Avi Arya grew up chanting the Gayatri Mantra daily and treats God like a personal friend. He brings the practice into his office meetings, teaches it to his children by tying it to pocket money, and believes companies should adopt rituals for their scientific benefits.
Chapters
I know that in your office, you know, there would be breaks that would be taken. Staff members would get up, the Gayatri Mantra would be recited every day, right? So where did the spiritual bent really come in? Because people would say that happens, you know, either there's a time of crisis or perhaps, you know, testing times. When did spirituality come into your life? So you know what, when you're growing up and your parents tell you that, you know, this is your younger brother, even if I'm not there, you're the elder brother and this is your sister, you have to take care of them. So like that, in my house, God was introduced like that. You have to invite him or her in every ritual, everything. Sonne se pehne, utne ke baad, ye vo. So God for me, for the longest time, was my friend who I used to go to in terms of— that time we didn't call it anxiety or whatever it was. Kids, you know, I don't know what I was having, we didn't know. But whatever was happening, I used to talk. So for me, it was always like, I'm opening an office now, I'm thinking of traveling to Hawaii. So I've always talked to God as a— so he had to come into my office also. He had to. He comes with me for all the meetings and everything. In any business we've started or at home or whatever, Doba, teen ba, char ba. So Gayatri Mantra was because it reminds me of my grandparents and reminds me of my childhood that, you know, you have to pray like this. So that whole chant comes, that memory takes me back over there. But I also know that it's got great scientific benefits of that chanting. So I just hope that, you know, every company has to create a ritual and a routine. So that's, that's, so for that angle we brought it, but we take it everywhere. So I think I show you my day-end report. Everybody sent me a day-end report. I show you the day-end report at my 14-year-old said to me, you know, I finished the Gayatri Mantra with the meditation. Awesome. And that's when the pocket money is released every Saturday. Love that. So it's just part of— Yeah. So even in school, you're bringing this in now as a part of— Yeah. And that's brilliant because— Yeah. If you're 14, you do 14 times Gayatri Mantra. If you're 19, you do 19 times. And I think that really brings the value of culture and spirituality to them as well. Yeah. Yeah. So like I said, you know, I used to— this spiritual, this word became so clichéd. So then I stopped using it. But you know, but it was always, it was not spiritual for me that you're doing something or it was not even religious. It was for For my parents and my grandparents who taught me this, it was a religious thing. But for us, they introduced it as, you know, ye bhi apki ghar ke mem bharais, din ke binani hota ka, toh ghar jagale kiya ho. Now that was for us at that time, it was Shri Ram, and then it became Shiva. But then you believe your own faiths. But it was just that God was everything. Love that.
