On March 2020, I attended the International Women’s Conference in Bangalore, which brought together leaders and public figures from over 100 countries. The gathering was inspired by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Bhanu Ma, and the Art of Living movement. At its heart, it was about honoring women in leadership—their lived experiences, talents, and the cultures they carry so naturally that they rarely pause to name them. It was also a deeply meaningful time in my life when I was surrounded by inspirational women leaders at work and witnessed my mother in law head SBI Bhubaneshwar.

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There were many sessions, many voices, many carefully prepared words. And yet what stayed with me most was not the structure of the program, but a single speech from a young emerging leader from the Northeast. She was the first educated woman in her family, raised by a single mother after being abandoned by her father. She spoke without performance, without excess. There was something almost disarming in her clarity—confidence that did not ask for permission, gratitude that did not announce itself, and a quiet brilliance that did not need explanation.

The room did not immediately applaud. It paused. Then it softened. Many of us were in tears. I remember her walking close to Bhanu Ma and standing beside her, not seeking attention, not needing acknowledgment. In that silence, something shifted—not just admiration, but a deeper understanding of what becomes possible when a voice is simply allowed to exist fully in the world.

Since that moment, every Navaratri, my husband and I have chosen to support the annual education of at least nine girl children—roughly $1 a day per child. It felt like the most direct way to respond to what I had witnessed: not just inspiration, but responsibility.

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I was also deeply moved by the leadership I saw throughout the organization.

Amma, Gurudev’s mother, who opened her home and her life to these children in the earliest days, dedicated herself to girls’ education with a life defined by love, humor, and sacrifice. She shared her home, her family, her resources, her talents—and a smile that felt entirely unguarded and real. As someone who considered cooking a personal limitation, I found myself unexpectedly inspired by her life. I read about her, tried to cook more, and eventually gifted her book to my local Art of Living mother in the Bay Area—Kaushi Mami—who had taught us how to cook and serve, and in doing so, how to turn ordinary life into something shared.

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Bhanu Ma, Gurudev’s sister and the conference chair, is one of the most powerful and disarming leaders I have witnessed. At the close of the conference, she could have listed accomplishments or milestones. Instead, she chose something far less predictable. She wept—for her friend, who had recently lost her husband and still stood at the conference, composed and fully present in service. Bhanu Ma chose to honor her friend publicly, while her friend stood with quiet strength and resolve. There were no metrics in that moment, no summary of impact, no polished conclusion—only a gentle interruption of the usual language of success: emotion, vulnerability, and loyalty made visible. It was not dramatic in the way performance often is. It was quieter. And therefore harder to dismiss. Women are often asked to moderate emotions in leadership. Yet in that moment, vulnerability revealed itself not as weakness, but as a deeper form of strength—one that does not separate achievement from humanity.

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Sri Vidya, Bhanu Ma’s daughter-in-law and one of the organizers of the World Cultural Festival, brought a different kind of presence. She spoke with simplicity and ease—natural, playful, almost childlike in her openness, as though performance had never been a requirement she accepted. Her husband stood slightly behind her, quietly recording, not as an observer but as a steady witness—almost like a partner in her unfolding rather than her presentation. In that moment, I was struck by how grounded this family was, even while being part of a movement that has touched the lives of over 800 million people. Something in that simplicity softened me further—the understanding that there is no single architecture for becoming a mother, only many forms of care that do not always fit into definition, but are no less real.

 

What also stayed with me was the underlying discipline of simplicity in how this ecosystem operates. In its early years, Amma and Pitaji were known to run the nonprofit with an extremely lean approach—preferring buses over convenience, and keeping costs minimal so that resources could flow directly into service. That ethos continues even today in different forms, with many leaders contributing without adding overhead, ensuring maximum reach with minimal waste. There are now case studies that reference the efficiency and return on impact of Art of Living seva initiatives. As Gurudev often says, “It is not enough for me to be a lighthouse. We all must become lighthouses.”