Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

The Art of Living is one of the largest yoga-and-breathing organizations in the world, and its founder, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, is among the most visible living Indian spiritual teachers, a fixture at global forums and the man behind mass gatherings that fill riverbanks and national malls. The tradition's core is not posture but breath: the Sudarshan Kriya, a rhythmic breathing technique the foundation says has been taught to hundreds of millions of people across roughly 180 countries.¹

From physics degree to a global movement

He was born Ravi Shankar on 13 May 1956 in Papanasam, Tamil Nadu, and took a science degree from Bangalore University.² After an early period within Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation movement, he founded the Art of Living Foundation in Bengaluru in 1981.² The technique that anchors it came, by his account, in 1982 as "an inspiration" after ten days of silence in Karnataka: the Sudarshan Kriya, a sequence of paced breathing.³ The first courses abroad followed quickly, Switzerland in 1983 and North America in 1986, and the movement grew into a global network run from the Art of Living International Center on Kanakapura Road, Bengaluru.⁴ In 1997 he co-founded the Geneva-based International Association for Human Values for relief and development work.⁴

His public profile has been unusually broad: humanitarian and mediation work, including a role on India's Supreme Court-appointed Ayodhya mediation panel in 2019; India's Padma Vibhushan in 2016; and enormous World Culture Festivals, from Bangalore in 2006 to Berlin in 2011 to Washington's National Mall in 2023.⁵⁶ The 2016 festival, held on the Yamuna floodplain in Delhi, drew a long environmental case before India's National Green Tribunal; in August 2026 the Supreme Court of India set aside the tribunal's orders and directed the deposited compensation refunded, finding the causation unproven.⁷

What the practice is

The entry point is not a yoga mat but a course. The Art of Living Part 1 program teaches the Sudarshan Kriya, which combines ujjayi breathing, bhastrika and a cyclical rhythmic breath, with a daily home practice; Part 2 courses are silence retreats, and the Sahaj Samadhi track teaches a mantra meditation.¹ Gentle hatha classes are offered as Sri Sri Yoga, and the foundation trains and certifies its own teachers internally rather than through outside yoga alliances.⁸ The flavor of the tradition is breath-and-meditation with a strong service (seva) and community (satsang) culture; its derivative programs reach universities, prisons and veterans through the human-values association.⁹

The lineage today

The Art of Living Foundation remains active worldwide in 2026, headquartered in Bengaluru, with its US hub at the human-values association in Washington and a large catalog of breathing, meditation and yoga programs.¹⁹ Its founder continues to teach, to write (his 2024 Notes for the Journey Within was a bestseller) and to appear at international events.¹⁰ A listing that names Sri Sri Ravi Shankar as its lineage is most likely offering Sudarshan Kriya breathing and Art of Living programming; expect breath and meditation at the center, with hatha yoga alongside.

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