While Western workers pop antidepressants and tranquilizers to beat stress, India seeks relief from the pressures of its emerging materialistic society with a booming spirituality industry. Personnel departments in big firms are calling on spiritual gurus to help new recruits handle the tensions of modern-day life. And the best part? You don’t need to trek to the Himalayas to learn meditation any more. Bengaluru boasts of over 50 ashrams and spiritual centres. These range from global biggies such as the Art of Living, Mata Amrithanandamayi Math, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) and the Satya Sai Baba ashram to relatively smaller outfits like the Ramana Maharishi Centre for Learning and the Sri Mathrudevi Vishvas Shanti Ashram.
Software and spirituality
Each outfit has a growing group of high earning, professionally on-the-move followers. Art of Living has conducted The Sri Sri sudarshan kriya and meditation course at most top companies in the city, including Infosys, HCL and Tata Consultancy Services. The organisation has also designed a special Corporate Executive Programme — essentially a meditation and pranayama capsule — for senior corporate managers. The programme is stated to help managers increase team productivity.
Bengaluru has a lot to offer through discourses, spiritual talks and short courses on spirituality. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s ever popular ‘Art of Living’ techniques are recognised by the United Nations and scores of multinationals have it on their annual HRD agenda. Bengaluru’s ISKCON centre organises weekend stress and time management classes as part of its Friends of Lord Krishna (FOLK) programme on Sundays. Classes begin at 4 am with a tulsi puja, followed by a meditation session and, in tune with the changing times, a power-point presentation on managing work and lifestyle stress.
The software and spirituality industries are growing hand in hand in Bengaluru. With long work hours and deadline pressures, software professionals are stress-prone. This makes them a ready-made market for spiritual organisations. Why, even professors at the Indian Institute of Management include spirituality as part of their curriculum to ‘develop life skills and negotiate the world better.’
Spiritualism is essentially about stress management. People join the Vipassana meditation course mostly to beat stress and depression. Most of these happen to be 30-something professionals suffering from chronic depression who turn to meditation as a last resort.
Religious harmony
Except for sporadic outbursts over the Cauvery and a few minor issues, the city has largely been secular. Take the stretch on Old Poor House Road. A church, two temples and four mosques stand in serene religious equanimity. As proof of the secular nature of the city is the nine-day karaga festival (March-April) to worship the chief deity of the Thigala community, Goddess Draupadi. The earthen pot in which the goddess is said to be invoked is installed in the Dharmaraya Swamy Temple near City Market. On Chaitra Poornima (full moon day in the Hindu month of Chaitra), the last day of the festival, the karaga is carried in a procession that begins at midnight and continues till the morning. The procession halts at Majestic at the Dargah-e-Sharif of Hazrat Tawakkal Mastan, the 18th-century Muslim saint. Legend has it that on hearing the approach of the karaga the saint ran towards it, but fell and was grievously injured. The Hindus applied kumkum to his wounds, which miraculously healed. Hazrat Mastan then prayed to Draupadi that, after his demise, the karaga stop at his tomb, a tradition carried on to this day.
The city is a window to many religious practices. Deepavali, the ‘Festival of Lights’ transcends demographic and religious lines and is celebrated with great vigour. Dussehra, a traditional celebratory hallmark of the old Kingdom of Mysore is another important festival. Just the way Fridays are a busy day for all the mosques in the city, Thursday is a busy day at the Infant Jesus Church when believers of all kinds gather to light a candle to fulfil their prayers. A series of miracles, all occurring on Thursdays, led to it being declared ‘Infant Jesus Day’. On Saturdays, the scene is repeated at the St Mary’s Basilica where Mother Mary, also called ‘Our Lady of Health’, is sought for her legendary healing powers.
According to the 2001 census of India, Hindus (79%) form the majority followed by Muslims (14%), Christians (6%) and Jains (1%). Some of the religious hotspots include the majestic five-storey Jamia Masjid in KR market, St Mary’s Church in Shivajinagar, the Parsi fire temple on Queens Road, the gurudwara near Ulsoor Lake, the Jain temple in Chikpet, the Bahai Bhavan on Coles Road, the Krishna temple in Rajajinagar (ISKCON) and the Shiva statue on Airport Road.
