Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar ji is the founder of the Art of Living Foundation,

Introduction:- Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar ji is the founder of the Art of Living Foundation, of the World Forum for Ethics in Business and through his teaching has reached half a million people in more than 180 countries in the world through programs that promote peace, well-being and social transformation. He's a tireless ambassador, not just for meditation but also mediation and brought to that solutions in more than 40 countries around the world in conflict. It's a big honor to have him here in Basel. Gurudev :- Dignitaries on this dias and dignitaries and my dear ones in the audience. You know, three things we are all born with. First, every child's play is part of every baby. Even before we start to walk, we start to play. So games are part of our life. The second thing is every child sings before it talks. Language comes later but it starts singing first. It's universal language, sports, music and third thing, if you observe a baby from the age of three months to three years, it is a yoga teacher too. It does all the yoga postures. Everywhere, you don't need a yoga teacher if you observe a baby. The way they breathe, the way they do their postures, they teach us a lot. Sports being so natural to us, where have we gone wrong today? If one third of world's population is feeling lonely, depressed, unhappy in spite of having sports and music, there is something that we all have to sit back and think about. The sportive spirit in the sports is being lost. I want to tell you an incident that happened. I was in Canada in somebody's house as a guest and the teenager boy at the home, he came in the evening. He had a long face, he was very sad, upset. I asked him, what's the matter? He said, I lost. Whom did you lose to? He said Another guy. In the sports, he won and I lost. It was a bad matter. I asked him, is he your friend? He said, yeah, of course. I asked him, if your friend wins, you are unhappy. How do you feel if you win and if your friend is unhappy? He just sat back and said, Gurudev, I never thought about it like that. I said, in sports, either you win or you make someone win. In either case, you should be happy. Sports should be taken in the sportive spirit. Winning and losing is not it. Just the act itself is joy. You don't wait for the end of the sports to celebrate. You celebrate from the moment you start the sports. When we understand this, ethics automatically will come into the sports. Otherwise, we see in all the sports arenas, so much violence happens. Because we play sports like wars. And sports have become so intertwined with business, politics, and it is losing its basic ethical values of creating happiness and uplifting human spirit and uniting people. What do you think? Isn't it? Something which is so natural to us, like sports, should unite the people of the world. And that's what it has been doing for quite some time. But of late, we find there are more heartburns, more violence, more depression, and sliding down the scale in ethics. Of course, sports needs competition. Without competition, there is no sports. There can be music without competition, but sports has an integral part of it, as competition is one of the integral parts of sports. Competition can be healthy. Competition also can uplift spirit. Competition need not always bring heartaches, heartburns in people. This is what we need to convey to our younger generation loud and clear, that we are all part of one human family. We are part of one globe. Concluding that incidence what I was mentioning about the teenage boy, you know, he suddenly lit up. He said, yes, I don't want my friends to be unhappy when I win. I want them to celebrate with me. I want them to come to the party, cut the cake, and be part of me. When this is what you expect from the other, you should also celebrate someone else's victory. You know, that boy next day brought his friend who won the match, and they all had a great celebration. So, it is just that little twist in our thinking, a little awareness of what we are up to, make a big difference. The whole life is a game. We have to see it from a broader perspective. If we can take the whole life as a sport, there will be no war in the world. There will be no heartburns. There will be no mistrust in that. You know, in sports, trust is a very important aspect. If you don't trust, you can't play with the person whom you are playing. Trust forms the backbone of ethics, and it forms the backbone of sports as well. And today, what we see in the world is lack of trust, perceived threat from the other. And this, unfortunately, has entered the arena of sports as well. So, it is so timely that we bring up this topic to the forefront of ethics in sports, and we all have to work for this. Don't you think so? In a world where there is desperation, where there is so much of negativity, I feel ethics in sports can uplift the whole scenario. Young people around the world have a passion for sports, and that passion should not be killed with unethical and irrational behaviors in any corner. When countries are in conflict, when people come together and play, it brings a healing touch of unimaginable magnitude. You know, when we had the World Culture Festival in Washington, D.C., we had a group which came from Ukraine to perform, and we had a Russian group too come to perform there. And the people are uniting. There was one group from Palestine, one group from Israel. So, music like music, sports can unite. India and Pakistan, cricket still is being played. So we should keep politics out of this arena of art, culture, and sports, even religion, I would say. Politics has its place. Life is not all politics. Life is not all religion. Life has a broader perspective beyond this, and sports is something that can soar our human values to that level. Thank you very much. Thank you, beautiful city of Basel, for hosting this conference. And all of you who are here, taking up this mission of bringing ethics in sports and encouraging our society to be a happier and healthier society. Thank you.