The Bhagavad-gita as a leadership guide

[Artha Forum Home Program at Singapore]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
I can hold it otherwise. It’s not so easy. Okay, but is it working? Hare Krishna, Hare Hare.
Okay, fine. Yeah, thank you. So, thank all of you for coming today evening.
I’ll speak, as I mentioned, on the Bhagavad Gita in three parts. First, I’ll talk a little bit about how I was introduced to the Bhagavad Gita. Second, I’ll talk about how the Bhagavad Gita itself acts as a leader for its student, Arjuna.
And thirdly, I’ll talk about how its message, am I audible behind? Okay, how its message can act as a leadership guidance for us in today’s world. So, as I mentioned, I got a good score in GRE, but there’s a history behind that and a history after that. So, India is among the countries in the world which is very educationally infatuated.
So, since my childhood, my only dream in life was that I wanted to be the topper. And I was always among the toppers, but I was never the topper. I was second, third, sometimes joint first, but I was never the first.
So, finally, when I gave GRE, I loved English since my childhood and generally Indians, mathematics and that time we had mathematics skills and we had analytical skills and we had linguistic skills. So, mathematics and analytics Indians are quite good at. English is where we fall behind sometimes.
So, because I loved English, I did quite well. So, when I got 2350 out of 2400, I was not just first in my college, I was first in the history of my college. And I was first in the whole state of Maharashtra.
I thought, now I’m going to be happy. And I got the mark sheet, I was jubilant. And then after that, several of my friends, they met me, congratulated me.
But somehow it happened that… Anyway, it’s a small gathering. Can you hear me without the mic? Mic is needed? Is it better now? I will move this way. Is it better now? So, when my results came, several of my friends came and congratulated me.
But somehow it happened that one after another, three of my friends just forgot to congratulate me. So when I met them, I was expecting them to appreciate me, congratulate me. They didn’t do that.
It happened once, it happened second time. And it happened third time. It was as if I had out of body experience.
I look at myself from above. Friend, what is happening here? Earlier, I could meet with friends, and I could talk with them and just interact peacefully. But now, when I meet someone, I need, I need that person to appreciate and congratulate me.
Otherwise, I’m feeling agitated. So, actually, rather than becoming happy, I have become more dependent for my happiness and others. And then I thought, okay, in future, I might.
Yeah, thank you. In future, I might do another exam, I might crack it again. But again, the point will be that I’ll be dependent on someone else for my happiness.
And that was the time when I started thinking deeply, is there some other way to happiness, where my happiness does not depend on externals? This was one line of thought is going on. Simultaneously, since my childhood, I was very interested in social activism or social service. So when I was in my college, I was associated with a social welfare organization.
And I used to go to a nearby slum, where I used to offer free free tuitions to the children over there. So English, Maths, History like that. And I had a lot of faith in the power of education in helping people make their lives better.
But while I went there, I soon found that most of the slum kids came from dysfunctional families. The fathers were often alcoholics, and there was domestic abuse in their homes. And I started thinking, how much can I just bring better education? How much can it help them? So when I talk with their fathers, nice people, they thank me that I was coming and educating the children.
But then they would tell them once they would drink and become like a different person. So at that time, our organization decided to diversify into anti-alcohol campaign. And then we started calling some experts and doctors as well as some general counseling we gave.
And then one of some other members of our group, one of my friend was there from college, he would go to a village, I would go to nearby slums. And we managed to make the whole village free from alcohol. That was considered one of the biggest success of that organization.
But one evening, so this was going on for some time, and then one evening, I came back from the slums, and he came back from the village. At that time, he looked shattered. I asked him what happened.
And he said, in this village last week, there were the local elections. And one of the candidates in order to get elected, he brought three trucks of free alcohol for everyone. And not only the fathers, but even their kids had got drunk.
So it was at that time, I started thinking that we are trying to help others. But are they in a position to receive that help? Will they really be helped if there’s a leaking bucket, I put water from above, but the bucket is leaking from below. How much can I help? So now there was another student in my college, who had been a university topper throughout all his semesters.
So in many ways, he was what I had dreamt of being. And he got one of the, he got the highest paying job in our college history at that time. So I was in the Government Engineering College, Pune.
And then from there, he went to that job. And when I would meet him, he was a chain smoker. He said, as soon as I start smoking, I start thinking.
And I would study, memorize everything I can do very well. And then unfortunately, within six months of his getting a job, he was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer, and he died. So here I saw somebody from say, some uneducated people living in slums, who were destroying themselves and their families.
And here there’s a super educated, super intelligent young man who also was being destroyed. So when this these two trends of thought what one was the individual lack of fulfillment, and the second was the ineffectiveness of whatever social contribution I was trying to do. Both of these prompted me towards the Bhagavad Gita.
So two verses from the Bhagavad Gita struck me as very resonant at that time. In the sixth chapter in the 22nd verse, Krishna talks about something which I felt defined real achievement in life. He says, he’s describing the state of spiritual perfection, of spiritual absorption.
He says that is characterized by having attained this. Anything more to be attained? There is nothing more to be attained. Means one that means this is the achievement which brings satisfaction.
And yes means And once one is situated in this way, even if there is great distress, Even with great distress, one is not disturbed. So I started thinking what is an achievement which will not lead to any further hankering, any further craving for me. And what is an achievement for me which will not lead to, will ensure me from all disturbance in future.
It will keep me unshaken. So I realized externally whatever we may achieve that is not what is going to fulfill it. So the Bhagavad Gita is talking about an inner connection with our source.
And that inner connection with our source is the source of the supreme fulfillment and the supreme security. I’ll come back to this. I’ll elaborate this later.
But the second verse was 3.36 in the Bhagavad Gita where Arjuna asks Krishna He says by what is it that we are impelled to wrong actions. We decide I’m not going to do this and then we end up doing it. So what is this force? And then Krishna analyzes and addresses that force.
He tells that inside us there is a self-destructive desire which acts against us and it is through spiritual intelligence and spiritual discipline that this self-destructive force can be countered. So when I read these two sections of the Bhagavad Gita I felt very inspired and I started applying the Gita in my life. I started sharing it with others.
So in my college in the hostel where I was staying my room partner was just gliding into bad habits and he also read the Bhagavad Gita. He understood it and he just gave everything up. He just started off enthusiastically reforming himself.
Then we had a program in my room in my college and many students also started getting benefited. So after that I worked in software company and at one particular point when I was working I felt that if I am not doing the software job there are many others who will take up this job. But if I try to share the message of the Bhagavad Gita how many other people are ready to do that today.
So I felt I could contribute much more to society through sharing the Gita’s message and that’s what I’ve been trying to do for about two decades or so. So it was both this search for personal fulfillment as well as a search for a effective social contribution that prompted me towards the Gita. Now what is the Bhagavad Gita actually? What is its teaching? We see Krishna and Arjuna are both in their in their own sense leaders.
Arjuna is one of the foremost warriors in his army in fact in his times also and Krishna is his charioteer but he is also the supreme who’s taking on the role of a charioteer and who in the Gita takes on the role of a counsellor. The Gita’s setting is also very dramatic. Krishna and Arjuna they are ready as a part of the Pandava army to fight and at that time Arjuna tells Krishna Oh Krishna please take my chariot in between the two armies and Krishna does that and then there Krishna and Arjuna start speaking.
So to appreciate the setting let’s compare with something contemporary. Say there is world cup cricket final match and there are thousands of people in the stadium. There are millions of people on TV are watching and the fielders have taken field.
The baller is in the run up. The batsman is about to start batting and at that time the striker calls the non-striker and both of them come in the middle of the pitch and they start talking and they keep talking and they just keep talking on and on and on. Everybody else will become restless.
Come on this is a time for action. What are you talking about? And suppose we know that these players are not up to any kind of gamesmanship. Gamesmanship is when a player uses some trick to try to disturb the momentum or the flow of the other players.
Gamesmanship is in a sense opposite of sportsmanship. So in tennis some players are infamous. When they start losing they just ask for a break and by the time they come back they try to disturb the tempo.
So it’s not like that. If you know both of them are very sportsmanly players then everybody will be eager to know what are they talking about. What is it so important that the whole match has to stop for them to talk about.
So similarly the Gita is spoken when both armies are assembled ready to fight and in between Krishna and Arjuna start talking. So the Gita setting is dramatic and it draws attention to the substance. So what is it that Krishna and Arjuna talk about? So Arjuna he turns towards Krishna and he asks one question which is the seed from which the seminal question from which the whole Bhagavad Gita unfolds and he asks in 2.7 I want to know what is Dharma.
The word Dharma is often equated with religion but Dharma has a much deeper meaning. The word Dharma comes from the root Dhruv which means to sustain. So Dharma refers to the natural order of things by which things are sustained.
So there is an order in nature and in fact all of science is a search for the order in nature. When I was invited to Cambridge University to speak on science and spirituality at that time we went by the tree where Newton saw the fruit falling. Now imagine if instead of Newton there is a monkey sitting there.
The monkey what would it have done if it had seen a fruit falling? Just have picked up the fruit eaten it and gone on its way. Newton asked the question what makes this fruit fall? At one level it is his brilliance that he came up with the theory of gravity as an answer to that question but more fundamentally his question itself indicates a presumption that there is an order in nature that fruits don’t fall just arbitrarily by chance. So the quest for understanding the natural order of things that is what science is all about and ultimately that is what Bhagavad Gita is all about.
What is Dharma? Dharma means the natural order of things. So in the natural order of things everything has its own place and we are all meant to find our place and our purpose in life. So imagine if say you are participating in a drama and then you rehearse your role you memorize your lines and then you go on stage but somehow there is some mistake in the timing that you have informed and you are doing your part perfectly well but at that time a different drama is going on.
So what will happen? Although you are doing the part perfectly nothing will go right because before we get our part right we have to know the play right. Once we understand the play then our part can work out. So the Bhagavad Gita when it talks about Dharma and Arjuna is asking about Dharma is basically asking what is the natural order of things? What is my role in this natural order of things? What am I meant to do in life? And this question is what Krishna answers throughout the Gita.
So when he answers the question Krishna focuses on universals. Some of us may feel uncomfortable that the Bhagavad Gita is talking about a war and it is in a battlefield setting but the Gita is not a book that calls for violence. The Gita’s call is not for violence not for silence.
Its call is for transcendence. In the Gita the setting of the battlefield is primarily meant to direct our attention attract our attentions to its message and in the Gita Krishna tells that before we can understand what we are meant to do we need to understand who we are. Our activity flows as a result of our identity.
Now we all have different identities in life. We may be professionals, we may be parents, we may be teenagers, we may be citizens of a country. These are all our functional identities.
Beyond these functional identities do we have a fundamental identity. Functional identity means that today I may be a citizen of a particular nation. Tomorrow I can become a citizen of another nation.
Today I may be a professional in a particular field. Today I may be a software engineer. Tomorrow I may decide to do MBA and I may become a businessman at that time or a business manager at that time.
So we have our functional identities but these change a called time, place, circumstance. So beyond that we have a fundamental identity and that fundamental identity the Bhagavad Gita says is spiritual. So this spiritual core that we have is who we actually are.
Now we may say how do I know whether there is any spiritual core, whether there is anything spiritual at all. Suppose there is a boy who lives in a remote tribe in Africa. There is no internet, no mobile, no contact with the rest of the world.
Now his tribal village is his universe and one day he goes to his mother and he says mummy, mummy I want a pizza. Now the first question the mother will ask is how did you know about a pizza? There is nothing in the environment of the child that could give the child knowledge about the pizza. So naturally the question comes up where did he get the desire for a pizza from.
Similarly if you look at the environment around us everything around us is temporary. Nothing lasts forever even if you look at a huge skyscraper building it may be there for a decade even a century but it’s not forever. Even in America when the twin towers fell, I have passed by the area where the twin towers were there are many memorials and things like that over there now.
So if we see when they fell it was actually not just a fall of a building, it is a fall of the dream of security and prosperity that was there in America. So nothing is actually permanent, nothing lasts forever and yet every one of us wants to live forever. No one wants to die.
The American comedian, he said that it’s not that I’m afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens. Now death is not like an event that is going to happen somewhere and we can be somewhere else, it’s something is going to happen to us. So none of us want to die and yet everything around us is perishing.
So where does this desire to live forever come from? It cannot come from our circumstance because nothing in our circumstance lasts forever. So our desire to want to live forever is as unusual as African tribal child’s desire for a pizza. So our very desire for lasting life points to not our environment but to our core.
There is something within us that lives forever and that is what we are projecting onto the material level. So that the Bhagavad Gita calls is the Atma. The Atma is eternal and the Atma, the soul is who we are and to the extent we understand ourselves as soul, to that extent we experience peace.
When I was in America a few months ago, there’s one of the worst hurricanes in the history of America. Hurricane Irma happened at that time and one of my friends was caught in that hurricane. He was in a house and while he was in that house, he was telling that he could actually see one of the dams had broken over there and the water was rising, rising, rising.
And he was in the house and as the water was rising, rising, he was panicking, he couldn’t go out anywhere. He was looking around. He was staying in a rented house at that time and he was staying in a friend’s place and they had gone out and they had also got caught in a storm.
So as he was living, wondering what to do, where to go and suddenly he noticed near a closet, there was a door and he saw this led to an attic. This opened the door. He ran up the attic and as he was in the attic, the water was rising, rising, rising.
It rose to the level of the ground floor but then it stopped and then after some time, the water level went down and then some rescue personnel came and they rescued him. So here what happened was, as long as he was in the ground level, he was fearful. But as soon as he rose to the first level, he realized that now he has greater security.
So till that point, he didn’t even notice that the house had another level. But when he noticed and he accessed that level, that brought him security. So similarly for us, we face many problems and challenges at life’s material level and it is at times of crisis that we stumble upon life’s spiritual level.
So we can envision ourselves like a two-level building. So the ground level is the material level, the first level is the spiritual level and normally we live at the material level and that’s where we function. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don’t succeed and we move on with life.
But when things are disrupted, at that time we rise to the spiritual level and when we rise to the spiritual level, we discover that there is a whole aspect to our being which was untapped. So the Bhagavad Gita takes Arjuna’s vision first from the body to the soul and then the second part of the Bhagavad Gita takes the vision of Arjuna from the soul to the supreme. The soul is a spiritual spark and Mammai Vamsho Jeeva Loke Jeeva Bhutah Sanatana.
Krishna says the spark is a part of the whole and then the Gita shifts the vision to that supreme. So when it shifts the vision to the supreme, the idea that the Gita is teaching is that all of us have certain potential, certain abilities, certain inspirations. So where do all these come from? These, this is my idea.
One of my friends is doing his doctorate in the study of inspiration. Now where exactly inspiration comes from? All of us, when we go through our lives, suddenly we get an idea. Sometimes in cartoon books we see a person’s brain with a light lit in it.
So that indicates they got an idea. Now the very word we use, I got an idea. Well, I got means somebody must have given it to me.
How do I get it? So where does the idea come from? So when they try to do a scientific study, they find that the brain works through linear neural data processing. But when inspiration comes, it’s such a huge leap in cognition that through linear step-by-step processing, it just can’t be done. There are some people who are mathematical wizards.
For example, there was a mathematician, Shakuntala Devi. She could just multiply 13-digit numbers faster than what a calculator would. You have to type in the calculator, you just ask her and she’ll reply.
And she’s asked, how do you get the answer? It’s not that she’s multiplying this digit, carrying it over and then adding this and multiplying it. Not like that. Just as soon as she’s asked the question, she gets the answer.
So where does this answer come from? So this inspiration which we get is actually the source of the greatest breakthroughs in every field of life, whether it is science or art or literature or any form of creativity. In the Bhagavad Gita 15.50, Krishna says that it is I as the supreme, one present in the hearts of all living beings. And I give guidance.
So when we get inspiration, it is certainly our effort is there. We have studied, we have analysed, we have endeavoured. But from our analysis to the insight, it’s a big leap.
And it’s not something that we do on our own. Every morning, when birds go out to seek food, the birds start chirping, chirping, chirping and searching. Now they have to search for their food.
But it is not their searching that produces the food. Nature, or we could say the source of nature, the Lord of nature has arranged for their food to be there. And the bird searching simply enables them to find it.
So their effort is secondary. The provision of that is primary. So similarly for us, we endeavour, whatever it is that we do in our life, we have to endeavour.
But there is a higher force that is guiding us. And that is what leads to the success. That is what leads to insight.
So our effort is primary, our effort is secondary. The inspiration, the insight guiding us is primary. So when we see, so the Bhagavad Gita takes the vision from the self, which is from the body with the functional identity, the soul, and from the soul to the whole, to the whole of whom we are all parts.
And towards the end, the Bhagavad Gita tells in 18.58, mat chittaḥ sarva-durgāṇi mat prasādāt tariṣyasi mat chittaḥ If you become conscious of me, you will pass over all obstacles by my grace. So what does it mean? It says that whatever obstacles may come, we will pass over all them. So this is where we come to the Bhagavad Gita, when it is talking about leadership, it is not talking so much about public leadership, how to influence a crowd of people, how to speak charismatically.
It is talking about personal leadership. How we can be led internally by our best side, by a spiritual purpose to our life. So Arjuna asks, what is dharma? What is the natural order of things? What is the thing that I am meant to do? So the Bhagavad Gita’s message is a message of harmony.
We are parts of the whole, and we are all meant to live in harmony with the whole. We are all meant to make our contribution in relationship with the whole. What we are is God’s gift to us.
What we become is our gift to God. What we are is God’s gift to us. Every one of us has been given certain talents, certain abilities, that is God’s gift to us.
And how we use them and what we become by that, that is our gift to God. The Gita says, By your work, worship Him, and thus you can attain perfection. So by your work means, we all have a particular nature, a particular inspiration, a particular contribution we can make.
And through that, if we do that in a mood of devotion, that can lead to perfection. So, in today’s world, which is very competitive, the Gita’s message of spiritually directing our life, it can help us find ourselves and not be shaped and contorted by the world’s pressures. Much of the insecurity, much of the mental problems that people face are largely because of trying to be something that we are not.
Everybody in the world wants to become better. But in order to become better, the world offers us models of everything. You be like this, look like this, talk like this, walk like this, do like this.
And this puts an enormous pressure on us. So when we try to imitate others, I have to look like that, I have to talk like that, I have to act like that. And we are going against our own nature.
If God had wanted us to be someone else, he would have made someone else. He has made you, you and he has made me, me. So every one of us is an individual and it is for a particular purpose.
When we understand that each one of us is a spiritual individual, individually we are parts of the whole, we are all meant to make our own distinctive contributions. Then that brings true Artha to our life. The word Artha has multiple meanings, it can mean wealth, it can mean meaning.
Now, when we are pursuing wealth, it is a functional necessity in life. But for many people, wealth does not become a functional necessity. It is not what we live with, it becomes what we live for.
And when we start living for wealth, there is natural holistic growth and there is an imbalanced growth. So normally when a baby is small, from that point the baby grows. And it is harmonious growth by which the baby becomes after a few years a young healthy person.
When there is cancer, that is also growth. But the growth of cancer is what? It is disproportionate. One part of the body starts growing so much that it starts destroying other parts of the body.
So similarly, when wealth or fame or power or position, anything we start pursuing as the only goal of our life, then that pursuit becomes disproportionate. And even if we succeed in that growth, that growth becomes cancerous. And that growth leads not to satisfaction, but to frustration.
To quote another American comedian, he said that, I went to my doctor and I found that I was fearful, anxiety ridden, prone to panic attacks, having acidity, having heart problems, having diabetic issues, and it turns out that I am normal. So all these problems, it turns out that I am normal. That’s how people are.
So what has happened? Unfortunately, in today’s world, we are driven by the world’s culture, by the world’s media, to pursue certain things as if it is the whole thing. It can be wealth, it can be power, it can be position, it can be prestige. So when that becomes the all consuming obsession of our life, it just throws the whole life into disruption.
So the Bhagavad Gita gives us a holistic vision of life. We have certain abilities, but our abilities are meant not just for proving our greatness, they’re meant to be a contribution. And when we do that in a mood of devotion, see that our abilities have come from the Supreme, and they’re meant to be used in a mood of service to the Supreme.
Then that brings us a higher purpose to our life. Our life gets meaning. And we do pursue wealth, we do pursue power, but that is not as the primary goal of our life.
It is something which we get and we use it for a higher purpose. When we are driven by this higher vision in life, that ultimately I am meant to make a contribution. Then even if there is some obstacle in our life, because there is a higher vision, we keep moving onwards.
If we have a particular goal in our life and that goal gets frustrated. Okay, what do I do next? But if we have a higher purpose, okay, one goal is frustrated, I’ll find a second. I can still keep moving onwards.
Because our purpose doesn’t depend on externals. Our purpose is a spiritual connection, a spiritual contribution. So Arjuna at the start of the Bhagavad Gita is disheartened, saying I can’t fight, I give up, I quit.
At the start of the Bhagavad Gita, in the first chapter, the last verse, Arjuna states, it is stated that he puts aside his bow, I can’t fight. I can’t fight. But by the end of the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna has picked up his bow in readiness to fight.
Now when Arjuna gives up his bow, what does it mean? It actually means that as a warrior he has quit. For a person of Arjuna’s caliber, a person who is a great warrior, to give up his bow means to accept defeat practically. And that warrior who was such a great archer that practically no one could defeat him.
Here he was almost like defeated even before the war began. How was he defeated? He was defeated by the negative thoughts, the negative emotions that flooded his mind. And by the end of the Bhagavad Gita, he picked up his bow.
He is the one who has lifted up his bow. So what does that mean? He has lifted up his bow. That means he has got back his determination.
He is ready to fight. That’s because Arjuna has now a spiritual vision. Okay, I may have certain difficulties right now, but there is a higher purpose to my life.
And when our purpose is bigger than our problems, then we can persevere through the problems. But when we don’t have a big purpose to our life, when the problems come, we think, okay, why am I doing this? What is it for ultimately? So when Arjuna has this bigger purpose, then whatever has caused him disheartenment, that is overcome. So the same principle, Arjuna’s Gandiva bow, which he has put aside at the start of the Gita and he has picked up at the end of the Gita, his bow represents our determination.
In the face of life’s problems, we may lose heart. It’s too much. But the Gita’s message helps us to lift our vision from the situation which we are in to the spiritual understanding of who we are.
And with that understanding, again our determination gets restored. So that same capacity to be led by a spiritual vision and to thereby lead others through a spiritual vision. That is what the Bhagavad Gita offers to all of us.
And with this understanding of life, whatever situation we face in, life will send difficulties to all of us. But with spiritual purpose, whatever difficulties come, we can face them and we can grow through them. So the Bhagavad Gita is a book which is a practical call for action based on spiritual understanding.
And with this spiritual vision, we can overcome whatever obstacles come because we get a purpose that is bigger than the obstacles. We get an enduring purpose for our life and that purpose, that empowerment is available for all of us if we study the Bhagavad Gita. We are parts of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, which is started by His Divine Grace S.C. Bhaktivedanta Swamishla Prabhupada.
He is one of the preeminent teachers of the Bhagavad Gita. And he at his old age, at the age of 70, he went all alone to America to share the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita. At that time, he had no money, practically just 40 rupees, which in 1965-1966 was not even convertible in America because there are not many Americans there.
He had no institutional support, he had no followers. On the way to America, he got two heart attacks. And finally, when he reached America, the place where he was staying, he had some legal possessions, he had a typewriter.
The janitor, the watchman over there stole his typewriter. Then he got some people who seemed to become like students and one of his students went mad by taking drugs and attacked him with violent intent. He said, it’s better to flee from there.
So when he was in this situation, through it all, his vision was that I am here to share Krishna’s message. So he wrote a very beautiful poem where he says, in Bengali, he says, आनी आचे जदी प्रभु अमारे नचाते, नचाओ नचाओ प्रभु नचाओ से माते, कश्ठेर पुत्तली जदा नचाओ से माते. My dear lord, if you have brought me here to dance, make me dance.
Make me dance, oh lord, as a puppeteer makes a puppet dance. So he, you can imagine a 70-year-old man alone in the street world, has recently suffered heart attacks, has no money, has no contacts. The people who are supposed to support him, they have turned against him.
There’s nothing going right for him. But still his determination was unflappable. And that was because his determination was based on a spiritual vision.
And the result of that was, this was 1965, this 11-12 years later, in 1977, before he departed from the world, he had 108 temples, he had written over 70 books, he circumnavigated the globe 14 times, he had inspired millions of people all over the world to turn towards the message of the Gita. So he got his indefatigable determination by his inspiration from the Bhagavad Gita. And a similar inspiration is available for all of us if we too tap into the wisdom of the Gita.
So I’ll summarize what I spoke and then we can have a few questions. So I spoke today about the relevance of the Gita in today’s world, in terms of leadership. So I talked about how in my life, the search for achievement and the search for contribution, both led to frustration.
In the search for achievement, I felt that no matter what I achieve, it will just keep me dependent on others for pleasure. The search for social contribution, even if we help people, people are not capable of being helped because they have something within them that is destroying them. So that was what inspired me to turn towards the Bhagavad Gita.
And what is the Bhagavad Gita? It is essentially a call for spiritual harmony. So it is spoken in the battlefield setting, that setting is like two cricketers, two batsmen talking in the middle of the pitch in a final match. It catches people’s attention.
What are they talking about like that? In the middle of the battle, Krishna and Arjuna are talking. The essential discussion is not about war, it is about dharma. Dharma means the natural order of things.
So when scientists are looking for the laws of nature, they are actually searching for dharma. Similarly, we have to understand what is our position and what is our purpose. Somebody may play their part very well, but if they are part of the wrong play, they will be disrupted.
So what is the part that we are? What is the play that we are a part of? That is what the Gita tells us. So it tells us that first of all, before we can understand what to do, we have to understand who we are. So we have many functional identities in the world, but beyond them all is our fundamental identity, that we are souls who are parts of a whole.
And how do we know that there is something spiritual within us? This African tribal boy has a desire for a pizza. Similarly, unusually is our desire for enduring life. That doesn’t come from our externals because nothing is enduring over there.
It comes from our core, the soul. And so the Gita shifts the vision from the body to the soul and from then soul to the supreme, to the whole. So I talked about how there is a natural order in things and how there is a transcendent source or source or provider beyond us.
All the best breakthroughs in science, technology, arts, it happens through inspiration. We get ideas. So who gives the ideas that we get? So they are not just linear step-by-step processing that leads to it.
It’s a sudden leap in cognition that happens. So our endeavor, our analysis is important, but it’s not sufficient. It is secondary.
The primary is the gift of the inside that comes. Like the birds seeking food and getting it, their endeavor is secondary. The provision of the food is primary.
So that supreme is the whole with whom we are meant to harmonize. So what we are is God’s gift to us. What we become is our gift to God.
The Gita’s mood is that we work in a mood of contribution for others using whatever abilities, whatever resources we have. If we don’t have this mood of contribution, then we have the mood of possession. And if we dwell power, position, when we crave for that, then that craving leads to growth that is cancerous.
It’s growth that leaves us with dissatisfaction, with frustration. But if we work in a mood of contribution, then that purpose of loving contribution to the supreme, that raises us above whatever circumstantial problems we have. So we can’t in this world have a problem-free life, but we can have a purposeful life.
And that purpose will give us the power to persevere through our problems. And Arjuna is initially disheartened, putting aside his bow. But by the end of the Gita, he has lifted up his bow in readiness to fight.
So his bow represents our determination. Whatever problems we may be facing, if we get a spiritual self-understanding and spiritual purpose, that will inspire us to overcome those problems and persevere. And this is what Srila Prabhupada did.
Although nothing was going right for him, whether it was age, whether it was contacts, whether it was situations, still he persevered. And then by the blessings of the divine, extraordinary results manifested. So thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. Are there any questions or comments? Yeah. So normally when things start going wrong, we start looking for a higher purpose.
But when things are going right, we just move along with life. So how can we change and seek that higher purpose even when things are going right? Yes. See, in nature there is a law of inertia.
So things stay in the situation they are, unless they are forced out of the situation. Similarly for us also, we rarely change unless the price for staying where we are is more than the price of changing. So that’s the way our mind is made.
But we are not our minds. Our mind is a part of us. It’s like if we consider the body, mind and soul, it’s like the hardware, software and the user.
So the mind is programmed in a particular way, but we can change its programming. That means, let’s say if I open my computer and if I have visited a particular website many times, so as soon as I type in N, say it goes to NY Times. But now I want to go to some other site.
I want to go to say New Indian Express, but it’s a little autocompleted NY Times. So what I have to do is, I have to consciously change and not go along with the autocompleted. So our mind has a particular tendency right now.
So how do we change that tendency? That is by conscious intention. Now when circumstance pushes us to inquire about life’s higher purpose, that is good. But that is circumstantial spirituality.
And circumstantial spirituality is not sustainable. We all need to rise from circumstantial spirituality to intentional spirituality. Intentional is driven by conscious intention.
And what takes us from, if this is circumstantial spirituality, this is intentional spirituality, what acts as this bridge is intellectual spirituality. If we study the philosophy, if we understand life’s purpose philosophically, then the intelligence acts as the motivating force. So one of the great spiritual teachers, Jeeva Goswami, he explains that for those who are very spiritually advanced, it is their love for the supreme that keeps them on the spiritual platform.
But for those who are spiritual seekers, it is not priti, it is not affection that keeps them on the spiritual platform, it is buddhi, it is intelligence. That is why it is vital to study spiritual books and to associate with those who are studying spiritual books and learn from them. So that buddhi is what will nourish us and that will take us from circumstantial spirituality to intentional spirituality.
Maybe a follow-up question to what was asked earlier. Since we are created by God with a certain purpose and higher order of spiritual, so why is it that only a small percentage of people, they get to that alignment and are recognized and able to get to that while if everybody has the same potential, why is that probability only so small that some get it and some don’t, while all are created equal by God? Yeah, so if everybody is meant to be spiritual, being created that way, why is so few people attracted to spirituality? God is reciprocal. Reciprocal means that he reciprocates with our desires.
So we all have been, we could say we are not exactly created by God because we are all eternal, but we could say we eternally, we are meant to be spiritual, but we all have also been given free will and we all can choose how to use our free will. So based on the culture that we have brought up in, based on the kind of impressions that we have in our minds, which both of these in today’s world are largely materialistic. So because both the culture and the conditionings that we have internally, because they are materialistic, so most of us are prompted towards a materialistic way of life.
So we all have the potential to be spiritual, but for that potential to be developed, we need some kind of spiritual stimulus. If I consider wood, wood has the potential to burn, but consider say three logs of wood, one which is fully dry, one which is partially dry and partially wet, and one which is fully wet. All three have the potential to be lit, but not all three will be equally easily or equally rapidly lit.
Why? Because their condition is different. So there is the potential and there is the condition. So if the wood is wet, even if it is brought in touch with some torch or flame, it will not burn.
So the materialistic situation around us is like the wetness around the wood. So to the extent we are more and more materialistic, to the extent the spiritual spark does not get ignited within us. And there are different ways in which this wood can get dried from the wet state.
One is through frustration. That means that we pursue something material and we do not get it, or we get it, but it does not fulfill us. And then we start looking for something.
So that means that is how the wood starts getting dried. Otherwise, it can also be through education that we learn, okay, there must be something more to life. Okay, I achieved this, I achieved that, I achieved that.
What next after that? What is there ultimately to life? So it could be through education. But most powerfully, it is through association. Our desires are not just linear, they are also triangular.
What do you mean by triangular desires and linear desires? Normally, we think that if I see something, I desire that. Say, if we see a gulab jamun, I want to eat it. So I see the object and I get the desire.
But suppose, say there is food after this program, and there is some item which you have never seen, which you have never heard of. Should I take this or should I not take it? We see it, but we don’t get any desire by seeing it. But then some friend whom we know, he goes and takes it.
Delicious, give me also. So what happened over here? Just seeing the object did not create the desire within us. Seeing someone else enjoying that object created the desire.
The desire is not just linear, it is triangular. And this is the principle that most advertisements use. Advertisements don’t just show the product, they show the product being enjoyed by some famous person.
So celebrity endorsements are what? They are tapping the triangularity of desires. And especially with respect to spiritual things, the linearity does not work so much. Because many spiritual things may not at first glance appear attractive.
For example, the Bhagavad Gita. Okay, how many people see the Bhagavad Gita and immediately get a strong desire, I want to read it and understand it. Okay, I have the Bhagavad Gita.
It’s like a holy book. I keep it in the corner in my house. Vishal Prabhupada wrote a book called the Bhagavad Gita as it is.
So many people take the Bhagavad Gita as it is, and then they keep it as it is. So what happens is, just seeing it doesn’t create the desire. But then if we associate with someone who is relishing the Bhagavad Gita, who is mining insights from the Gita and sharing those insights, hey, all this is in the Gita, I didn’t know that.
And seeing that person relishing the Gita’s wisdom creates a desire within us, making us relish. So for us, or for people around us, if they are not spiritually interested right now, it may be because their culture has been materialistic, their conditioning has been materialistic, that is not so easy to change. But what can be changed is the association.
If somehow they can be placed, they can be brought in association that is spiritual, then that stimulates the spiritual desire. So Artha Forum is basically a forum for association of people who are from a business background, but they are also spiritually minded. So we say that the more we can provide this kind of association, then whatever is the wetness of the wood that might be there in some, that wetness can be dried and the spiritual potential can be unleashed.
Did that answer your question? Or was it something else? Well, we can have a longer discussion on that, but if I may, I’ll ask another question, which is actually posed by someone else, which is India was and to a larger degree, it still is a land of spirituality. And a lot of knowledge, a lot of wisdom existed in the past. And then, despite all that, India is the one that got overrun, first by Mughals and then by British colonizers and so on.
So was that something in the way Indians looked at life, that they were not able to, it was, if I draw a parallel to Pandavas and Kauravas, it was the Kauravas who vanished again and so essentially, even today, when you look at the intellectual discourse, that colonial thing is still there. Anything that is Hindu or whatever, it is by definitions considered to be suspect, till you can prove it otherwise, or it comes from the rest. And therefore, it is considered valid.
So what was it or was it, was there something inherent in the way people looked at life? Yeah, sorry, just to add on to that, what is spirituality? I mean, when you say that everybody seeks spirituality, I mean, from your point of view at this point, you know, we read about a lot, we believe in God, which of course, God is not associated. And you do your duty, and whatever comes out of it, you think it is because of his or her hand, and continue to believe in that, you know, and then move forward. It is spirituality, what can you do about it, you know, in our life.
And then, what I was saying, wherever the things happening through there, non-spiritualism and internalized, how do you define spirituality, and then you can lead to, if that was spirituality in your practice in India, what has happened? Okay, yeah. So, what is spirituality? There is multiple level of understanding, I would say. Spiritual is, it can be seen as a state of mind, it can also be seen as a state of being.
So, that means, the way Bhagavad Gita explains it is, that spiritual is a level of reality. There is the material body, and there is the spiritual soul. The body is external, it is changing.
This is the, we change dresses, like that, every life ends, we change the body, and we get a new body. So, here, when the Bhagavad Gita talks about spiritual, it is talking about a level of reality to which we belong, and to which we are meant to attain. So, we are souls who are on a journey of spiritual evolution through various lifetimes.
And in this evolution spiritually, we are meant to grow in wisdom and grow in devotion. And when this reaches its culmination, when we develop pure love for the supreme spiritual reality, and then love for others in relationship with that supreme, then that is when our spiritual evolution attains its end. So, while we are functioning in the world, we are meant to do our duties and contribute in a mood of devotion.
At the same time, there has to be a part of our life which focuses directly on spiritual practice. Because we, there is contribution, which is socially we do our activities, whatever we get, we do them in a mode of devotion. That’s important, but that’s external.
Internally, there has to be a connection. And that connection internally with our own spiritual side, with our spiritual source, which is done through sadhana. We chant the holy names, we do meditation, we do prayer, we study the scriptures.
All this is our sadhana, which helps us to do our internal connection. And then there is seva. Seva can be specific service that we do in the temple.
Seva can also be the work that we do in a mood of service attitude. Seva can also be the charity that we do give in a mood of contribution. All that is seva.
So, to some extent, we can say seva is external. That is a part of our external contribution. Our sadhana is internal for our connection.
So, if it’s only the external, then that will also lead to spiritual evolution, but that will be very gradual. When there is both the internal connection and the external contribution, then our spiritual evolution is accelerated. And spirituality ultimately means that we attain the spiritual level of reality.
parastasmat bhavonyo vyakto vyakta sanatana yahasa sarveshu bhuteshu nasyatsu navinasyati The Bhagavad Gita 8.20 Krishna says that beyond this world is another world, which is eternal and indestructible. And that is our eternal home. So, that is where we are longing to go.
So, by the Bhagavad Gita says that if by the end of our life, if our love for God has become greater than our love for the world, then God will take us out of the world and take us to his abode. So, that is the ultimate spiritual success. And now coming to this question of if India was a land of spirituality, why was it overrun by foreign invaders for so many centuries? And why is the colonial mentality even now there? Yes, spirituality is something which has to be understood and applied properly.
If it is not understood and applied properly, then it can lead, then there can be an appearance of spirituality, but the substance of spirituality may not be there. So, in India, when we talk about India as a land of spirituality, it is primarily the culture. There is the cultural aspect of spirituality.
There is the intellectual or philosophical aspect of spirituality. And there is the social aspect of spirituality. Culturally, we can say it is the practices, you come to temple, have puja, have art, that is cultural.
There is the philosophical intellectual aspect where we understand the wisdom. And the social aspect is, okay, how is this to be applied in our social interactions? So, in India, over the centuries, the Bhagavad Gita talks about a system of social division called Varanashram. Varanashram is the division of society according to innate psychological dispositions.
There are some people who are intellectual, some people who are managers, some people who are business people, some people who are general assistants. So, this over the centuries became distorted as the caste system. And now the difference between what the Bhagavad Gita teaches as Varanashram and what is called a caste system is that the Bhagavad Gita teaches that this division is based on chatur varanam maya srishtam guna karmal bhagavashyam.
It is based on qualities and activities. But the caste system that was present in India, that was primarily based on birth. So, a person who is the son of a brahmana thinks that I am a brahmana.
So, tomorrow I am going by flight to India. If I ask who is driving the flight, say so and so No, is he a pilot? Is he a train? No, is he a train pilot? No, he is the son of a train pilot. Well, but is he a train pilot? No, no, he is the son of a train pilot.
Well, I don’t want to go in that plane, you know. He is just the son of a train pilot. He is not necessarily a train pilot.
So, what happened was this whole idea came up in India that just because somebody is born in a particular caste, they automatically belong to that caste. They have the power and privilege of that caste. So, the two primary upper castes, the brahmanas and the kshatriyas, both of them became corrupted by this idea.
So, brahmanas are the storehouse of intellectual power and the kshatriyas are meant to be the storehouse of social or political power. So, both of them to some extent became corrupted. And because of that, the kshatriyas, instead of using their power and position to protect others, they often got caught in petty dissensions.
And when invaders came from outside, they were just caught in their own petty conflicts and they were overrun. So, it is not so much the spirituality that caused the problem. It is the partial application of spirituality by which rather than the spiritual understanding of life fostering cooperation, it started fostering an entitlement mentality and started fostering discrimination.
Having said that, we have to recognize that when people are spiritual, the spirituality is meant to lead to all-round contribution. So, although at one level, India politically was overrun by others, but still throughout the centuries, India kept making its contribution. Even when the Britishers came to India, they came because India was still prosperous.
Although there was the Islamic rule for starting from something like 11th century, you can say, 7th century was there, still India was prosperous. So, the core spirituality that was there in terms of people having a spiritual culture, that kept India prosperous even when politically it was overrun by others. There were plunders, but because the culture was itself spiritual, it kept resurfacing, the prosperity kept coming.
But when the British rule started, the attack was not just social or political, the attack was also on the culture. Many of the Islamic invaders, they destroyed temples. But the Britishers, they often destroyed the faith that made people go to the temples.
And that attack was much more insidious. Now, again, when I say that Islam is Islamic invaders or Britishers, I am not putting one label on everyone. Even among Muslim rulers, there were many who were liberal and broad-minded.
Even among Britishers, there were many who thought that actually we are doing good to India. They are thinking that India is primitive and we are civilizing them. So, but yes, if you look at the overall influence, it was a corrosive influence.
And especially by the time India got independence, India developed a very colonial mentality. So, on August 15, 1947, India independently became dependent on the West. India got its independence, we became politically independent, but still we remained culturally dependent.
And because of that, the whole idea was that till recently, if you see India, cricket is considered the national game of India. But actually, India is not a cricket-mad country. India is an international cricket-mad country.
If a cricketer performs very well in a domestic tournament, nobody cares. If a player performs well in an international tournament, everybody says, oh, now we are so great. So, that mentality has been fostered, I would say, largely because of the colonial education that came during the 150-200 years.
And unfortunately, after independence also, we did not really change course. We followed more or less the same trajectory, although we had political independence. So, that’s why that has not changed.
Now, if you see, there’s a book written by Philip Goldman, it’s called American Veda. The book is all about how Indian spirituality penetrated in the American heartland. It talks about how so many spiritual teachers went from India, and now yoga has become mainstream, being vegan has become very popular, meditation is also very popular.
So, many people in the West are now choosing to be cremated rather than buried. So, many of the cultural practices of India have gone to the West. And from the West, when they are coming to India, we are taking it up more.
This is just unfortunate. But as India progresses, as we start recognizing the value of our spirituality based not on cultural factors, but on intellectual factors. So, what has happened is, because our cultural faith was destroyed by the education coming from the West, so we started thinking that everything Western is better.
So, when the Indian spirituality is presented from the West, oh, it’s good. But when we start getting spiritual education, when our faith is not just cultural, it’s also intellectual, then we don’t need our culture to be vindicated by the West to accept it. When we understand it intellectually, and then we evaluate it and we appreciate it, then if we take it up, it will be based not on what the world is appreciating it, but because it has its intrinsic worth.
So, in India, unfortunately, the spiritual wisdom of the Vedic literature is not taught at all. Even if it is not to be taught as a religious text, it could at least be taught as a wisdom text. That means, okay, this is a book of wisdom, which is the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads.
These are books of wisdom that originated in India. And we may not believe them as absolute truths, but at least what they are taught needs to be taught. What they are teaching needs to be taught.
Unfortunately, because that is not happening, so we don’t have that intellectual access way to our tradition. So, the more we make that intellectual access way available for people, then instead of this being external reference needed for appreciating what we have, we can become more spiritually self-confident about our own tradition. Does that answer your question? It does.
And in fact, I’ll just add a comment that, you know, the last part that you talked about, the need for some of those to be brought into, whether it’s at a family level or institutionally, the education, not the religious part of it, but on the other aspect. But that’s exactly where when I talked about the colonial mindset, it’s precisely the supposedly the educated Hindus by birth, let me put that label as well, they are the first ones who are up in arms saying that this is not secular, and therefore you shouldn’t do it. So, it’s at that stage.
Yeah, that’s true. And that is supposedly coming from the heritage is considered to be non-acceptable because that flies in the face of what those people believe the intellectuals and many of us are products of that as well. Where inherently that is considered the wrong thing to do.
And that’s kind of gathering more and more momentum, more so maybe in the English educated. I think that has still not gone away. The pendulum is still on the wrong side.
It’s often when anything from our heritage is brought, it’s often the Hindu scholars who oppose it. There’s a reason for that. And I was at an interfaith conference in Washington DC last year.
And we’re talking about how different religions have their footprints in the world. So now if you consider the religion that is the smallest and has the biggest footprint in the world, that is Judaism. Very small religion, but Jews are hugely influential.
In contrast with that, we consider Hinduism, it’s a significantly large religion, but in terms of social influence, it’s very less. So why is that? One of the main reasons is that Hindus, for whatever reason, choose careers that lead them to become individual achievers. But they don’t choose careers that lead to them becoming opinion leaders of society.
So if you consider the study of Hinduism, one of my friends, he joined the staff of Journal of Hindu Studies. And the studies of Hinduism, but there are around 50 scholars in that, and he’s just one among three scholars. So it’s Hindu studies, but only three Hindus are scholars in it.
All the others are non-Hindus, mostly Western people. Now why is that? It is not that Western people have just monopolized that scholarship. It is that Indians don’t want to study that.
They say, oh, I want my son to become an engineer. I want my son to become a doctor. I want my daughter to become a doctor.
And religious studies, what is there in that? So if you see, Islam, although it comes under a lot of flak because of its association with terrorism, there is a large number of Islamic scholars who very assertively defend Islam. And that’s why whenever any terrorist attack comes, if Islam is blamed, immediately the media comes up and says Islamophobia. So it is not just that the media is perversely tilted towards Hinduism or perversely tilted towards Islam or anything like that.
It is just that who are the opinion leaders over there? So Islam has done a lot of work in that area where they have contributed energy, resources, and people to try to change people’s perception about their religion. The religion which has done this the best is Buddhism. Buddhism is, in one sense, a very otherworldly religion.
But it is the only religion that is considered to be cool. You can be Buddhist and you can be totally considered cool. That’s just a matter of public marketing.
So if you see the media, the scholarship, these are areas and other areas where social opinions are shaped. Hindus are not so much in those fields. So we can see that it’s very easy to blame the big bad world or it’s very easy to have a victim mentality.
Oh, this is portrayed badly. The world is like that. But ultimately change happens when you begin to take responsibility.
So it’s largely because we have not taken the responsibility to present our tradition properly. So we have not worked to shape people’s opinion of the tradition. That’s why others have got a particular opinion of the tradition and nobody is challenging it.
So again, my point comes back that most mainstream scholarship on Hinduism is done by leftist scholars. And these left-oriented scholars, we don’t want a right-wing extremism, but there’s left-wing extremism also. So they consider basically Hinduism as the source of the caste system, as a source of sati, as a source of all kinds of social evils.
And there’s so much good that every religion has some evils associated which get accreted to it. But there’s a lot of good. But that, they don’t talk about it at all.
Questioner 2 I think that point about taking responsibility and pre-conquer and that’s where I think individually and collectively, we need to have that confidence that it is okay to that example of Judaism and Hinduism. So most of us, we are perfectly comfortable when a Jewish colleague observes Sabbah despite having whatever corporate careers they do, but claims when it comes to say that it is our festival or whatever it is and therefore we are not doing something. And that just shows that over maybe centuries or whatever, it’s in our psyche that it’s not cool to be doing that.
It’s perfectly cool to observe Sabbah. So it comes down to individually how comfortable do we feel, whereas it’s perfectly easy for us to go along with the flow because most of those other things are only in the cool dictionary. Dr. Raghuram G. Rajan More and more people are changing now.
I think more and more people are taking a stand and things will change in the next few decades. Guruji, I think so far whatever we have just said is for emotions, we don’t know who are here. We will chant from you on God’s name.
That’s the way it ends. So then we can just go back with that spirit, chanting Lord Krishna’s name through you. Thank you very much.
Krishna Bhagawan.