Taste of a Movement

It’s my firm belief that meditation is going to be one of the most sought after skills in the coming decades. As we ride the massive wave of AI, it’s inevitable that eventually the need to connect to our deepest core and continuously developing our NI (natural intelligence) will rise, and hopefully one day NI & HL (human learning) will become as popular as AI & ML, if not more.

The first week of June was a special one for me. I had the opportunity to volunteer in the “Ekatm Abhiyan”, a one of a kind movement started by the State Govt of MP (my home state) and the non profit org Heartfulness Institute , with an ambitious goal of imparting training of yoga & meditation to 10 million people across some 45,000 villages and towns of MP in just about 40 days culminating before the International Yoga Day (21 June). Happy to share that this target has already been met and exceeded well before 21 June. This massive feat was achieved by over 6000 volunteers from across India and the state machinery of the state of MP.

In a span of 7 days I visited 15 villages, 1 town and practiced yoga, meditation, pranayam and brain exercises with over 800 adults and almost 400 kids. This included villagers, teachers and also 80 prisoners in a prison facility. Living in the village with a host family was one of the most humbling experiences. While I was there I also got interviewed by a local radio station.

Just 7 days of stay in villages gave me a shock when I returned to a town, seeing all the traffic, lights, noise and pollution, reminding how far we have gone from the simple life in tune with nature. Well, we cannot all go back to the villages but we can get in tune with our inner nature on a regular basis and simplify our lifestyles, reduce our needs, do more with less, take care of our environment as best we can.

This was not a planned visit for me, it was a response to the call for volunteers when this program started in May. I am deeply thankful to Zscaler for allowing me this time off and to my colleagues for holding the fort.

Some of the most powerful and endearing qualities I could see in the villagers are their simplicity, authenticity and openness. Interestingly all of these are quite valued at Zscaler. Our products bring the power of simplicity to the network topology and architecture for our customers and authenticity and openness are firmly etched in the ethos and cultural fabric of Zscaler .