See Vedic Wisdom has been here since time immemorial. There is no fixed time as to when the knowledge began or started. It was not started by any one person alone. It was something that people got when they went deep into meditation.
Many Rishis meditated and when they meditated they heard something in the deep silence. Whatever they heard, they started saying it and asked somebody to note it down. This was then passed down from person to person by word of mouth - The Oral Tradition.
In 2014, HE visited Iraq, HE addressed the Kurdish parliament. The International Association for Human Values, a sister concern of The Art of Living Foundation (AO LF), along with a few NGOs, have been working in Iraq providing material aid and trauma relief.
