Thursday, January 10, 2013

Keep holy places waste-free- Guruji.


                             

The spiritual leader and founder of the Art of Living (AoL), Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has said that a good section of the pilgrims who go to Sabarimala leave behind a good amount of garbage there. People must be made aware of the need to keep the holy places garbage-free in order to maintain their sanctity, he said.

He was delivering the keynote address at a seminar on ‘Media and value perspectives in ecotourism spectrum’ organised jointly by the Kollam Press Club and the Kerala chapter of the AoL here on Wednesday.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said that if facilities do not match the rush of tourists, ecotourism cannot be maintained. Tourists come to India not only to relax but because they feel there are many unique things here and they want to experience them. In Kerala those unique things are Ayurveda, Mohiniyattam and Kathakali, to cite a few. For all that, the uniqueness of Kerala has to be maintained.

He said that though Ayurveda is a wonderful system of medicine, the therapies like Shirodhara, Pizhichil and Panchakarma attained popularity outside the State only in recent years. He said he became aware of Shirodhara only in 1980 when he invited some Ayurveda practitioners from Kerala for a conference in Delhi.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said he was simply taken aback to hear that the Ashtamudi Lake is habitat to more than 57 species of birds. The unique features of the lake have to properly marketed and it is here that the media can play a big role. For the tourists, a trip to any place should be a comfortable experience both for the mind and the body. Only then will they feel like coming back again, he added.

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