Sandipan Dalal / Mid-Day

Mumbai, May 20: It’s a lesser-known fact that Lara Dutta has been pursuing Art of Living courses for over six years now.

This former Miss Universe had her first stint with various self-development and stress management programmes as a Miss India aspirant.

“It was a compulsory module in our Miss India training programme. Gradually, I got hooked on to it after I realised the benefits of the course,” she says.

This led her to enrol for advanced courses and now the belle can’t think of starting her day without meditation.

“Over these six years, I have done these advanced courses and now I can’t think of life without practising the yogasanas,” she says.

Ask her about her favourite exercise and the prompt answer is Sudarshan Kriya, a key technique to Art of Living (founded by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in 1982).

‘It’s incredible’

“It’s an incredible stress-relieving technique that I have learnt. I have been into yoga and pilates for years now. But Sudarshan Kriya helps you retain your calm and be aware of everything that’s happening around.

The past few months have been less hectic. Therefore, I could get more involved in it and am doing a couple of more courses,” she explains.

Others followed

Seeing her reaping the benefits of Art of Living, a lot of her friends got interested in the popular stress-relieving method.

“The benefits are quite visible. My close friends did realise it and gradually for themselves enrolled for it. There are 20 million people around the world who practise Art of Living,” she says.

Even Kelly is now practicing the Art of Living religiously, but Lara says
she didn’t sell the course to him, “I never pushed Kelly into pursuing the Art Of Living. I believe you can’t force someone to do anything. It has been a few months since he has started and he is relatively new to the exercise,” adds Dutta.