journey to AOL, all of us were touched. On the last day, we also ran through some videos introducing us to the world of Art of Living.
What an enlightening experience it has been. It ran for 6 days – first 4 days for us were in the evenings and then two long sessions ran on the weekends. I found the organization and structure of the training simply brilliant. Given that so many highly qualified and successful guys from top universities are part of AOL, it came as no surprise. Another aspect of the course was that we came to know so many nice individuals (as participants) – who are now good friends.
We were informed that advance Yes+ course is being organized soon in Bangalore. Hope to attend it someday. Till then, I have to maintain and improve on the Yogic path shown by AOL. AOL also conducts many other courses for people of all ages. I highly recommend the AOL courses for each one of us…
With heartfelt thanks to AOL and trainers,
Jai Gurudev!
Rahul
7 comments:
Very nicely written blog....its like recap for the course.
After reading it people can be categorized as 1) Those who did Yes+ 2) Those who has to do it :)
WOW...Its a pleausre to have such a cool blogger in the yes!+ team now...!!! :)
Keep going !! :)
My Daddy is strongest :D :D
Now i know where is my intellect coming from :D
hey have you heard about the YOGATHON organised by aol. if you are working in chennai you can participate in the most amazing event of the decade.
YOGATHON Welcomes you.
Thanks Rahul, a very sensible article by you, unlike some moron called Deepak who wrote a biased article against AOL a while ago.
I practiced AOL few years ago(7 yrs), it was a vry good exp learning and practicing it for 30-40 days felt vry calm cool mind and vry relaxed all the time.my confidence level also good increased, but later on after certain period of time i felt like a different person and some time i felt lost not able to speak well to people around not able to handle even small suituations and become physically weak and some time even dont know wat to do(even will forget close relative friends name). will not be able to prolong a conversation and reply back to the word spoken by opposite people all these problems i was facing. I slowly stopped doing yoga and started drinking heavily since i was felling a bit relaxed when doing tat.then years past slowly my mental abilities got improved not to fuller extend.Then once I started menditation by joining sagaj marg that was the moment after few days my condtion was vry worse i was not sleeping well for more than 3 week continuely and vry disturbed mind not able to wrk properly in office, even i thought of suicide few times. when i consulted a doctor he suggested to take a phychartist option and said may be a dpressive disorder.now i have consulted a phchartist and undergoing treatment for that(moderate depression,stress and anxitey).Doctor advice normal meditation and breath cleaning is sufficient for helathly living.these practices can give u a vry good result or vry rarely a bad 1 also just thought of sharing my exp’es with yoga and meditation.plz let me know if any remedies are there for my current suituation.
Honestly, all the AOL programs are meant to make money...they use the word "donation" which should be corrected to "fees". because donation is voluntary while you cannot attend the course without "fees".
All the techniques are re-packaged from old yoga and meditation techniques.
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