Testimonials & Experiences
KARIN VASTOLA, Yuba City, CA
I learned, there are a lot of smart women in this world. If we could harness that power for saving the starving children of the world, women being raped and ripped apart, little girls and boys not being sold as slaves to richer nations for raw greed and pleasure, when every household in every country has access to clean water, when people stop fighting in the name of God and religion, that is what I wanted to hear about at the conference.
At the next conference I would like to see a real plan. A plan to teach women how to be powerful together, we had so many women at the conference who know how to be powerful on their own. Women are lovers not fighters, teachers not warriors and most of all we are the ones with our hearts on our sleeves. Our weakness can be our strength.
VEENA CHAINANI, Pune, India
"It was wonderful to be there in the midst of such high energy and euphoria, where the yang from all walks of life, all over the globe gathered to share, celebrate, encourage, inspire and elevate mankind within the Lotus (Shaped Building) (VISHVALAKSHI MANTAP). I could feel His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's wish of there being a ONE WORLD FAMILY 'Vasudaiva Kutumbakam' coming alive". The feeling I got there was that of being in heaven, everyone smiling, embracing, laughing, singing, dancing, being and feeling complete in the moment. A sense of belonging to one another and being there for each other unconditionally. It was indeed a wonderful, powerful and enriching experience which I would cherish forever".
JODY HENDRYX, Round Rock, TX
The 3rd International Women's Conference which was held in Bangalore, India this past February was an absolutely amazing experience for me. This was the first event that I have ever attended that included an international community. I was inspired, in awe and amazed! Doing service is not new to me but there has always been a part of me that believed that my part was too small to really make a difference. What I experienced changed that perception forever! I now feel my connection to this large, global community in a way that I never did before. I know that my actions have a ripple effect much larger then I ever imagined.
MUTSA REMBA, ZIMBABWE
I had been to the Art of Living Ashram in 2006 to celebrate Art of Living's Silver Jubilee, and the Women's Conference trip was my second. I was badly in need of some direction in my life, my job felt like a meaningless humdrum existence from where I saw no way out. This was simply worsened by the economic and political challenges we were going through in Zimbabwe. The trip was therefore, secretly, a means to rejuvenate my spirit and find a whole new meaning to life, living and happiness in a world that made little sense. I must say the Women's Conference pampered me! There was so much love and sheer spoiling for all the delegates to the Women's Conference. For the first time really, I felt feminine and wonderful!!I really felt at the end of the Conference, like my soul had been to a magical massage parlour in heaven. I still feel that great!
Also, my intellect was challenged, my comfort zones stretched and my mental barriers broken from the interaction with all the delegates. Some I met and befriended, while others I watched at the conference itself. The panel discussion about women and the media did it for me. I was inspired by all panelists. They rose through hard work, some with others without socio-economic support but there they were, at the top of their game. During each session I found myself wondering more and more what my game was, and since the Conference, I am on a personal journey to find this out, and carve a career which brings me utter fulfillment. I definitely aim to be a speaker at the next conference, so I have given myself 2 years to become speaker material! In the meantime, I have ceased to be a mere spectator of challenges in my country and have taken the initiative to empower women through the Art of Living's Breath Water Sound Courses for women in peri-urban and rural areas. What I took from the Conference: there is something inside of us all binds us together, and through spirituality and reverence for this inner quality, I am making a difference to other women by awakening the leader in them.
RUTH KUOK, HONG KONG (part of her address at the conference)
This is a true story about my great-grandmother who lived near the city of Fuzhou in southern China over a hundred years ago, She was my grandfather's mother. She was illiterate. In my family's ancestral records, she is entered only as " wife of...( her husband)" with no mention of her own name.
It was Chinese New Year's Eve,in the year 1900. The economic situation in southern China was very bad. For her family, things had become desperate: her husband ( my great-grandfather) had lost his job. They had eight children, the youngest of whom was to grow up to be my grandfather. The family had seen tough times before, but now they were poverty-stricken.
It is the custom in China that New Year's Eve is celebrated with a sumptious dinner for the whole family . Many different dishes are cooked at home, including cakes, candies, and other delicacies. This New Year's Eve seemed the same as usual to her young children... they were playing in the streets outside, and their mother had been in her tiny kitchen all day busily preparing the eagerly-awaited meal. They could hear her chopping, slicing, dicing, frying, ...all happy sounds. Then she called cheerfully to them to come in for dinner:
" I've made a delicious dinner! " she called, " come in and eat!"
When the children began to eat, they realised that every dish had been made with tapioca. Only tapioca, nothing else. The cakes had been carefully cut and shaped like New Year cakes; the candies and puddings all looked like the real thing. But everything was made from tapioca. No sugar, no salt, no spices. Only tapioca.
Tapioca was the cheapest item on sale in the market. She had spent her last cent on it.
Her youngest son ( my grandfather, who was 6 years old at the time) could not hide his disappointment. " This is only tapioca, " he cried forlornly, " it is not New Year dinner!" " Yes of course it is, " she replied smiling, " it is New Year's Eve and we have much to celebrate. See how everything looks so nice...let's eat up. It's delicious, really."
When her youngest son grew up to become my grandfather, he would tell his family this story every New Year's Eve. We have all shared it with our own children. It is my family's way of remembering this amazing woman, who has left us a legacy of inner abundance more precious than any other inheritance. She had no status, no schooling, no money, no possessions. But she was wealthy beyond measure.
Last Years Conference team
Team of youth poets who went to Chicago after the YES seminar to compete
in the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam
International Women's Conference, Bangalore India (see below pictures)
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