I heard of it the years ago for the first time. When my mom and elder sister witness the grand event WCF2006 in Bangalore. Few years passed and when I was in Vienna I met many friends who shared the glory of WCF2011, their experience of attending a magnanimous event in Berlin. These things were making my resolution strong to attend the World Culture Festival 2016. I was planning for this since 2015. I promised to myself, no matter where I am on this earth during the WCF2016 dates, I will make sure to mark my attendance to witness this huge celebration of Peace, a never before gathering which need no explanation of Unity in diversity.
When we host a few guests at home. often we get panic doing the arrangements, isn’t it? Hoping that everything will go as planned, the guests will get their comfort, they will have good arrangements at home and many more. I was fortunate to volunteer an event in Vienna, we had our beloved Guruji Sri Sri Ravishankar as main guest and we had 700 guests from all over Europe to attend this event. We were planning and organizing this event for 3 months. So much to do for the event and after the event.
And then I experienced the WCF2016, 7 acres of temporary stage, the biggest stage of the world, a stage with no foundation the ground, so unique, taking care of the environment, 33000 artist on the that stage at a time and 3.7 Million people from more than 160 countries as audience to witness these celebrations, dancing and singing together. Rain and rainbow also could not resist marking their attendance. On the third day Guruji took a meditation for us, his 3.5Million family members, and I had goosebumps after the meditation when there was pin drop silence in the presence of such huge crowd, I could here bird flew over flapping his wings. Who wont appreciate such peace and unity in diversity?
There was no stampede during the event, such great management. Imagine if 3.5Million people throw even 250 grams of waste everyday, the would make close to 2.8 Million waste at the venue. But was there any waste? Absolutely not, this is a picture after the event.
The event highlights may go and on since everything happened was record breaking and one of the dignitaries also mentioned that this is record set by Art Of Living and only Art Of Living has caliber to break this record and host even a bigger celebration. PM of Australia send his greetings and proposed Guruji to host the next WCF in his country, such a proud moment. Hundreds of flags hoisting together and all people gathered there were advocating peace and unity. Members of Central Government of India and State government of India were sitting to left and right side of Guruji respectively and all of them were feeling proud to witness the Vishwaroop Darshan.