Making 'Satvic' relevant for today's Gen Z Both Subah and Harshvardhan are now on a mission to make the ancient practice of 'Satvic' relevant for today's Gen Z through their Satvic Movement. They share this ancient practice in modern implementable terms. Majorly online, the movement's biggest community base is India.
By Priya Kapoor
This story appears in the August 2023 issue of Entrepreneur India. Subscribe »
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What began as a life changing moment for Subah and Harshvardhan Saraf, has turned into a nation wide movement now. "It began as an expression of sharing with the world what we have received in our lives. Both of us suffered from various chronic lifestyle diseases. We both took lots of medicines, but realized it is not targeting the root cause of our problems, only giving symptomatic relief. Then in our lives, we came across teachers, masters, books that taught us there is another way that doesn't involve medicines and that by simply changing your food and lifestyle can actually change ur diseases," says Subah Saraf, co-founder, Satvic Movement.
"At first, it seemed absurd to us and we didn't believe it. But we thought to give it a try and within a few months we were able to reverse our conditions," adds Subah.
What's interesting is that both Subah and Harshvardhan are now on a mission to make the ancient practice of 'Satvic' relevant for today's Gen Z. "When we think about satvic food, we think it's a very ancient way of living, we assume it means no garlic and no onion. But the real definition is far from that. As per our vedas, there are three gunas described- Satvic, tamas, rajas."
"And satvic is the mode of goodness. All of us have these gunas within us. So, there are certain foods that improve the sattvic gunas in us. When we hear such concepts, we think they don't apply to everyday's life. But in all walks of life, we can follow a sattvic diet and lifestyle. This is not dependent on our age or health condition. This sort of lifestyle can help everyone," says Subah.
Subah and Harsh share this ancient practice in modern implementable terms. "We make use of lots of graphics, flowchart, and diagrams. Lot of visuals are used so that a young person doesn't feel that it is boring."
Then there are other challenges too. "There is a 21 day challenge, 5 am challenge, ultimate health challenge. These are things that attract the youth as they like to push themselves out of their comfort zone. We try to make satvic living easily accessible, understandable and implementable through these ways. Every month 10,000 people join us for the ultimate health challenge," adds Subah.
To keep the interest of the community alive, there are gatherings in 3-4 months time frame. "During this time, we talk to them and allow them to share freely and we get to know what loopholes we have to address and improve in the work we are doing," says Subhah.
Satvic movement is today majorly online, and its biggest community base is India. "Its from cities like Bangalore, Maharasthra, Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai. Overseas, our biggest community is in California. They are basically Indians who have started living
outside," says Subah.
Going forward, it wants to reach out to people born and brought up in other countries, and want to make Satvic movement a school, a way of life.
Factsheet
Number of people employed: 30 Satvic team members
Year of Inception: 2017
YouTube subscribers: 5.5 mn
Instagram subscribers: 1.1mn