Can One do Business with a Yogic Attitude?

Ameeta Mehra, a visionary and a dynamic leader, heads The Gnostic Centre as well as one of India’s top horse-breeding farms. She is the leading horse breeder in the country with more than a 100 horses, and a recipient of Outlook Business Women of Worth Award (2017). Ameeta went through an intensive study of Integral Yoga (of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother) for 12 years (1998-2000), under the guidance of Dr. Nirodbaran (literary secretary of Sri Aurobindo). She also served on the Governing Board of Auroville for several years.

Rooted in Integral Yoga Philosophy and Practice, Ameeta has facilitated courses in Consciousness Studies, Integral Yoga, Future Studies, Integral Education and Self-development, since 1996. She is a published writer and a speaker of renown. After graduating from University of Delhi (Lady Shri Ram College), Ameeta worked at Mirambika Free Progress School (Sri Aurobindo Ashram-Delhi branch). Thereafter she completed a Management Education Program from IIM-Ahmedabad, Equine Management from the Irish National Stud (Ireland) and Equine Nutrition from Kentucky (USA). 

Pariksith Singh, M.D. is the co-founder and CEO, Medical Director of Access Healthcare Physicians, LLC (USA, 2001), one of the largest Management Service Organizations and Multi-Specialty Physician Practices in Florida, with about 1200 employees, 200 employed health providers and 300 affiliated physicians. In 2004, Dr. Singh founded a health maintenance organization (HMO) known as Optimum Health Care, Inc. which is today one of the biggest HMOs in the state of Florida. In 2011, he founded Mirra Health Care, a third-party administrator, and in 2013 founded Integral Health Care, an accountable care organization. He is credited with creating a Universal Health Care Platform and an Educational Platform to help doctors take better care of patients. 

Pariksith has received many awards during his career for innovation, entrepreneurship and focus on improving patient care. He has authored many books in health care, including a Health Care Primer, a Manual on Compliance and Medicare Risk Adjustment. He has been an invited speaker at health care conferences at a national level and is also a published literary critic, essayist and poet. Pariksith finds it gratifying to be able to help save a life or a limb. He is committed to educating patients on healthy lifestyles and successful management of chronic conditions. He also dedicates much of his time to philanthropic endeavours and is passionate about supporting Auroveda, a foundation created by him in 2005.

Sumita Ghose is the founder and managing director of Rangsutra, a social enterprise which works for socio economic development in rural India by engaging both: the community and the market. Rangsutra is an innovative venture that grew out of Sumita’s refusal to give up on the idea of helping rural artisans, when banks refused to lend the funds for the start-up. She turned to the artisans themselves and offered them equity. Rangsutra is owned by over 2000 artisans – most of whom are rural women. It provides design, marketing, technical and organizational support needed to make crafts and allied rural industries into viable enterprises, so that they provide regular village-based employment to rural artisans. Prior to setting up Rangsutra in 2006, Sumita lived and worked in different parts of rural India, primarily in Western Rajasthan with the URMUL Trust in Loonkaransar Bikaner, for over 10 years working with rural communities for social change and economic development.

Sumita has a Master’s degree in Economics from Bombay University, and an MA in Conflict Transformation, from the Eastern Mennonite University, USA, as a Fulbright Scholar. She is a recipient of several fellowships, and awards, the latest being the Nari Shakti Puraskar, awarded by the President of India, on 8th March 2016. Sumita is inspired by and aspires to follow the philosophy and the practice of Integral Yoga in her daily life.  

Amit Gujral is a fashion designer and a businessman with over three decades of experience in running his own garments factory with 50 employees. His line of business requires association with several vendors to whom many of the production processes are outsourced. The clientele varies from individuals to stores. His work requires continuous interaction and interchange with others on both sides of the business.  

Amit is a follower of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga since 1999. He shares: “My life has increasingly shaped  itself around their dictum that all Life is Yoga….rather it was this very  line on the inside jacket of The Synthesis of Yoga, the very first book of SA that I picked up at random when I first visited the Gnostic Centre, that drew me instantaneously to their teaching. The journey since has been a growing into this very consciousness, gradually and I have learnt that there is no field of life activity that can be divorced from the practice of Integral Yoga, least of all one’s business.”

Tong Schraa-Liu is the Founder and CEO of Integral Transformation Inc – Tong Schraa-Liu & Partners, an Amsterdam-based international consultancy firm and think tank, with active presence in Canada, China, Ethiopia, Germany, India, Mexico, United Kingdom and United States, as well as associates in other parts of the world. With a core team of 15 people and 20 associates, the company serves client organizations across the globe with the size ranging from 500 to 140,000 people. Tong has more than 20 years of experience in catalysing whole-system transformation and evolution; developing trans-cultural and transformational leaders and educators; integrating cross-border mergers and acquisitions; designing and implementing transformational approaches on national development and international governance. In the role of entrepreneur, leader, educator, consultant, and coach, she has worked with leaders in businesses, governments, educational institutes, NGOs, multilateral agencies, in Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and North America. Tong teaches in European, Asian and American universities, and is a co-author of the book ‘Responsible Global Leadership’ – the first comprehensive study on global responsible leadership, published by Routledge in 2006.

Tong’s work and life are inspired by the vision and teaching of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. The key driver of her work is to unleash individual and collective creative potential to fulfil the evolutionary purpose of individuals, organizations, nations and international agencies. Tong studied Law in China; Economics, MBA, and Philosophy in the Netherlands; and Consciousness Studies in India. Born and raised in China, she resides in Amsterdam with her husband and mother.