Leadership and Spiritual Insights from the Bhagavad Gita
Questioner: When you talk about teaching through scriptures, Upanishads, and from our holy book of Bhagavad Gita, I mean, what was it that you saw, that you understood, which was different? Which was more, I mean, inclined toward the spiritual side and again towards the leadership side also?
Acharya Prashant: Inwardly, I'm quite stubborn. Externally, I might yield, you know, for a while or something or retreat, but inwardly, I find it very difficult to lie to myself. If there is something that I see as unjust, I cannot lie to myself and say, "Well, you know, just forget it, unsee it, let it be, carry on with your own business." I cannot do that.
I had seen very conclusively that things are not fair, that people are suffering. This was quite clear. I could also see that we are very wicked people, stupid people, who continue to inflict nonsense on themselves. So, on one hand, I commiserated with the lot of mankind. On the other hand, I was quite angry at what we do to ourselves.
The misery is self-inflicted. So, I couldn't, I just couldn't tell myself that all is hunky-dory and you just, just carry on with life as everybody does. I had to fight it out. It was a matter of inner dignity. You can lie to the world—how do you lie to yourself? How do you lie to yourself? So, I was continuously seeing that there's something that, there's a lot that needs to be done.
And, what was the question? Please come again.
Questioner: I was asking you about what were your learnings which you drew from the Upanishads.
Acharya Prashant: Ah, you said why Upanishads to the audience? Yes. Because the misery is self-inflicted. Externally, we are in all kinds of mess because internally there is a lot of darkness. Externally, what can be done, I had already learned. I knew of the power of science and technology—four years at IIT was sufficient for that.
And I was a well-read boy. I knew of the wonders of science, and I knew of the future possibilities of science. So externally, what can be done, I already knew of that. I also knew economics. I knew the systems of finance and banking and the entire history of capitalism. I knew. And I knew what they could do and to what extent they could help mankind.
And having known them, I knew their limitations. I could very clearly see what technology cannot achieve. I could very clearly see what management or economics cannot achieve. And I could also see—where technology and economics have bloomed to the fullest—deception and falseness and misery still exist there as well. To The Human Condition, purely technical solutions or purely economic solutions cannot work. That was my learning.
So, if we really want to be free of the inner cage, then there has to be something that takes us within. Hence, the Upanishads.
You see, someone who doesn't know of the powers that we have over the world would continue to harbor hope. They would say, "You know, one day we will be technically so strong that we will achieve that. We'll go to Mars, let's say." Or, "One day we'll have a per capita GDP at this number, and then we'll be happy."
That's from someone who does not know of the limitations of GDP—the whole process of GDP, the whole concept of GDP. I was lucky enough to learn of that to a reasonable degree quite early on. So, I knew what all these things cannot achieve.
And hence, I knew that the gap can be filled only by wisdom literature. Hence, I turned to it. It was a very logical thing. It wasn't a thing of devotion or mysticism. It was more from logic. If we are suffering, it is not because we lack in technology or money. We are suffering because we lack in something here, in the heart.
And hence, the obvious conclusion is to take wisdom literature to the masses if we want to really free mankind of the needless situation it finds itself in—inner situation.
So, from there, the whole thing comes. It’s not as if I'm a religious preacher out to convert people. No, no, that's not the objective. We are not converting people to this or that or just preaching something as the gospel of God. No.
My concern is the way we are. My concern is the face of the human being. My concern is the little sparrow. I'm not here to tell people what God has said. I'm here to take care of the sparrow. That's my concern.
And the sparrow cannot be taken care of unless we go to the Gita. Hence, the Gita.
