Several IITians are choosing a career in spiritualism keeping in mind that it is more uplifting option than i-banking or technology. A report from Iskcon Bangalore revealed that four students from IIT Guwahati and IIT Chennai recently joined it and many others from IIT are working with Ramakrishna and Sringeri Mutts, Art of Living (AOL), Mata Amritanandmayi ashram, Chinmaya mission and Shirdi Sai Baba ashram. Iskcon, Bangalore, at 18, has perhaps the largest number of IITians working in one city. Spiritual Inc is besting India Inc because it offers to these high achievers a combination of personal uplift and social service. Dinesh Ghodke, who runs the world youth programme at AOL packs a B.Tech Metallurgy from IIT Mumbai. Ghodke gave up a plush Rs 2 lakh per month job at Deloitte Touche to work full time for AOL. “In my second year, I had taken an AOL course. The first day of that course was the turning point in my life. The knowledge imparted was profound. I immediately felt my friends, sister, brother should all try it. The course, I felt was a fantastic platform for individual and social growth. I then organised courses myself. Along the way came the realisation that spirituality was a powerful tool that was replicable, sustainable and meaningful. And once I saw the organisational work that AOL was doing, I immediately felt spirituality was my calling.” For Iskon's Satya Gaura Chandra Dasa –an M.Tech from IIT Chennai, who had worked with American MNC, Novell Software — a lecture by a muslim, Russian professor, on the Bhagavad Gita, “was the turning point in my life. I took a step to understand life in the spiritual sense.”
