Gita for CEO 1 – Leadership by disposition vs by position – Chaitanya Charan

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna Thank you very much for coming to my association of devotees for many days and I hope you are aware that WT is going to it’s going to be the first part of the series on Vrindavan so we have written a book on that so this book will be also available again and I want to thank you for taking my time to be with all of you Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Thank you very much for coming today and for making this programme what it would be a presentation. I got an amazing time. So, I will be talking today about the topic of Gita and its relevance for leaders.
And this is a three-part series. I will give an overview today of what I want to do in three parts. And then we will talk about today’s part.
So, now, Gita for leaders, Gita for CEOs. Now, does it mean only for CEOs? I will discuss that. So, first today I will talk about the disposition of a leader.
I will talk about the disposition of a leader and the location of the volume. So, I will talk about the disposition of a leader. Then, I will be talking about the speech of a leader.
Leaders should not just do things themselves, but inspire others to do it. So, how can we use our speech in a way that is empowering? In the last session, we made our attitudes towards our work. Whatever we are doing, how can we see it more positively, more affirmatively.
And see it in a good picture that is inspiring. So, as you can see in this book, Gita for CEOs, this is published by HarperCollins. Nowadays, there is a lot of interest in the Western world and in the corporate world in general to get some wisdom from traditional principles of knowledge, which could be used for being in the corporate world.
For example, Akshara Prasad is becoming very popular in the book. In the book, there is a story about how to face life’s challenges and stay calm, stay composed, stay connected. From Japan, Gita is becoming very popular.
So, HarperCollins wanted me to present the Gita. So, I have taken this Gita and presented it as 10 principles which are important for leaders. In fact, I presented it in the form of a contemporary conversation.
So, each of these sessions will be centred on one key diagram. And I will be elaborating on the diagram and towards the end, we will have a few answers. So, broadly, whenever I present this book, Gita for CEOs, there are some people who have a question, what if I am not a CEO? Is the book meant for me or not? So, well, there are two different things over here.
There is the position of leadership and there is the disposition of leadership. And we may or may not have a position of leadership. We may or may not even seek a position of leadership.
But everyone needs the disposition of leadership. Because at one level, we are all leaders, if not formally then informally. So, what does the disposition of leadership mean? I talk about this at a deep level.
It is a sip of wisdom. A sip of wisdom is that we are all meant to be self-assured. Inside us itself, there are different voices.
Right now you are sitting, there is one voice saying, I don’t know whether I am doing the right thing by coming to this class. I don’t know why you are saying that. No, I would have preferred to take a chair.
Otherwise, I would have got lots of complaints. Otherwise, I would have got too many complaints. So, there are so many voices going on inside our head.
And we need to actually bring them together. So, the CEO is meant to execute, but execution requires a certain level of harmonisation. There are many parts inside which are pulling us in different directions.
And if we do not become a leader of ourselves, we cannot function as a team in life. So, at a basic level, each one of us has to be self-assured. When I do this, then we are all informal leaders.
We all influence people around us. All of you are sitting and hearing very attentive. Sometimes, I go very inspired to give a talk.
I think I am giving a TED talk. My audience thinks I am giving a TED talk. And then, everybody is affected by people around me.
Everybody is nodding. Why should I work? I don’t know. So, our actions, at an informal level, they have an influence on us.
Then, our culture spreads. If somebody grows up in a family where the only way to solve a dispute is by raising the voice. And whoever raises the voice loudest, that person wins.
Then, what happens? There is no such thing. Nobody will let the child be like that. It happens.
So, each one of us is informally influencing the actions of others. And that says we are leaders because we know it all. And B is potential.
We all have lots of potentials. Many potentials we do not know about. So, in that sense, we may have certain talents, certain interests, certain abilities by which we may be able to become leaders in the future.
It’s not necessarily corporate leaders. It’s not necessarily political leaders. So, in that sense, the book is for everyone.
Gita’s wisdom itself is for everyone. So, having said this, if you look at it. Right now, I am talking about Gita for the CEO.
How the book is for everyone. Is the Gita about leadership at all? Or is the Gita a philosophical book? And then, we are drawing some leadership lessons from it. Well, it’s not that simple.
Because what happens is, the Gita is a conversation between two people. Who are these people? Krishna and Arjuna. Now, if you consider both of these characters.
They are leaders in their own way. Now, Krishna is of course, according to the tradition, God descended to this world. But even within the story of the Mahabharata, he is certainly a powerful person.
He is one of the leaders of the Kali dynasty. Arjuna may not be the king. But Arjuna is the foremost warrior.
The best archer. And the most critical warrior on the side of the Pandavas. So, he is a leader in his own way.
So, basically, if you consider. Is the Gita itself a book of leadership? What is the relationship between Gita and leadership? So, it’s at three levels. First is, the conversants.
The people who are having the conversation. They are themselves leaders. Both of them are leaders in their own right.
The second is, what is the topic they are discussing? It is the topic of decision making. The topic is, what should I do? Now, decision making is something which we all have to do. But the decisions of the leaders have huge consequences.
We in America are witnessing that currently. Isn’t it that? The policy of the government has huge influence. Everybody’s decisions have influence.
But leaders’ decisions have huge impact. So, then, if you consider. The focus of the Gita.
Gita is not just like a friendly conversation about a casual issue. It is Arjuna is asking. I want to know what is the right thing.
Arjuna has to make a huge decision. Should I fight or should I not fight? There is war going on in Ukraine, Russia. There is war going on in Palestine.
There is Hamas in Israel. There is a war going on in India and Pakistan. There are huge consequences of war.
Anyway, the decision has to be made. We have to be very careful. Decision making is the responsibility of everyone.
Decision making is especially consequential when it comes to leaders. The topic about decision making is also about leaders. Especially important for leaders.
And then, beyond that. If we consider the mode of discussion in the Gita. It is very interesting over here.
See, Krishna is God. But not once does Krishna in the Gita do his Godhood to impose his will on us. If that’s what Krishna had wanted to do.
Krishna would have finished the whole Gita in six words. What are six words? I am a God. Obey me.
Fight. Bhagavad Gita. Support.
Krishna does not take himself. Actually, the Gita is telling that. Leaders can lead in different ways.
And sometimes leaders may just draw on the force of their authority and impose their will on us. Like my way. Sometimes that may be required.
But most effective leaders don’t work on it. The mode of conversation in the Gita is actually rational, ethical persuasion. That persuasion is Krishna communicates and persuades Arjuna.
How does he persuade? He is persuading Arjuna through rational analysis. Rational analysis may happen in a particular frame. That they were at a particular time, a particular culture, a particular set of perceptions.
But Arjuna is asking questions, Krishna is giving answers. It’s rational. And what do we mean by ethical? Ethical is what is the right thing to do.
So leaders are on the case of decisions where there is no vacancy. That one decision has some positives and another decision has some positives. Then ethics have to be paid over.
So it is a very relatable scenario for a person who is working today in the world. Arjuna has to explain. What is the situation for Arjuna? When a person is a leader, a leader often wears multiple caps.
A leader plays multiple roles. And they are playing multiple roles. Which role should be more prominent to them? That’s the question that comes up.
So for example, if we consider one individual, Arjuna. Now Arjuna, each one of us, we belong to many larger units. So what does it mean we belong to many larger units? Let’s say all of you.
Now you may be Indians or you may be American, you may be Chinese. You belong to a particular country. You belong to a particular gender.
You belong to a particular profession. You belong to a particular intellect. And it’s you all, it’s we all.
So we all belong to various particular units. And sometimes a larger unit follows in different directions. So what does that mean if somebody is a professional? And you are also a leader.
And there is an urgent emergency meeting. And also at the same time, maybe there is some crisis with the child. Who calls the mother? What will you do? What will you do in that time? There are two little homes and two larger homes that comes up.
So we will be pulled in different directions. So the leader may say that you have to take care of the company. I can take care of the employees.
Which is not important. You take care of the employees. They don’t fire anyone.
When the economy is going down, you don’t fire anyone. The company itself will die. Companies will be destroyed.
You take care of the company. You have to fire me. I don’t want to do that.
So Arjuna is also pleased with the leadership. He belongs to two units. On one side, he is a warrior.
He is a Kshatriya. And Kshatriya dharma requires him to fight. But he is also a dynastic leader.
He is a member of a dynasty. And he is a dynastic prince. But he has a duty to protect his dynasty.
So which role does he play? If he thinks that I am a warrior, those people are criminals. I will fight them. I will punish them.
No matter who they are. These are all people of my dynasty. How can I fight against them? So he is a warrior.
He is focused on his warrior duty. He is going to fight. He is focused on his dynastic duty.
He feels that he should not fight. So Arjuna is facing a deep ethical crisis. Many times, leaders face situations where there are two choices and there is no clearly right choice.
So each choice has its own benefits. In such a situation, the Gita itself is very eminently relevant. Because its topic, the people who are discussing are leaders.
The topic they are discussing is a leadership topic. And the mode of discussion is a rational, ethical deliberation and persuasion. It is not dominantly instructional.
Now having said this, today I will speak based on 3.21 in the Bhagavad Gita. 3.21 is the verse which calls upon us for leadership. Let us look at this verse.
I have just dropped from another book which I have written recently. This is Prayers Inspired in the Bhagavad Gita. In this book, I have taken each verse of the Gita.
The Gita I have presented is English poetry. And then there is a reflection, a prayer based on that verse. So you can recite this verse.
Yad Yad Acharati Shreem Krishnas Yad Yad Acharati Shreem Krishnas What we accept is right into the world, nature and personal. This is. Now Krishna is in Arjuna.
He which I have taken away is. Bless me O Lord to lead with dignity and dedication during duress. Duress is when we are under lot of pressure.
So how can we lead at that time? So now. We would like to read this paragraph. We have a second mic by any chance.
My dear. My dear Lord. It is so easy to devalue the influence that I have over others through my actions.
Whether I know it or not, at some level, I am a leader to some people. Talk about this. Now when Krishna is sitting here with Arjuna.
What he is implying is that each one of us is already a leader. So. Going back to the earlier diagram.
Many of the themes in the Gita. They are philosophical themes. But they can be understood through the story of the Mahabharata.
I talk about the position of leadership. I talk about the disposition of leadership. Now the position is something which is externally bestowed upon.
So externally bestowed could mean that somebody appoints. You are the leader of this project. You are the CEO of this company.
You are the head of stake of this company. Or you are the monitor of this project. We are externally bestowed on this.
The disposition is something which is internally guided. Now another way to understand this is. The disposition of a leader is that how much others value you.
When we have a position, people value you. People value us. The position of leadership is how much others value you.
Now to some extent it is important how much others value us. Because say if we are going to cook for a big event. Now if we have a plan of what is to be cooked and how it is to be cooked.
Now others need to cooperate. So to some extent to do anything complicated, if somebody has a position of a leader, then others need to value him. And sometimes if somebody officially appoints him, then others will like to do the same.
So the position of leadership is how much others value us. The disposition of a leader is how much value I bring to others. The disposition is how much value I bring for others.
I bring for others. So for example, I may say that I’m going to lead the cooking. Okay, that’s fine.
But do I really know the recipes? Do I know how to mix them in the proper quantity for this much audiences? And through my taking the leadership role, am I training others? Am I helping others? Am I helping others to develop skills, to become more experienced? The disposition of a leader is that whatever situation I am in, I want to bring value. I want to help others. So another thing to understand is a leader is concerned when somebody has only the position of a leader, their concern is what can other people do for me.
But the disposition of a leader is what can I do for others. Now sometimes what I can do for other people is maybe instruct them to do certain things. But why can’t I do that? So there is the position and the disposition of a leader.
One friend showed me a cartoon, you know, often we say that when you meet somebody, what can I do for you? But egoistic person is, after they see someone, what can you do for me? Openly ask it. Wow, what can you do for me? Pat, get out of here. Nobody in that breezes, generally speaking.
But the idea is that most people in life crave for the position of a leader. And yes, we can do a lot of good if we have a position of a leader, but what is much more important is to have the disposition of a leader. When we have a vote, that is when we are true.
So in this session I will be talking about the disposition of a leader. And in the next two sessions, I will be talking about how to develop the disposition of a leader. In the next two sessions, I will be talking more about how to develop the position of a leader.
Although these two are not completely separate, and both are developed together. But to get an understanding of the difference, let’s look at some characters. So I’ll draw from the Mahabharata.
Some characters who had to fall in these four quadrants. So if we start from the right bottom, so we have four quadrants over here. Now, somebody who had the position of a leader but did not have the exclusion of a leader.
Then an example of this is Duryodhana. Duryodhana was born in royalty. And in that sense, he had the position of a leader.
But he did not really think about adding value to others. His consideration was only, how much? How much do I get the leader? How many people will respect me for that? So he was concerned about the position just for the sake of his own aggrandisement of it. So now, if you look at the story of Duryodhana, we’ll come back to this point about the quadrants later.
But it’s good to understand that see, everyone in life, sooner or later, will feel some kind of value. So we may be taking care of our home, and we’ll feel that others, whether it’s our family, takes care of that. And we’ll be working to take care of our home.
We feel that I’m doing so much work in my job. My family doesn’t value that. We work in our job, and we feel utterly no value.
Everybody feels that, hey, I can have more position. I can have more power. I can have more position.
What am I going to do? And there may be truth to that. At the same time, if somebody has a position without a disposition, then they can cause a lot of harm. And our goal is, whichever quadrant we are in, from that quadrant, we would like to come to quadrant four.
That way, there’s the position and the disposition of leadership, both are there. But among these quadrants, now, which do you think is the worst? First, second, third. You have the disposition of leader, but you don’t have the position of leaders.
Is that the worst? First, second, third. First. OK, first, you have the position.
OK, let’s look at it. I’m going to write it down. If you have the position and not the disposition, what is likely to happen is, we can do damage to each other.
Like here in America, there is a rule that anybody can have damage. And there are many historical reasons for that. But if somebody has a gun, they get some power back.
If they don’t have the maturity to use the gun properly, can they be religious? Or tragic school shootings happen? Now, exactly what is the solution for that? When they take away the gun, some people say, no, I have better checks. So I have better checks so that those who have guns have the right disposition. They don’t need to be disturbed or whatever.
But the point is, there’s position without disposition. Now, on the other hand, there is disposition without position. It can be very frustrating.
If somebody has the wisdom, somebody has the maturity, somebody has the skills, but nobody listens to them. That’s a problem. Now, if somebody has neither the position nor the disposition, then what happens is they are basically harmless.
They may want to do harm, but they can’t do much harm because they don’t have a gun. So they may be distressed, but they can’t do much harm to it. So here they can do a lot of harm.
Now, this, as you say, is the most fulfilling. This is the most empowering. Now, the difference over here is this is frustrating at the individual level.
To have a disposition for leadership, but no position. But to have position or disposition, it is damaging not just for the individual, but also the social level as far as the leadership role goes. So what happens is that when we are going through life, every one of us will sooner or later feel that I’m being underwhelmed.
I’m not being recognised. My abilities, my hard work, my dedication, these are not being recognised. And that’s understandable.
And when that happens, what do we do? Which path do we take? So when we feel that we are underwhelmed, he also feels that he was underwhelmed. Now, if you look at his life, he was born. In English, there is a word, heir.
Do you know this word, heir? What does it mean? Success. Success, yes. So if there is some big thing or there is some big passion, they want to have somebody who will inherit everything.
Now, whenever there is a king, they may be anxious to have a heir. But after they have a heir, they may worry, what if something happens to my heir? So then, after they have a heir, they want to have a spare. Now, the spare is in a very peculiar position.
Because if somebody, the second child, the principal of primogeniture, the end of the child, the end of the main child will become the successor. So now, no sibling would want, generally no sibling would want their youngest sibling to die. Unless somebody like Aurangzeb or King Dara.
To the extremes. But generally, what happens, that person who is spared is in a very uncertain situation. Because there is no chance for them to become the king as long as the heir is not there.
So what happened, when Duryodhan was born, he thought that he was the heir. He thought, right? Because the Pandavas were in the forest. Pandu had retired.
Whether they would come back or not, nobody was sure. So Duryodhan grew up with a bit of an entitlement. And then Pandu passed away.
And the Pandavas came back. And when they came back, at that time, as compared to Duryodhan, the Pandavas had left the forest. So they did not have anybody to instruct and anybody to carry out their orders.
They could do things themselves. So they didn’t have that entitlement. Far from that, they had grown up in the forest with sages.
Their parents had taught them to respect the sages. So the Pandavas were well-behaved. They were courteous.
Along with that, they were new. In any family, a new child comes and attention goes to that child. They are courteous.
And then on top of that, what happened to Duryodhan was what incensed him the most was that Bhima was stronger than him. That Yudhishthir was wiser than him. They didn’t really care much about him.
His will was strength. This guy is better than me in my will. So what happened, Duryodhan was the heir and suddenly he felt he had become the spear.
So when this happened, it’s natural that he will feel insecure. Now from insecurity, one can go towards envy. Insecurity is basically envy is insecurity is more self-focused on the self.
Envy is more directed towards something else. Even his envy of Bhima or his envy of Yudhishthir is to some extent understandable. We all may feel such emotions.
However, from envy, he went down straight to envy. So envy is where he decided I’m going to poison Bhima. At this time, he was just a teenager.
And he was moving with his skin. His skin. He said he was a TV series adolescence.
He described about how kids can just become indoctrinated in the hate chambers that are there on the internet. You can call it mistakes. Now in this case, there was nobody indoctrinating Duryodhan.
There was nobody contaminating or poisoning him. The poison was there in him only. Some people say actually Duryodhan was a good person.
Shakuni made him bad. But Shakuni was not much involved in the poisoning of Bhima. Shakuni was very much involved in the plot to poison the Pandavas.
So it was not that Duryodhan was good and Shakuni made him bad. Duryodhan was bad and Shakuni made him good. The thing is that he had power.
And because he had power, he threatened the royal physician and got deadly poison. And got poison in such a way that the poisons were kept by kings. And they would use it for their purposes of espionage and other things.
But because he had the position, he put that in the food of Bhima. So to have power, everybody feels different emotions at different times. But the thing is, if you don’t have the position, don’t have the disposition, then a person can do a lot of bad things.
So our character is often seen. One of the key things about our character is it is seen by our wantons. Like we all want to achieve things in our life.
But to achieve what we want, how far are we ready to go? To say India and Australia have a cricket match. And both teams want to win the match. But if say before the cricket match Australia decides, we will put some poison in the food of the game players.
That’s not acceptable. So we all may want to win but wantons are non-emotional. Everybody gets angry.
But some people when they get angry, what happens? They just get into silent mode. Some people just start grunting and become uncomplicated and sullen. Some people lose their voice.
So anger is an emotion everyone likes to have. Some people stay silent. Some people become sullen.
Some people yell. Some people use foul words when they yell. Some people may raise their fists.
Some people may take out a knife. Some people may take out a gun. Now if somebody is the President of America or the President of Russia, they can take out a nuclear weapon.
And they can nuclear attack. So the point is, what are our wantons? That is very important. So if somebody has a position but they don’t have a disposition, they think, my position is meant to add value to people’s lives.
My position is not just to get back at people who don’t respect my position. That is a clear abuse of power. So when that starts happening, there is a pandemic.
So Duryodhana is a classic and tragic example of somebody who had the position of leader but he didn’t bother to develop his position. In fact, he kept getting worse and worse as time passed. And once he did work, he went to a nursing home.
And he could go to all those schemes because he had the power. So he probably would not have been able to do so many terrible things if he did not have that power. Now we move here to have the disposition of a leader but not the position of a leader.
The example of this is Vidura. Vidura was born in a royal family. Although he was born in a royal family because of certain circumstances of his birth, he was not entitled to be the prince of the family.
He was a stepson and not the direct son of the family. So then basically what happened? He was wise. But the problem with being wise or being in an advising position is that others can reject your advice.
And then it becomes very frustrating. So he was giving good advice to Dhritarashtra and the problem was not that Dhritarashtra would not listen to him. Dhritarashtra would listen to him and then not listen to him.
Dhritarashtra liked to hear good advice and that’s all he liked. He didn’t like to do anything about good advice. So now to have the disposition and to not have the disposition, that becomes very frustrating.
But at the least this person at this level will not do much harm. They will do some good depending on how much others are willing to listen to them. They have small influence right now, maybe their influence will increase with time.
So for all of us, we have a certain disposition that is much more possible for us to fight. Now sometimes what happens, if we have a disposition but we don’t have the position, then we may go down from here to here. Why have the position of Dhritarashtra? Why care at all for Dhritarashtra? And unfortunately this was the trajectory that one brother of Duryodhana, Vikarna took.
Now Vikarna was the you could say the least vicious among the Kaurava brothers. And during the dishonouring of Draupadi, Vikarna opposed Draupadi. He opposed the whole thing but he was silenced by Karna.
And then his words were not accepted. And then he tried to stand up for principle but when he couldn’t, he decided that I’m going to show my lot to Dhritarashtra. And eventually he chose to fight on the side of Pandavas.
So what happened was, he was not the endless brother, he did not have authority over them. So he was not somebody who would listen. But then he could have chosen to go on the side of Pandavas.
He could have chosen to not fight at all. But he gave up that discussion. That, okay, I don’t care.
Sometimes when we have, we want to do something good but nobody listens to us. We have to fight and try to do it. And then we may end up, now did Vikarna cause a lot of harm? He was not a very big warrior.
He didn’t cause much harm to the Kaurava forces. He did not cause much harm to the Kaurava forces. But eventually, he was a vulture.
So we don’t want to go in his direction. Now significantly if you consider, here, the Pandavas were also initially in this war. And they also had to fight a war to eventually get the government where they had a position.
And the distribution of the position could be done. So initially when the Pandavas, they came back to the kingdom, they still had the mood of a vulture. When Bheema came to know that the vulture was going to try to poison him, Bheema’s survival came to an end.
Because he was not listening. How did he feed that person pulp? Yudhishthira was never a peacemaker. He said, right now, we can just keep your word as we say.
We don’t have a leader. And we have you here. We don’t know who will survive.
So we don’t want to split our family right now. So let him be. Let him be watchful.
And we try to communicate when we are not affected. This is very difficult for Bheema to accept. If you look at the story in Mahabharata, you notice that it’s difficult to find a pair of brothers who are as different as Yudhishthira and Bheema.
In one sense, both of them are Kshatriyas, both of them are warriors. But Bheema, Yudhishthira is almost like a Brahmin. Brahmin Kshatriya means that he is very thoughtful, he is very philosophical.
He almost bends backward to try to avoid. Now Bheema was what you call a Kshatriya Kshatriya. He was Kshatriya’s Kshatriya.
So he was itching for a fight, looking for an opportunity to fight. And for both of them to work together was very difficult. The key person was Arjuna.
There are many incidents where Arjuna has to balance Yudhishthira and Bheema together. And he has to get them both to work together. So we’ll talk about Arjuna in a few seconds also.
But the point is, in one sense, Arjuna did not have the position at all. He was younger than both his brothers. Especially this happened when Draupadi was being dishonoured.
At that time, Bheema just lost his mind. And he said to Arjuna, Arjuna, bring fire. Because I’m going to burn the hands of this foolish Yudhishthira.
It is because of his lust for capital. That the Panchali princess is in this terrible situation. I’ll burn his hands.
Bring fire. Now Arjuna, what did I do to deserve this? Arjuna said, you do whatever you want. If you want fire, you go and get fire.
What did Arjuna do? He knew that Bheema was already in the mood of his lecture. As soon as he entered, he went and burned his hands. Arjuna, I’m the expert in this area.
Oh Bheema. Just see how your words are increasing the joy of Duryodhana. When Duryodhana wanted to humiliate the Pandavas, he wanted to humiliate Draupadi.
When he wanted to disrobe Draupadi, sometimes when a man pours himself on a woman, it’s often thought it’s a crime of lust. But it’s not just lust. Quite often it’s evil power.
Because somebody who is simply controlled by lust, they would just go to a prostitute. Right? Most of the time. It’s often much more ego and power than lust.
But either way, when he wanted to humiliate Draupadi, it was not just lust and power. His goal was to break the Pandavas. If the Pandavas turn on each other, then I can destroy them.
And now, when Bheema looked at Duryodhana and saw how he was smirking, Bheema was angry and he remained angry. But he was earlier angry and he was yelling. And now he became angry and he became angry with the Pandavas.
So, Arjuna is very expert in managing the situation. So, the point is that sometimes whatever role we are playing, if we have a disposition, we may not have a position. We can still work on using this disposition to make a decision.
Arjuna was gambling. At one particular point, Arjuna just stabbed Yudhishthira in the shoulder. Yudhishthira looked at Arjuna and neglected his punishment.
There are some things he did not have the power to do. So, that may be true. But if we have the disposition, we all can make decisions.
I’ll make three last points to take one hour each for each point. I’ll talk about the disposition, how we develop it. And we’ll talk about it more in the next session.
But the key point is that when we talk about position, position is external. And external things are not necessarily in our control. Or at least not much in our control.
Internal things are in our control. Say for example, if you come to the top. Some of you may want to sit on the chair.
There are few of you in chairs. Not a problem. But maybe there are not enough chairs.
And you would have been more comfortable sitting on the chair as compared to sitting on the floor. If it’s not there, you can become irritated. You can become sullen.
You can fight with the man and not put him in a chair. But that’s not in your control. But okay, I sit on the chair.
This talk is not going to go very long. I can sit. I can stretch a little bit.
I can lean on the wall. And I can focus. So the internal, the disposition is much more easier for us.
The position we can acquire. And we should try to acquire. But the position may take time.
And during that time, it is possible that we may just give up. I don’t need position. So I’m comfortable sitting on the floor.
So let me not take it. Now I can come and give a talk over. I can’t control how many people come and talk over.
But I can try to prepare myself as much as I can. So there is something which we can do and something which we can’t do. So the disposition means we focus on how we can bring value, not how much value is being given to us.
And this is where that 2.47, I talk about this, but it is actually what happens. There is action and there is insight. There is action.
And as you can see, this action, and then the result is a palak. So we may all see the palak. So for all of us, now it is possible that if we get the result, we can do the action also.
We get the action. Say, if we sing, we like to sing. We sing and the people go to the nightly.
We may be invited to sing more. We get more action. And this could go in a cycle.
The action gives the result, and the answer could be a better action, and the answer could be a better result. That’s possible. And that is good if it happens.
But if it doesn’t happen that way, now among the action and the result, which of these is in our control? Action. The action is in our control. In many ways, doing the action is the disposition of a leader.
Now getting the result often determines the position. If you have a position, you are able to do it. So now if we are here, now what happens is this is in our control.
This is what we desire. But this is what we can determine. So it is not that we don’t care about the result.
This will shape our action, will shape the result. So when the Gita says in 2.47, that verse is describing the disposition of a leader. That we focus on what is in our power to do, and do it well.
This is the role that I am playing right now. This is the power I have for playing this role. I will do my best.
That is, I will bring value into the situation. When I bring value into the situation, how much will my whatever value I am bringing be valued by others? That I can’t tell you. But when we do our action, that is, then we can determine this is where we bring value.
We bring value into every situation, and that is always possible. And here is, we are valued. Our action is valued and we are valued.
Now how much we will be valued, we don’t know. When Srila Prabhupada came to America, he brought value, he brought spiritual wisdom also. But for several months and for almost a year initially, he was not valued.
When he came to Pennsylvania, he was just treated like a curiosity officer. Even that time there was a smartphone, people were spamming, one said, please, that would be interesting. But Prabhupada searched a lot.
Eventually he found a place where he was valued. It was an unlikely place, in a counterculture. But that came to be a force.
But Prabhupada never lost hope. Although he did not have the position of a leader, if you read his writings, in the 1940s, 1950s, he didn’t even know whether anyone was going to read his writings. But still, you see, he is so diligent in putting his past together.
He is just as committed to sharing the spiritual mastery, that he has no leadership at all, as he has done when he had leadership for hundreds of years. So the description of a leader is, focus on what I can do right. Let me do it well, and the results, they come out, they don’t come out, I will continue to do my part.
Now how to get that motivation to continue to do the part, then we don’t get the results. I found that tomorrow, in terms of speech, we want our speech to be effective. But if it’s not effective, why is it not effective? What can we do about it? What can we not do about it? That we’ll discuss in the next session.
I’ll summarise, what I discussed today about. There’s four main points. The first point was about, the Gita Kaur CEO.
So, how each one of us, is a leader. I talked about, we’re all self-leaders, we’re all informal leaders, and we all have, the potential for leadership. And then, I also talked about the, when we’re talking about the Gita itself, how do we know that the Gita itself is a book of leadership? We talked about how, the characters, one person themselves, are leaders.
The topic, the theme of the topic, is of decision-making, which is also for leaders. And the mood, the mood is not dominated, it is ethical, rational, ethical. The Gita, is very much naturally a book for leadership.
And then, I talked about, what does leadership mean? In leadership, there is the position of leadership, and there is the disposition of leadership. So, position means, what is externally, how much value I am given. It’s how much external value is given to us.
Disposition is, internally, how much value is brought by us, into a particular situation. So, the best is where both come apart. So, but if both are not there, then at least we start with one, and move forward from there.
So, we discussed about Duryodhana had position, but no disposition, and he was quite damaging. Now, if somebody has neither, then they are, they are relatively harmless. Their existence doesn’t really matter.
Somebody has no, has position, but no disposition, then they can either get frustrated, or they can be patient. If they get frustrated, then they will go downwards. This is what happened to Vikarna.
That if they are persistent, then, they can gain power. We discussed Vidura for most of his life was here. The Pandavas, they moved from here to here with time.
So, we all can seek, to bring value into whatever situation we are in. Now, how do we bring the disposition of a leader? I talked about that is, in every situation that I am in, let me focus on, what I can do, rather than what I get. Of course, I want the results, but my actions are in my control.
The actions will shape the results, but I cannot control the results. If I am here, I desire the results, but I determine the action. I focus on the action, and gradually, the results will come.
So, focussing on our action, more than the result, that is one key aspect of the disposition of a leader. In this way, whatever situation we are in, we can acquire the disposition of a leader, and be on the progressive path, towards making a bigger and bigger difference in our lives. Thank you very much.
Hey! Are there any questions or comments? I want to ask that, where do you put, or where can we put Karna on the screen, on the spot? Yeah, so Karna, I would say that, he was uncouth. He had archery identity. So, you could say that, initially there is no description that he was vicious.
He seemed quite virtuous. It is to some extent, when he got associated with Duryodhana, that’s when he started losing his virtue. He started compromising on his values in order to feed him.
So, it’s curious, Duryodhana gave him position. So, my understanding of Karna would be, Karna was here, initially he had this position, but he did not have the position of a leader. But unfortunately, by the association of Duryodhana, he went away.
So, that he eventually got the position, a warrior is not just a fighter. Warrior is a fighter. And, when he suggested, that it’s a Romeo and Juliet, what he did was, he always wanted to belong to the warrior class, and when he belonged to it, he did an action, completely antithetical, opposite the values of the warrior.
That’s all I wanted to say. Thank you. Hare Krishna.
Thank you, Krishna. Thank you for this amazing and enlightening class. So, it appears that, the message is, this is calling for becoming more selfless, developing an inner selfless disposition of service, rather than, that sense of entitlement.
And, meaning, that has been a sense of developing the disposition of service. Now, I find that the word selfless, it seems to best for the sake of most people. So, my understanding is, that, if we just focus on what we can do, there is a satisfaction in doing our part.
So, we could say, by limiting the disposition of leadership, gives us internal satisfaction. Gaining the position, will also give us the experience. So, it’s not exactly selfless, in the sense that we are doing nothing at all.
It is not that, Krishna has made the world in such a way that, we are meant to never be happy. It is not that, Krishna’s happiness requires our unhappiness. It’s not like that.
So, that’s why I prefer not to use the word selfless. It seems too self-depriving. So, what I mean is that, we focus on making our contribution.
Now, another way to understand this 2.47 verse is, not a lot of people, you see, the people who, everybody wants to make money. Making money is important. But as people start becoming more thoughtful, that’s what is called post-material culture.
People say, I don’t just want to make a difference, I want to make money, I want to be making money. I want to do something, which has some value. I want to make a difference.
But the problem is, sometimes I, focus on some cause, actually I want to make a difference, but then I find I don’t make any difference. The words seem to say the same. So, that is where it comes to, making a contribution.
Now, making a contribution means, this is the ability that I have, this is the resource that I have. I will make a contribution. Now, whether my contribution will make a difference or not, that is not in my control.
We may share spiritual wisdom with someone. We are making a contribution. Whether that person will take that wisdom or not, we don’t do that.
So, we may not always be able to make a difference. So, I would say, that we are always thinking something. We are trying to make money, that’s a structural process.
To say, making a difference, is a certain mode, a particular way, where it’s not just my personal strategic issue. It’s more of a social change that I’m doing. But making a contribution is, that at least I am doing something of that.
In the third session, I talk about Swadharma, and how that’s a very important and undervalued teaching of Islam. When we are doing what we are meant to do, what is Swadharma, we gain intrinsic satisfaction. There’s a famous Nobel laureate author, he said that, I love being read, but my greatest joy is in having read.
I love being read. Being read means, any author who writes, you want that people read his books. But, my greatest joy is in having read.
If somebody has that calling, that particular nature, then just writing itself will be a joy. Obviously, everybody will want, greater joy. Some of us may have kids, and some kids, you just give them some slate, and they will just take a pen and start drawing things.
They’ll draw, and delete, and draw, and delete, and draw. It’s happening all the time. So what is happening is, they have that innate talent, and they have that innate interest, and they’re getting that satisfaction.
So, we all, when we want to make a difference, we cannot always succeed. But we can always make a contribution. Yes.
When you talk about the four quadrants, my understanding, or at least, the way I perceive it, like you perform, or discharge, your devotional service in a regulative way, will take you from quadrant one, two, and three, to four. I mean, from any of those quadrants, you can go to four. If you perform your devotional service in a regulative way, you’ll get that at no other time.
If you talk about what doesn’t work as worship, it is, yes, but devotional service also has to be holistic. It was not that Prabhupada stayed in one town, chanting Hare Krishna, and a woman spread all over. Prabhupada had to make a material change.
So devotional service is not just about that. Devotional service is also about forcing. So, moving to the fourth quadrant, that’s why we use the word just devotional service, in the question of what do you just mean by it.
So it has to be a holistic understanding. Bhakti involves an ordinary change, but bhakti also involves an outward change. So if we do both together, yes, then we have the best chance of moving forward.
But that does not mean everyone will move. It is that sometimes somebody may do a lot of service, but they may not be in Krishna’s house. That is also possible, because Krishna has a plan, and we all have a part in that.
But we have the maximum chance. Thank you so much for such an incredible lecture. I think it was very complex things, but in very easy ways to understand great application.
My question is regarding leadership styles. There’s a traditional Greek leadership style and a servant leadership style. As devotees, you’re promoted to have more humility and be more humble.
However, how do you have the balance between being more of a leader, yet having these qualities? What would you say are like the key components of having a good balance between being a traditional leader and a servant leader? So as a traditional leader, it depends on what tradition you’re talking about. But it is essential for acquiring a position. That’s the negative tone.
Now, sometimes when we say a servant leader is a good person, the humility has to be very careful. Humility is never about abandoning ourselves. It’s that if I’m tasked with being a leader, and I’m giving a talk, and somebody starts talking about me, I say, I will be humble.
Well, okay, I need to be humble. My humility will be that I should not scream at them. I should not yell at them.
I should not shout at them. But humility is okay. I’ll be humble.
I’ll let the person do whatever they want. Humility is about valuing something bigger than ourselves. So when we have to think that how exactly can my cause, my purpose, my service be served? So sometimes I may need to be forced.
I may need to take that for granted. So is it that I’m neglecting my ego? Not necessarily. It could be.
It can also be that there are other people who are at a better place now, and sharing the wisdom is what I value. So letting people walk over us is not humility. If we have that definition of humility, you cannot be a good leader.
So servant leader means another way to understand it is that we put our purpose above our ego. Like somebody may disrespect me, but if they’re making a valid point, like I’m a team leader, I have a particular plan. So my purpose, if I’m a team leader and I have a particular plan, this is how we should do this person.
And somebody says, no, sir, this is how we should do it. And now maybe that person’s idea is better than mine. And just because that person is my supporter and I reject that idea, that would be ego.
But if we have a better idea, let’s do it. So to put our purpose above our ego is humility. But to put our purpose aside only in the name of that is not humility.
Thank you. That’s a great response. Thank you so much for the well-heard answer.
I think that you did understand. I understand the concept of seeing leadership as how can you bring value to others, how can we create a positive change in society and consciousness and everything. But sometimes I feel like we want to ask the question of what value can others provide for us, not in a negative way, but because we want to surround ourselves with people who inspire us and we want to learn from them.
And we want to learn so we can better our own disposition. Is that the right mood? And if it’s not, then what is that right mood and what is the balance between still wanting to provide our value to other people, but at the same time, wanting to make sure that we are continuing to better ourselves. Yes.
One more question. One more question is, I like to be told how to answer. There are two different points.
The first is that in terms of a general disposition to work. And the second is specifically in terms of interacting with people for engaging them or for engaging with them. So in general, in general disposition, we should not be simply thinking, what can this person do for me, what can this person do for me? Our attitude should be, I want to serve and contribute.
That’s the general disposition. At the same time, we are finite beings. And we have limited time, we have limited resources, we have limited bandwidth for how many people we can connect with also.
So within that, we need to see whether in any relationship I can bring value to that person. Is that person accepting that? Or in trying to bring value to that other person, is it that I’m getting dragged down? So if somebody is drowning and I want to help them, I go there, but if they are far heavier than me, I try to hold them and they hold me. And then they all go down.
That’s not helpful. So in that sense, I would say that service attitude needs to be balanced with an acknowledgement of our humility and our humanity. That I’m a finite being.
That’s why among the people that we have, in general, there will be people who value us. And there will be people who devalue us. So what do I mean by devalue? Devalue means that we make a suggestion, even before the suggestion is completely rejected.
We just criticise them. Even if we do a hundred things for them, the only thing they remember is the first thing we did not do. So we all have people like that now.
So we need to balance. So now, if Shri Shiva Prabhupada was in India, and when people, he is not interested in listening to him for many reasons, but basically people are not interested in listening to him and following him. Now, he could have said, spiritual master, for example, I could have said that, if nobody comes to your talk, speak to the words.
Now, Shri Prabhupada could have thought that, maybe that is Krishna’s doing for me, that I should speak to the words for the rest of the time. No, Shri Prabhupada did not do that. Shri Prabhupada sought to go to a place where he was valued.
So, the idea is, even when we want to bring value to someone, we have to see whether they are accepting what we value. And if they don’t, then we have to go somewhere else to bring value. So the healthy situation is, we value those who value us.
And we don’t overvalue those who devalue us. There will always be people who criticise us and sometimes we can learn from them. But if we let their critical comments define us, then we will become paralysed.
And the worst thing we could do is, that we overvalue those who devalue us. When we do that, that’s like a recipe for constant insecurity and discouragement. And conversely, we devalue others.
We devalue those who value us. Oh, you always praise me, always encourage me. I see something good in you, that’s why I talk like that.
On the other hand, what happens is, we overvalue those who devalue us. Now, why does this person think like this? Why does this person think like this? One aspect of detachment is, we need to detach. Detachment means respecting people’s right to be wrong.
To be wrong, even in their opinion about us. My question was, you may be coming to this point in your class on Swadhisthana, and you mentioned in the beginning of the class that, everyone is a leader in an informal way, in their own capacity. So the co-quadrants, I’m just trying to get like, there’s Varna and there’s Ashramas.
Are they like co-quadrants for Varna and co-quadrants for Ashrama? I think this is something universal. In every Varna, every Ashrama, there will be these co-quadrants. We’ll talk about that a little bit more later.
But in every role that we play, we have to have that position and that disposition. We can’t have a position, at least we have to have a disposition. In both Varna and Ashrama.
Whatever role we are in, we are in like this. One more question about that. Like you gave the example of Vidurga, even though he had the disposition, never moved to that side of position.
Not that he never moved. I think after Vidurga was killed, and the Rishis started to speak to him. That’s how he was able to succeed.
He also moved, but it took much longer. For most of his life, he was in that position. Okay.
You mentioned purpose work. It’s the magical word. So some of us, particularly me, we’ve led our life without much of a purpose, and we’ve just followed the stream as it goes along.
And is there something, is there a true purpose for a person’s life? Or is there a true calling? Or is it… How do we understand what our true purpose is? To understand your true purpose, I’m taking this as a last question. Broadly, I would say that there is a universal purpose in life, and there is an individual purpose in life. So, now if we consider the metaphor of a mountain, and there’s an ocean.
Now, a river moves from the mountain towards the ocean. So like that, the ocean is God, and our consciousness is only meant to move towards God. The universal purpose of life is to attain love of God, and to be lovingly united to God.
At the same time, each river has to find its path towards the ocean. And each river, when it is moving towards the ocean, can do a lot of good to all the life forms that are there on the banks of the ocean. So now, the universal purpose of attaining God and loving God, that is common purpose.
But the individual purpose is something we all have. So is it preordained? I don’t think it’s preordained. We have certain abilities.
We need to use those abilities properly. But the river has to find its way towards the ocean. And each one of us, in an essence, life has an element of discovery to it.
That how do I pursue… Now, is there a calling? That’s what I call sadharma. But the point is that is there one sadharma for each one of us, and if we don’t do that, then we’re never going to be successful in life. It’s not really a programmed instinct.
Krishna has given us freedom, and he wants us to use that freedom properly. It is when, in the spiritual world, the gopis cook for Krishna. Radhani cooks for Krishna.
It’s not that everyday Krishna gives us a list of menu. No, the gopis know what they can cook. The gopis know what Krishna can cook.
So Krishna does that for everyone. So Krishna wants us to express our nature. That applies not just in spiritual world, also in this world.
But the key thing is, in expressing our nature, we shouldn’t think, I’ll go away from the ocean. We should be going towards the ocean. We find our way towards the ocean.
We’ll talk about this more in the third session. We have Venkat Bhattapur here. He’s the director of Hindu Affairs at Princeton.
It’s a pleasure to see you over here. Do you want to add any comments to him? I enjoyed this so much. I wish I could spend all of these sessions.
For your practical wisdom, but also for how thoughtful your presentation is. I’m so struck by your reframing of selfless Buddhism, contributing to others, rather than devaluing myself. It’s wonderful.
Thank you very much. He’s also now in this morning podcast. A very close friend of mine.
It’s a great joy to see you here. Thank you so much. Hare Krishna.
Hare Krishna. Let’s go bigger. Boston.
And we’re glad that this time he’s spending almost a few days with us. So let’s take a note of his sessions, which are going to be conducted here in Boston. So tomorrow, he’ll be speaking in the morning, 8.50 a.m. here in the Temple Hall.
And then 11 a.m. there’s a Gita. And the next seminar, second leap of this particular seminar, would be open at 54 Rice Road, at Atulya Mataji and our Paramahamsa Prabhu’s house. And the third one, which is going to speak on May 4th, Sunday, at 6.30 p.m. here at this time in Boston.
That happens to be on Sunday. So usual Sunday class happens at 5 p.m., but we do have that session at 6.30 p.m. And in the morning, as usual, Prabhuji will be giving the Srimad Bhagavatam class. Prabhuji is also a prolific writer.
You see that in Varashtra Sridhar. And you can see that he’s a great thinker and also a prolific writer also. And he gives an abundance of lectures, more than 400 lectures all over the world in a year.
And he has given more than 3,000 lectures. So you can see that what kind of a monk he is, amazing, amazing quality. And we are glad to see him.
Familiar from Pune. He’s a monk who has a quarter of a century of spiritual practise. So let’s give a big round of applause for him.
Thank you dear Prabhu for coming to us in Boston. So here, this is a wonderful opportunity for you. Prabhuji has the books to sell.
Do you want to say something about it? Or should I hand it over to you? And a one-line prayer. And then a poetic translation of the verse. And then a reflection based on the verse.
Many devotees have told me that they have found it very helpful in chanting. Just contemplate, read something in a few minutes and focus on chanting. It can be your japa talks, something which you can read and reflect.
And there’s also an accessible table of contents. So there are different prayers for different occasions. If you are feeling lonely or abandoned, if you’re feeling that training is rising a lot, if you’re feeling spiritually disconnected, if you’re feeling lost and aimless in your lives.
So you could just read the table of contents in which your prayer connects with your emotional or personal need at that particular time. And read that. So all these books are available.
And also, we have some time in case you want me to assign the books or ask any further questions. Thank you very much. Pray.
Thank you. We will be here. If you want to speak, you can come over.