Press/News

Interview with Business World

Annu Kalra spiritually inspired author, artist and guide knows the stresses of Corporate life all too well. She has been a media person since over two decades.

Annu is now devoting her time and energy to facilitating transformation in people and their lives. Having dealt with challenges in her own life, she has made sharing her learnings with people, to support them as a way of life.

Earlier this year she published her book Aavirbhaav, which has Hindu Deities Guidance and a set of Meditation Cards painted by her personally.

Kalra has formulated a system of self-help, which is both mystical as well as analytical. Her book gives an understanding of Hinduism and it’s many Gods and Goddesses and how that understanding can aid a person’s own well-being by addressing his/her queries.

Kalra is a self taught and spiritually inspired artist. In her bedroom there is an easel, but more often than not she tapes a canvas to the wall and paints with gay abandon. The splatters of paint smattering the blankness of the wall, represent her free spiritedness.

Kalra has been on the wellness path since years, and been inclined towards spiritually for an equal number.

Wellness according to Kalra is more than just a state of physical mental or social well-being. For true wellbeing to exist, in addition to the above, there must exist an additional layer of an emotional dimension viewed from the context of consciousness, from a spiritual state. “Only then does it amount to true wellbeing,” points out the 49 year old.

Her effort is to aid people’s understanding of themselves. In Kalras opinion Holistic healing and well-being can only happen when there is a holistic understanding of oneself.

She stresses on the important of being at “ease” versus “Dis-ease.”

“When at ease even with an imperfectly functioning body, it means there is a deep sense of well-being within. Take the examples of Maharishi Ramana or Ramakrishna Parmahamsa. Great beings who were diagnosed with cancer, but their joyousness did not diminish. They had an abiding peace within that was not disturbed even by such severe bodily discomfort. Swami Nisargatdatta was giving talks, guiding people till the last days of his life even though he was diagnosed with throat cancer. His sharing of himself of what he had attained, discovered, did not stop till the very end. Jesus Christ hoisted on the Cross could only appeal to his Father to forgive those who were putting him there, no crying in pain, just a stream of compassion for the very people who were inflicting the most gruesome torture on him!”

This welling up of love, of compassion, of joy, of peace within, such that it overflows is what wellness means to her.

Kalra highlights that, “This sense of well-being that is so complete that it permeates every cell of the being and radiates from each and every cell.”

Our strong identification as being only a physical entity has crippled our ability to experience life in a multi faceted manner in her opinion.

“We have therefore been paying maximum attention to our physical needs, chasing goals mainly in the physical realm and also looking at health and well-being too mainly in the physical context,”says Kalra.

“Addressing issues related to the body, and of late some recognition of the importance of the mental state has been the mainstream view of the wellness industry. The growing emphasis on mindfulness is adding another dimension to this. Personally I would pay more attention to the fullness than the mind aspect of mindfulness,” expresses Kalra.