Art of Living Foundation

A great place to de-​stress and feel rejuvenated. The breathing techniques taught by the Art of Living foundation were really powerful and life changing for me. The energy of the place is phenomenal. I would highly recommend taking a workshop offered by the foundation!

It’s a life transforming thing! If you want to be happy then just come over. I am writing from my personal experience. The return from investment is more than what you get on the New York stock exchange! It’s simple, if you want to know the taste of strawberry you have to eat it :)

Art of Living’s Sudarshan Kriya is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I fell in love with the Happiness Program and after Silence Retreat has completely turned my life around. I made a lot of amazing friends and have experienced my boundaries and surpassed them

Life changer for me. I contribute the techniques they teach to much positivity in my life… made me a much more composed and a more compassionate fellow.
I definitely recommend taking a course. Very worthwhile.

The meditations I have learnt here were transforming. I have been regularly coming to the center for followup and yoga for a couple of years now. By No means is this organization a cult. The founder is a noble peace prize nominee and a world known leader for his peace initiatives and humanitarian work.
This organization spans to 150+ countries with people of all walks of life, faiths and cultures.
Its important to meditate and learn it from the right people, I found the teachers and volunteers here very friendly, helpful and genuine.

Good technique
Bad approach
Too much commercialized
For 2 hours of teaching (20 mins of exercises); they will take 5 days of your life; will keep on talking, don’t answer any question and will try to sell you their other courses. Will trick you to bring your family for dinner at their facility and will serve half a tangerine and will try to sell this course to other of your family members.
Total 20 mins of exercises teaching
$ 395 charge
Won’t answer a single question of yours
5 days of course; mostly robot talking for hours.

Don’t walk, run from this organization. It’s a cult disguised as a meditation center. The courses are super expensive. I paid $ 400 for one, and learned a dangerous breathing technique that’s harmful to health. All the money goes to the cult leader, guruji, whom members blindly worship like a god. The cult leader stays at 5 star hotels, all at the expense of naïve people who are duped into giving money to this organization.

Came for the yes class targeted to nyu students but didn’t realize the cost ($ 250 for students) or that it was actually a workshop/​program that spans over 4 or 5 consecutive days. I was going to leave once I found this out but was invited to stay for a free meditation class as it was friends and family night.
I decided to stay and learned 2 new breathing techniques (one where you alternate closing your nostrils and another where you hold arms up and bring the down hard while breathing out through the nostrils heavily — that one kind of hurt and made me lightheaded).
I have to say I enjoyed the conversation and icebreaker type game all meant to push the message that we need to be more present and the role breathing takes in helping us do that. After the talk we did a 20 minute guided meditation. There were 11 other people in the class and we sat in a circle facing one another and sharing our thoughts on various matters.
Everyone was friendly and the space is very nice and clean (you must remove your shoes before being allowed in). While riding the elevator up it stopped on I believe the third floor and there was a dance studio there that I think I might want to check out in the future, but although I did enjoy the class I think I would prefer meditating in my apt.
Yes, they did try to sell the upgrade to us but if you are not able to afford it or don’t want to do it, no one can make you so I wouldn’t subtract a point for that — after all, they are in the middle of the city and have to keep the lights on.

I took my first happiness course at the art of living foundation in March 2012. Going through a tough time with relationships and job I came here in search for something. Something that would just take me to a happy place. The 5 day workshop that I took expanded and uplifted me from within which did make me feel like nothing could touch me. It was one step above being happy. It was being ‘super happy’ :)
After those 5 days I kept coming back to the art of living center where I found my peace, friends, and some time to give back to the community. Its been two years since my first course and I have taken many other courses since then. It changed my life and my perspective on things in life. I would recommend the Art of Living Happiness course to everybody.

I attended their free intro to meditation class. there wasent much to get out of the class except some very very basic meditation which was like ‘just sit and relax’. It seemed more like an opportunity for them to draw more crowds to their rather over priced ‘Art of the living’ courses in breathing and meditation spread over three days.

I came upon the Art of Living Foundation through
. I happen to be browsing through this new app and came upon a free meet up class focused on meditation. I signed up and discovered that the class was being held at the Art of Living Foundation. Wow! I was not only pleased with the space but I was also pleased with the staff. i took my 1^st lesson in meditation and loved every minute of it. Although I was not able to take advantage of the class they offer, I will be in the future.
i highly recommend Art of Living Foundation to anyone wishing to bring about peace and in their lives.

wife and i took the intro to Art of Living course in jan this year. Absolutely a fine experience. Makes so much sense if you are open minded and not too pre-​disposed with opinions on ‘how it shud be’. Just go thru this expecting nothing and u will walk out with lot more than u would have imagined.
Kudos to Manoj Shivdasani and Aniket Gune, the teachers who taught us the course for 3 days. At no point do they seem to have an agenda, but they carry it so well throughout 3 days and teach everything they plan just perfectly.
fellas, if nothing else, you will meet a bunch of nice folks and share some thoughts about life and living, how often do we do that around this area :-)
S & K

I just completed the 5 day Yes Plus course and LOVED it! I have a good friend who had been through a few of the programs who had been encouraging me to come and I was trying to decide between the regular course or the Yes Plus, which is aimed at young professionals and billed as being more fun… I opted for the fun. I let my guard down and gave into the experience and it was more than I expected. I wanted to deepen my meditation practice, but I got more out of it than just that piece… I met an amazing group of people (we had a huge class) and was truly joyful the entire time.
And to respond to someone else’s review… if you don’t follow the instructions, then sure, you might hyperventilate (ish), but there were 50 of us in the class and we were fine.
I also don’t feel the course cost is expensive at all…$ 350 (or $ 250 w/​student ID) for 25 hours of instruction and lifelong lessons… um, that’s $ 14/​hour — that’s less than my yoga classes, dance classes, bootcamp — and has a WAY better and more long lasting effect.

I took my first class 3 years back and since then have been regular for follow up meditations and other activities and its been fabulous. The Yesplus course changed my life completely and I have never been so happy and satisfied in my life. I recommend YesPlus and Part 1 course to anyone who is looking to experience an amazing meditation technique in their life and also have a home practice. I do the techniques taught here regularly and they have been very helpful in dealing with stress and anxiety!
What could I do without you guys! Thanks for making NYC a better place to live in!

The Sudarshan Kriya technique taught at Art of Living really helps me unwind and get into a meditative state of mind. I found the breathing exercises to be really helpful as well. Upon completing a course one can attend the weekly follow up session or simply continue the practice at home. Over all if you are looking for a simple and practical solution to relax, look no further.

Little yoga or meditation, lots of unobtrusive brainwashing and breathing exercises called sudarshan kriya, which is basically hyperventilation that makes you high on oxygen deprivation. It’s also harmful for health in the long term. Don’t take my word for it, do your research.
Before going there I thought the reviews here were fake, but they aren’t. People there actually believe in the divinity of this exercise and the great cause of this worldwide organization, which btw is not cheap, and its leader is WEALTHEYYYY
It can be a cult, it has many elements of one. It can be not, but it’s not a meditation or yoga center. If you go there, analyze thoroughly whats happening, don’t forget about common sense, don’t afraid to overanalyze and question.
On the other side, it was not bad at all to take time to focus on yourself for 5 days. I did feel relaxed and uplifted. After all, you do drugs to make you high/​alter you consciousness. Might as well try to this just don’t become a junkie. It’s a funny experience.

I took the Art of Living course in 2008. I was undergoing a lot of stress at work and in my personal life, and being away from my family overseas was eating at me. I took the Art of Living course and felt such an immense sense of peace, which helped overcome stress and loneliness. I am a pessimist by nature and very cynical; this course helped me look at life more positively.
Once life became better, I stopped practicing. Now my life is back to a very stressful phase, and I cannot wait to start this course again. I know that I can count on this to keep me going and overcome stress. This time I am determined to continue! In fact, even doing the breathing exercises to chants online help me overcome a little bit of stress. The meditation is extremely powerful and at the end of the 5 days course, I can guarantee that you will feel a sense of calm. I literally felt enlightened.
I highly recommend this course — we New Yorkers need it!

This is the first time I’m writing a Unilocal review, but I thought it was duty to share my experience. I went to their beginner course because I was, like any good New Yorker, feeling stressed from a number of things in my life. A friend recommended it to me, and said it would help me find breathing techniques to help me manage stress.
First, the good. I felt like the breathing techniques were useful, however, sometimes they just made me feel more spacey, tired and de-​energized. I don’t know enough about their breathing techniques to know if their techniques are the best ones, but I can see how deep breathing can reduce stress.
Next, the bad. I was brought up to question what I hear and read. I’m also a college professor who invites multiple perspectives and critical thinking – I don’t want my students to hear my view only, but to come up with their own critiques and conclusions. This is exactly the opposite type of pedagogy of the course that they teach. They squelch all questions, do not answer any questions when they are asked, and do not invite discussion or discourse. Their exercises are meant really only for people to regurgitate back what they want to hear, and they do not like when people disobey them. When anyone disagreed with their «insights» they were shot down immediately. They show a video that is from their «holy leader» and they make you commit to coming to every class no matter what. They make you feel that if you are not coming or fully participating or following them, then it must be because you have too many barriers, or you are not enlightened enough, and perhaps you need to do the breathing techniques more and more and more. I also personally felt uncomfortable around the teachers and distressed at the values they were espousing, and their discouragement of independent thought.
Finally, the ugly. Since attending the course, I have since done some google searches about Art of Living. I am horrified to find out that they are suing people who are leaving bad blog posts about them, so I’m sure this will be deleted somehow too. Either way, I will continue to post and warn people to stay away. If you want to read more about it from people who used to be inside the organization, please check out:
But I don’t know these people, and there’s no reason to believe them either. Get informed and read through the different perspectives on Unilocal and elsewhere and decide for yourself if it is good for you. I don’t want to force my opinion on you.
But I know it is not good for me. I feel violated to have ever interacted with this organization. I told my friend and he is equally horrified. We are never going back.

I have been visiting the art of living center in NYC since moving back to NYC last summer and it’s been a safe haven for me to get away from the stress of the city. I first took the art of living course about ten years ago. The workshops they offer are truly live changing and I would recommend the Art of Living course to anyone looking to find and meaningful balance in a city/​world full of stress.
Thanks to all the NYC volunteers that keep this center running!

I took a meditation class here & loved it. There’s a serene & light environment around.