Gita as a leadership guide

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
For the discussion on the topic of leadership sutra based on the Bhagavad Gita. Leadership is not just the privilege of leaders.
Every one of us is a leader. A leader of our own family, a leader of our children. We are, each of us has circles of influence far beyond what we can imagine.
John C. Maxwell is a leadership consultant and he writes in one of his books that psychologists have found that even the most introverted persons throughout the course of their lives influence at least 10,000 people. Because we interact with different people and these different people, they see us. They take something from us.
We may not consciously realise it, but we all see each other. So, we are all leaders whether we have an official leadership position or not. And more importantly, leadership is not just a matter of designation.
It is a matter of disposition. Designation is something which is given externally by some authority, by some organisation and that can come and that can go. But a leader is not one who is dependent on the designation for making one’s contribution.
A leader’s contribution comes from one’s innate disposition to want to be a part of the solution, to want to make a positive change. And in fact, if you look at the Bhagavad Gita, the Bhagavad Gita is a book which is a conversation between two leaders about the fundamental principles of leadership. We look at the two conversationists in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna and Arjuna.
Both of them were extraordinary and yet neither of them had any direct official designation. They were leaders, but they were leaders by disposition, not by designation. Krishna, nowadays when people want to read biographies or autobiographies of people, he was a man who rose from obscurity and then went on to become very famous, very influential, very powerful.
So, the American president, he came from a racial background that was discriminated against for centuries and now he went on to become the topmost, most powerful person of the leading country in the world. The current Indian Prime Minister, he was a tea seller and now he has become the top person in the country, in the world s biggest democracy. So, now these sort of stories where people rise from obscurity to great positions of power and influence, we like to hear such stories because they often serve as inspiring models for other, for all of us of what we can also try to achieve in actualising our potentials.
Now, within the tradition in which Bhagavad Gita is spoken, Krishna is considered to be God. But at the same time, if you look from the objective perspective, we will see that Krishna’s life story is extraordinary. Now, a small child, even before birth, imagine there is a whole conspiracy to have the child murdered and then as soon as the child is born, just to save his life, in the darkness of the night, the child is just taken away to an obscure village where he survives throughout his childhood against great dangers by various shape-changing monsters and then at a very young age, when he has not even entered his teens, he comes back and in a dramatic entry into urban life.
Krishna’s tale from Mathura is born in the prison cell, goes to Vrindavan which is a pastoral paradise and from there, he enters back and right in the royal king’s assembly, sometimes in some sports, say now the French Open is coming, is going on right now. So, if some unseeded player comes along and just defeats the defending champion, defeats the top seeds and then wins the championship, it creates a sensation. So, Krishna like that enters as an unheralded person from an obscure village, enters right into the royal assembly, defeats the royal wrestlers and as a tyrant king, Krishna overthrows him and at that time, some of the most powerful despots of the times are allied with this king and Krishna defeats all of them.
So, he is just barely in his teens and he establishes himself as a great hero who has overcome great tyrants and yet after that, he doesn’t take the position of king for himself. He gives the position of king to elder of the family, to his grandfather. So, we cannot go here into the dynastic specifics of Krishna’s family.
But the point is Krishna considered contribution more important than position. Krishna did not accept any position in the royal hierarchy. Whether he was in Mathura or whether he was in Dwarka, he was just one member among the royal family.
But although he was just one member, he was the centre when it came to taking responsibility for protecting the kingdom and at large protecting the larger country. So, Krishna is excellent. Even if we don’t consider Krishna’s story from the perspective of his being a supreme person, even from the objective point of view, it’s a dramatic story of what in today’s language would be called a self-made man.
So, he rises from obscurity to a great position of leadership. In fact, Krishna becomes not just a king, he becomes a kingmaker. He has his grandfather designated as the king and then there is a virtuous Pandavas and he Krishna is primarily instrumental in ensuring that Yudhishthira becomes the king.
So, it is said this Krishna is such a leader, the leader is more concerned with contribution than position. Krishna demonstrates that kind of leadership. So, he is the speaker of the Gita and Arjuna is also another leader.
He is not the eldest in the family and that’s why he doesn’t become the king. He’s intermediate, a third among five brothers and although he’s the third, he is the foremost archer of his times. That was a time when there were many champion archers and among those, Arjuna was the champion among champions and not only was he excellent as an archer, but he was also extremely virtuous.
He was a principled warrior, not just a competent warrior, but he was also a very principled warrior and the Bhagavad Gita is a conversation between two leaders. Now, often leadership is thought of as being able to command others, being able to get others to do things and being able to basically be a people’s person who gets others to do things and fulfil one’s vision. Yes, that is one dimension of leadership.
But leadership has an even more fundamental dimension. There is public leadership and there is personal leadership. Public leadership is how we deal with others and how we inspire others and how we get others to do things.
But personal leadership is even more fundamental. Personal leadership is the leadership by which we are able to lead ourselves. Now, within our own psyche, there are many different desires, different anxieties, different drives, which pull us in different directions.
A person cannot become an effective leader of others unless one is an effective leader of oneself. In fact, if a person is not an effective personal leader, then the more influential or more powerful leadership position that such a person gets, that person will create chaos in that position. If a leader is indecisive, if a leader is weak, if a leader is confused about what one’s purposes are, what one’s priorities are, as such a leader, being in a position of responsibility will lead the state through a phase of policy paralysis where actually the leader will do harm instead of doing good.
So, the truly effective leaders can become public leaders only when they are personal leaders. And personal leader, what does personal leadership essentially mean? It essentially means that we need to be able to have a clear vision for our life and pursue that vision. And when we have an inspiring vision, then others will also join that vision.
And when people see that we are inspired and we have a purpose in life, then others come. And that’s how a team is formed organically. Leaders who are thrust from above in any organisation, usually they, because of their position, they may extract some obedience from their subordinates, but they will not inspire respect.
And such a team will not grow organically. But where leadership is not a granted privilege, but leadership is an earned right, where a leader, by one’s own example, by one’s own commitment, by one’s own sterling qualities, inspires trust in others, such a leader can become a true inspiring and transformational leader. And for this purpose, the Bhagavad Gita focusses not just on some techniques for influencing people.
The Bhagavad Gita is not a book like how to win friends and influence people. Such books may have their utility. So, but such books focus primarily on externals.
And without the internal substance, the external appearance cannot be maintained for very long. Just like if a magnificent house is built, but if a person is very eager, oh, I want to build this house very fast. As that person thinks, oh, when people will come and see, they will see the house.
They will not see the foundation. So why build the foundation? To save time. Yes, we’ll save time and we’ll build the building faster.
But when the storm comes, then everything will perish in a moment. So personal leadership is like the foundation. Public leadership is like the building.
And when there are public leaders who do not have the foundation of personal leadership, such leaders actually do great disservice. They may rise like comets in the sky, but just as comets, they just flash in the sky and disappear. Such leaders, they’re there for some time, and then they disappear.
And during the time that they are there, often they create a legacy of chaos for their successors to be with. Now, leadership, when we talk about personal leadership, it ultimately depends on decision making. All of us, we have 24 hours in our day.
The world’s wealthiest person, the world’s most powerful person, whichever sense we’re using, they all have 24 hours. Some people become more successful, some people become less successful. It all depends on how one uses one’s time.
And using one’s time is essentially a decision. So depending on the decisions that we make, we will achieve destinations in our life. And the Bhagavad Gita starts with a decision-making crisis.
Often the Bhagavad Gita is thought of as a Hindu religious book. That is one level of understanding of the Bhagavad Gita. But the Bhagavad Gita’s message is universal.
Its message is about how to make informed decisions in the face of confusion. So when a moral crisis is a situation when there are two courses of action, one is moral and the other is immoral. So for example, say a person, there’s a police person, and the police says, okay, somebody comes and says, we’ll give you some bribe.
And there’s going to be a crime committed over here. If anybody calls you, don’t come over there. Don’t come at least immediately over there.
Now in this case, what is right and what is wrong is very clear. So if a person succumbs to immorality, that is because of lack of inner strength. But much more complex than moral crisis is ethical crisis.
Sometimes the two words are used interchangeably, but ethical crisis means that there are two situations and both of them are right. But which is more right? So when there’s ethical crisis, at that time, it’s not just a lack of moral strength. It’s not just lack of a weakness of character, but it requires a depth of wisdom to be able to recognise what one should do in such a situation.
So for example, say, an ethical crisis means that there are two options. Both of them are at least seem to be in some way right. So for example, to speak truthfully is a good thing to do.
It’s one ethical thing to do in life. But suppose there are some violent criminals who are chasing some innocent person and the innocent person comes knocking on the door, please save me. And then we give that person asylum, give him a hiding place.
And then thieves come knocking. Is there anybody in your house? Now at that time, what should we do? Speaking truthfully is a good thing. But at that time, speaking truthfully will cause the death of someone.
So now, of course, this is also not a very difficult ethical crisis to resolve. But quite often, we can have subtler and more complex ethical crisis. So ethical crisis means it’s not so easy to decide what is right or what is wrong because both speaking truthfully is good, saving another person’s life is good.
So which is more important? Now we would say in this case, it’s obvious, speak a lie and save a person’s life. Because in this case, saving life is far more valuable than speaking truthfully. But the point is, both are right things.
Then which is more right and which is less right? Then at that time, decision making becomes difficult. And leaders in the real world often have to make this kind of decisions where it is not that the leader has to choose between right and wrong because we live in such a fast changing world that what is the best course of action is always not clear. There are multiple course of action.
They all seem more or less equally feasible. So how do leaders choose in such a situation? So Arjuna faces that kind of ethical crisis at the start of the Bhagavad Gita. He has to choose what some people would say, it’s a simplistic differentiation, but it can act as a launching point for us.
He has to choose between his professional duty and his familial duty. In the Bhagavad Gita’s language, it is his Kshatriya Dharma and his Kula Dharma. So a simple example is, suppose there would be a, there’s a judge whose duty is actually to judge criminals.
Now suppose that judge’s son has committed a crime and now a judge’s son is standing in the defendant’s box and there are charges being arraigned, the plaintiff is laying out the case. A father’s, the judge’s familial duty is to protect his son. A judge’s professional duty is to sentence a criminal.
What would a judge do in such a situation? Most judges, at least in today’s judicial system, juridical system, they would be asked to recuse the case. You know, you will have a conflict of interest over here. You should not judge this case.
But suppose the situation was such that, that judge had to judge the case. There’s no one else to. It will be difficult to decide at that time.
So it’s natural to want to protect one’s own son and also it’s a matter of integrity to do one’s duty. So Arjuna faced that kind of crisis. At one level, you know, it was his elders, his loved ones who were fighting and as he himself acknowledges, actually these elders are the people, my teacher, my grandsire, they are the people whom I should be respecting.
I should be offering them flowers of respect, not arrows of attack. How can I do such a thing? But at the same time, those elders had chosen the side of a religion. They had chosen the side of wise and Arjuna had to fight against them in order to ensure the rule of law.
So this was an ethical crisis for Arjuna. And it was with this ethical crisis in mind that Arjuna turns towards Krishna and asks him for guidance. Now from Krishna’s point of view, Krishna, as I said, he was a leader who had no designation, but he had the disposition of a leader.
So in the context of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna depicts extraordinary humility, although he is the foremost warrior, he’s taken the role of a charioteer and a charioteer is basically a chauffeur. Normally, if there is some there is some world champion performer, say there is a, as I said again, some sports event, say French Open is going on. Say the French Open defending champion is about to go to the final match and then he’s going by car and he suddenly gets confused.
Will he turn to his chauffeur and ask? Now what should I do? Should I play in this match? How should I play in this match? Which strategy should I use? So the Bhagavad Gita offers a very unlikely scenario of the world’s champion warrior turning to his chauffeur, his charioteer for guidance. When Krishna offers guidance, now Krishna has taken the role of a charioteer, but still he is the undisputed leader. And from Krishna’s point of view, it’s a crisis.
It’s a big crisis because Arjuna was his top man and his top man at the peak of the, at the climax of the narrative, his top man pops out. Suppose India is in the World Cup final. And the best batsman just before the final says, I will not play today.
Just why? I’m feeling very nervous. So what is this? You are a champion batsman. You should not become nervous like this.
Now, if such a thing happens, it will be a crisis for the captain. The captain has to galvanise the confused or disheartened or stressed champion performer and get him to perform. So for Krishna, it is a situation like that.
And often, nowadays, people say education should be interactive. Education should be experiential. You don’t just teach, you take them to the field, show them, make them experience it.
So there are different teachers who can use different experiential teaching techniques. But what Krishna does is, he uses the ultimate experiential teaching technique. He transforms a battlefield into a classroom.
He transforms the battlefield into a classroom and although at that particular situation, the mood is impassioned. There are elephants are trumpeting, horses are neighing. There are warriors who are clapping their arms and their thighs.
There are trumpets being blown, conches being sounded, swords being whirled around, spears being raised high. There is a lot of noise all around. And in that situation, Krishna starts speaking.
There are some people who have such a commanding voice and when they start speaking, people just stop and hear. So Krishna exhibits that kind of commanding presence and presentation where Arjuna, there is not only a distracting and disturbing situation externally, but more distracting and disturbing is Arjuna’s internal situation. Imagine if a child is crying and when the child is crying, the mother suddenly starts teaching algebra to the child.
If a child is in an emotional situation, the child is not in a situation to learn anything which requires a lot of intelligence. So Arjuna is in such an emotionally overwhelmed situation that he is crying. Now a child crying, yes, it’s a sad thing.
Nobody wants anybody to be in grief, especially children. But a child crying is relatively ordinary. Whereas a warrior like Arjuna crying is an extraordinary situation.
Arjuna was a stoic warrior. He was the ultimate embodiment of masculinity and virility. Now even when Arjuna lost everything, he lost his kingdom, lost his wealth, lost everything, was dispossessed of everything, at that time Arjuna did not cry.
At that time Arjuna did not cry, but here at the prospect of a fratricidal war, he could not contain his tears. So in the second chapter, first verse it said that and to that person who was overwhelmed by misery, his eyes were filled with the brim tears. And to such a person, so and to that person Krishna started speaking.
So to a person who is emotionally distraught, to actually catch the attention of that person and to give an intellectually demanding discourse to that person, it’s no easy task. So Krishna does that. Krishna not only pushes out the external disturbance and the distractions of the conversation, but Krishna by his commanding presence and presentation, pushes out from Arjuna’s mind, even the internal distracting emotions and gets his full attention.
And there on the battlefield, the battlefield itself is dramatic and normally a conversation is not considered very dramatic. If people want to, people say I saw a movie, then you ask people what did you see in the movie? Oh, it was a three hour conversation. No one is there to see it.
Normally a conversation is not considered very dramatic. You say drama means there’s some fighting, some action, some flying or whatever. So the Bhagavad Gita is dramatic because not because the action is dramatic, but because the conversation in such a dramatic setting is so unexpected.
In such a setting where a war is about to take place, a profoundly philosophical conversation is the least likely thing to happen. Now Krishna could have spoken the Bhagavad Gita’s message to Arjuna anywhere at any time. Of course, Arjuna became overwhelmed on the battlefield, but the setting of the Bhagavad Gita illustrates the universal and immediate relevance of its message.
Sometimes some people say that philosophy is for people who can sit on armchairs and have nothing more to do. Philosophy is for armchair speculators. Socrates said famously, if you are fortunate, you will get a good wife.
If you don’t, you will become a philosopher. So people think that philosophy is something which you do either after you have achieved something good in life and now you’re satisfied relaxing on your armchair or philosophy is you’re so frustrated with life and nothing works out, then you become a philosopher. But Arjuna is right in the middle of a battlefield and at that time when Krishna speaks, Krishna is not speaking any abstract philosophy which is for armchair speculators.
Krishna, he speaks about the message of action in this world and not just action, he speaks about the message of the foundation for action. As I said, leadership is about decision making and the Bhagavad Gita is spoken on a setting where there’s a crisis in decision making. What should Arjuna do in such a situation? So Krishna, if you see interestingly, normally, suppose there was a war between India and Pakistan which is about to take place and last moment, they decide let’s have some peace negotiations.
So normally the peace negotiations are going to take place, the two commanders or their emissaries meet and the prominent subject that they will discuss is okay, what is the cause of the war? And okay, you want this territory, we want this territory, you have done this, you have done this. So the whole subject, if about a war is about to take place, the subject of the discussion in the context of a war will be centred on the war. But if you look at the Bhagavad Gita, it starts with this war setting but within just a matter of few verses, the war setting is left far behind.
In the 700 verses of the Bhagavad Gita, the war setting itself is depicted in the first chapter’s 46 verses and then that setting is further described in the next chapter’s 10 verses and then from the 57th verse onwards till the 700th verse, there are not more than 10 references to the war. So the Gita’s message starts from a dramatic context. But it goes far beyond that context.
And that is the reason why it has had a universal appeal, not just for Indians for millennia, but for millions all over the world. Because its message is neither about war nor about any particular sectarian religion. It is about how do we make our decisions? On what basis do we choose our actions in life? In terms of its technical progression, the Gita’s message is deep and profound.
But in terms of its essential conclusion, the Gita concludes that when you have to act, act with love. The underlying and unifying basis for all our actions and all our decisions is called Gita Love. Now love is a word that is often bandied around in today’s world.
But Bhagavad Gita gives us a much deeper understanding of love. A love that transcends the temporariness that characterises all love in this world. In many movies and novels, they all talk about love and then usually they end with happily ever after, H-E-A.
Now actually speaking, it’s a nice aspiration, but in this world, there is no ever after. There is the end and the end means that there is termination and separation. So the love that we experience in this world, it when it is terminated, it can be heart-wrenching.
The Bhagavad Gita does not deny or reject this kind of love, but it says this love is an incomplete understanding of love. The Bhagavad Gita’s message is that we have a vertical relationship with God and we have a horizontal relationship with others and human relationships become stable and fulfilling when they are centred on the vertical relationship with God. So with the context of a leader, a leader is one who for one’s group, whichever group one is leading, takes as a service the position of God, not as a replacement to God, but as a representative of God.
That means we all, for example, when an infant is born, at that time, that infant knows nothing and actually there is ignorance when we don’t know anything, but even in ignorance, for example, lights go off, at that time, we can’t see anything, but we can’t see anything and at least we know that I can’t see anything, but worse than ignorance is ignorance of ignorance. That means we don’t even know that we don’t know. I’ll give you a simple example.
Sometimes when a person becomes drunk, at that time, that person is like, now I have drunk too much, you know, I’m feeling giddy, I may fall. If I have to go home, I should not drive as I’ll get a DUI or if I don’t get that, I’ll cause an accident. So when a person is a little drunk, one is aware that I’m drunk, but if a person becomes very drunk, this is not even aware.
Somebody tries, you’re falling, I’ll help you. I don’t need your help, get lost. I’ll go along myself.
The person falls down on the ground and has crashed his head. I’ll help you. Who needs your help? I’m fine.
So if a person is very drunk, so intoxicated, they’re not even aware of one’s intoxication. So there is ignorance and there is ignorance of ignorance. So when a child is born first, it is not just ignorance, it is even ignorance of ignorance.
It’s just a state of complete helplessness. Now, who am I? Where am I? What am I? Nothing is known and that complete helplessness comes out as the cry of the child. And at that time, the mother is for all practical purposes, God for the child.
Now it is with this mood that in the Upanishads it says, It is not that the mother or father are replacements of God, but for the child who knows nothing in this world, the first steps are taught by the mother and father and the mother and father are meant to be the representatives of God. And similarly, as we grow in life, we all have different leaders. When the child goes to school, then the teacher becomes at one level a leader and in that leadership, so every leader is actually meant to guide others and the ultimate guide is God.
So we have a vertical relationship with God and we have a horizontal relationship with others. So a leader, the Bhagavata explains, can lead effectively when that leader has a strong vertical relationship by which that leader can represent God. And just as God is the well-wisher of everyone and God wants the best for everyone, the leader by learning to act as a representative of God can bring about the best out of others and can help them grow.
So when the Gita says that you should act out of love, what does that love mean? It doesn’t refer only to the horizontal relationships, but it refers first and foremost to the vertical relationship that when we learn to love God, then God’s compassion and God’s wisdom manifests through us to guide others, to help others and we become instruments of positive change in the world. That’s why at the end of the Bhagavad Gita, the Bhagavad Gita’s immediate context is Arjuna is confused whether I should fight or not. But as I said, when the Bhagavad Gita’s wisdom emerges, it rises far beyond its context and this is also reflected in its conclusion.
In the conclusion, Arjuna doesn’t say I will fight the war. He concludes in 18.73 after Krishna completes his speech in the 18th chapter 72nd verse, he asks Arjuna, have you heard Arjuna clearly? Have you understood? And then Krishna replies in 18.73 that he says that I will do your will. So for Arjuna by that time, his vision is expanded so much that he is not concerned just with the war.
His concern is learning to live in harmony with the whole. Krishna is the whole, he is the part. ममईवाम्शो जीवलोके जीवभूता सनातना Bhagavad Gita describes that we are all parts of the whole.
Right now, say I am speaking and I am using my hands to gesture in a particular way. So if I am speaking and suppose this hand starts acting independently, so I am speaking and I am trying to gesture to point something and this hand moves back and slaps me. If the hand starts acting independently, then there will be chaos.
The hand has to act cooperatively. Similarly, we are all parts of God and we are all meant to act cooperatively. And this cooperation is not something which takes away our independence.
Rather, it takes our independence to its summit. What does this mean? It takes our independence to its summit. As I said, Krishna tells Arjuna, I will do your will.
So he is not just saying, I will fight, because he has not just got a circumstantial decision. Should I fight or should I not fight? Krishna says fight. No, the Bhagavad Gita, if it had been just a simple action consultation, should I fight or not fight? Krishna says fight, I will fight.
Then the Bhagavad Gita would not have any enduring relevance. Its relevance is because it gives us universal principles for living and loving. And those universal principles are embodied in Krishna’s answer, when he says, I will do your will.
In the Bible, one of the most celebrated expressions of surrender to God is when Jesus knows that the next day, on the previous night, in the last supper, he knows that the next day there is going to be the conspiracy against him. Through Judah, and he is going to be sentenced. And he knows that a great disaster is going to come.
And that time he says, oh father, let the cup pass. Let the cup pass. Cup at that time refers to, at that time, often if a person was found guilty, and was supposed to be sentenced to death, the standard way a person would be killed would be by giving that person a cup of hemlock.
Hemlock was a poison. So Socrates was killed like that. He was asked to drink a cup of hemlock.
So crucifixion, where nails are pierced into the body, that is considered a much more worse form of capital punishment than hemlock. So when Jesus is saying, let the cup pass, that means he is saying God, that he is praying to God that if the impending calamity that is going to come, if it can be avoided, let it be avoided. But then he concludes by saying, let thy will be done, not mine.
Let thy will be done, not mine. And this is considered a very exalted level of surrender. Now, the Bhagavad Gita, in the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna also exhibits a similar mode of surrender.
But Arjuna takes it even more further, where Jesus in his surrender expresses a willingness to accept God’s will, which is whatever is your will, let thy will be done, not mine. Arjuna takes it forward and he says, not just let thy will be done. He says, I will do thy will.
I will become an instrument for you. I will do thy will. So the Bhagavad Gita offers us a dynamic vision of devotion, where devotion is not just a matter of some passive otherworldly meditation on God, but devotion becomes an active agency for dynamic contribution in this world.
So, when the Bhagavad Gita offers its message for leaders, its message is that we all have our logistics, we have our bottom lines, those things have to be dealt with. But they, they can’t be the foundation for our decision. So when the Bhagavad Gita talks about the universal principle of living and loving, this is based on the vision of everyone as one family, as it is in Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam.
We are all one family and whether in most traditional structures, if you look in the Bhagavad Gita, which is a part of the Mahabharata, that time and again it is described that the king, a benevolent king would treat citizens like one’s own children. So the king would be like a, would not have a merely a political, administrative relationship with the citizens. The king would have a paternal relationship.
And a metaphor of a paternal relationship with, between the king and the citizens used to convey that it is not just a matter of political rule, but it is a matter of affectionate reciprocation. So the Bhagavad Gita’s message for us, as I started by talking about personal leadership, personal leadership, which is what the Bhagavad Gita talks about, it centres on learning to love. So when, to the extent we learn to love God, to the extent we will be able to love those around us and lead them in a way that is beneficial to them and beneficial to us.
Because when our love is disconnected from God’s love, then at that time, we may truly wish good for others, but our wisdom is limited and our capacity to be available for others is limited. A mother who loves a child may want to be 24 hours there with the child, to protect the child, but no mother can be there like that. So our capacity to love, our wisdom to guide, it is limited.
The best expression of our love then is that we become agents for the Supreme’s love to manifest through us. So to the extent we become devoted to God, to that extent, our motive for leadership shifts from domination to contribution. Many times, leaders, they want to be leaders, once I am a leader, then everybody will obey me.
Everybody will run at my back and call. But when we have a vision of love and the leadership is taken over with the selfless, the position of leader is taken with the motive of selflessness. And with such a motive of selflessness, a person can actually benefit others.
And the Bhagavad Gita talks about leadership from this universal principle. It doesn’t go into specifics of politics, statecraft, or even inintegrities of how to manipulate people in terms of making them do the things you want to do. It goes into the depth of the issue, the heart of the issue.
The heart of the issue is what is our intention? And once that intention is harmonised with love, then that loving intention when expressed, it actually enables us to do good to others in a way that brings out the best in them. So I’ll summarise. I started by talking about how the leadership is not just a matter of position or designation.
It is a matter of disposition. A leader’s goal is to contribute and that doesn’t depend on whether the leader has a position or not. And such a leader is exemplified in Krishna.
Although he rose like a self-made man from obscurity to a position to do feats, which even the best warriors of his time couldn’t do. He overthrew despots, but he did not grab power. He rather stayed in the background, helping others to attain positions of power and facilitating their role.
So he is an example of a leader who put contribution above position. Arjuna also is a great leader, champion warrior, as well as a very virtuous leader in the royal family of his times. And the Bhagavad Gita is a conversation which takes place on a battlefield.
This demonstrates multiple things. First of all, it demonstrates Krishna’s expert leadership potential, leadership capacity that he can, by his presence and presentation, overcome the external disturbances that are there in the war and the internal disturbances in terms of the emotional agitation of the mind of Arjuna and raise Arjuna to a position of wisdom. Not just contextual, what should I do, but universal principle of how should I make decisions.
And the Bhagavad Gita setting on the battlefield also demonstrates not just the expertise of Krishna as a teacher, but also demonstrates the universality of the message of the Gita. That it is not some message for armchair speculators or for some philosophers who are frustrated with life, but it is for those who want to act in life on what basis they should act. And the universality of the Gita’s message is also seen in that although it is spoken on battlefield, it doesn’t mention the battlefield more than a dozen times after its context is over.
And Arjuna’s conclusion is also not I will fight a war, but I will do your will. And this way, this conclusion reflects the Gita’s universal message for living and loving that is live with the mood of loving harmony with God. So a leader is actually meant to be a representative of God.
And we all have a vertical relationship with God and horizontal relationship with others. And a leader who has a strong vertical relationship with God will become an instrument of God’s wisdom and compassion to do actual good to others and to bring out the best in them. And this is the vision of leadership in the Bhagavad Gita offers.
Thank you very much.