QUESTION & ANSWER WITH GURUDEV

QUESTION & ANSWER WITH GURUDEV

POSTED ON: FRIDAY, AUGUST 7, 2026

 

Q: Should the change be top driven or bottom up approach?

 

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

 

I feel we need to drive change from both ends -- we need the top down and bottom up approach. If you ask the people at senior levels, they will say, "What can I do? If we try to do something, people resist. What to do?"

 

Suppose the head of a religion wants to bring about a change, but he faces enormous resistance from the bottom. You need to work on both, have a top-down and bottom-up approach.

 

We need to secularize religion, socialize business and spiritualize politics. When I say spiritualize politics, I mean that every politician should see his job as a service activity and not as a job per se. E.g., during the time of Mahatma Gandhi, he and all the other people took to politics as a service to society.

 

When I say secularize religion, I mean that every religious head should pray for the whole population and not people of his community only, which means he should respect all the other religions. And socialize business means that every business entity should also play a part in developing society.

 

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar