The Vishalakshi Awards is a special award instituted in the memory of the mother of Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. It is a tribute to the exemplary contribution of women across different spheres. The Vishalakshi Awards has been presented from the first International Women's Conference in 2005 and 84 Awards have been given so far.
The Award is an honor given not only to a person but also the principles that the awardee embodies. The principle of human values - love, compassion, selfless service, a sense of duty and belongingness - that extends beyond the layers of caste, creed and religion.

Awardees

vishalakshi-awardees
Amma-Pitaji

Vishalakshi
Award

An ode to women who make a difference

The Vishalakshi Award is a special award given in the memory of the mother of Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji. It is a tribute to the exemplary contribution of women across different spheres. The Vishalakshi Award has been presented since the first women’s conference in 2005.

The award is an honor, given not only to a person but also to the principles that the awardee embodies - the principles of human values, love, compassion, selfless service, a sense of duty and belongingness that extends beyond the layers of caste, creed, and religion.

Amma-Pitaji

Acharya Ratnananda
Award

This award was dedicated to uplift and empower rural women.

The 5th International Women's Conference saw the inception of the Acharya Ratnananda Award, instituted and awarded in honor and fond memory of Acharya Ratnananda, the father of Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. His passion to serve the poor is remarkable. He is the founding member of the Ved Vigyan Maha Vidya Peeth, an educational non-profit institution that supports 1262 free schools.

The Acharya Ratnananda Award recognizes the outstanding commitment of individuals in the field of literature and humanitarian service.

Acharya Ratnananda’s inspiring speech at the 3rd International Women’s Conference, 2009

The Light of Leadership is there for all people. What is the speciality of women? The speciality of women in the Light of Leadership contains grace and charm. Only with grace and charm the Light of Leadership of women comes.In my travels to Europe many times I came across the slogan 'women belong to the fair sex'. I agree, there is so much fairness, it is the quality of womanhood but does it mean that the men-folk belong to an unfair sex? I don't think so, being a man myself. But I have to concede that in many parts of the world, men are unfair, and unfortunately they are afraid of leadership.

The challenge of womenfolk remains that you have got to correct the balance. What is a woman? A woman is one who owns men- she owns man as a mother, as a wife, as a daughter. By love, by faith, perseverance and performance- by all these things, women have to set right the balance.

Let women get the Light of Leadership with grace and charm. To achieve this, there are 5 ways, the Pancha Tantra.

I have been associated with an organisation which has focused on women welfare, managed by women, benefitting only women for the last 17 years - VISTA 'Value Integrated Services for to All'. In these 17 years, more than 2000 women have been trained to uplift their lifestyle, to earn more and to live better. More work and less words is what we have done and this is what we have to do.

Five ways of wisdom:

  • Patience - the world is large and half of it contains womanhood. In India, which is as big as Europe without Russia, having a population of more than 1 billion, more than half of it are women, 70% of those women live in villages and in villages, their life is not a life, it is just existence. This is our challenge. To work there, we must have patience. All women here must have patience to uplift women.
  • Perseverance
  • Performance
  • Faith
  • Love

When you carry all these five, I am sure you will all succeed beyond measure, Jai Gurudev!