Ganesha is the God of auspicious beginning. No human endeavor should begin without invoking this elephant headed God, who is worshiped all over India and east Asia. The fourth day (Shukla Chaturthi) of the waxing moon of the month of Bhadra  is the most important day for devotees of Ganesha.  Some believe that Ganesha was born on this day, while some others say that Ganesha got his elephant head on this day. Yet there are stories saying that Ganesha proved his superior intelligence over his younger brother Kartikeya on this day by winning the mango contest. There are even stories that say that on this day Ganesha overate modaka and his stomach burst and then he took a vow only to eat puffed rice.  It is also said that the crescent moon giggled seeing the big stomach bursting open and the embarrassed and angry Ganesha barred the public from viewing the moon on this day. Hence the usage 'chaturthi' for 'irritating sight' in many Indian languages.  

But the true significance of this day is transcendence of the three bodies, going beyond the play of three energies, and realizing the fourth dimension of consciousness as our real nature. The Ganesha Atharva Sirsha declares that Ganesha is manifest Brahman and the import of the mahavakya, tattvamasi.  Ganesha was born from the essence of Parvati in the absence of Shiva. Meaning that Ganesha is the unconscious in us that stands as a bridge between our higher and lower consciousness. An encounter with Shiva and loss of ego-head and acquisition of a discerning trunk is required to gain oneness with Shiva and the experience of Shiva-Sakti union.  

Ganesha is the eternal symbol of spiritual regeneration and redemption.  Nothing is complete nor successful without Ganesha's blessings. Therefore let us all chant the mantra: AUM GAM GANAPATAYE NAMAH. 
SWAMI BODHANANDA
28 August 2014
College Station, Texas

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Message from Swami Bodhananda

Vishu is a harvest festival – An occasion to thank God for a bountiful harvest. To meet friends and relatives in new clothes over a meal. To crack jokes and enjoy fireworks. A day to begin with new hopes and ideas, to charge like a boisterous Ram into the unknown future.  

Vishu is the celebration of the young, for the young and by the young. Elders play only second fiddle. Children and teens are woken up early in the morning of the Vishu day for darshan (“kani”) of the specially decorated altar. They giggle and wobble while led to the sanctum with their eyes closed. Then a new bright world of yellow flowers, fruits, grains, gold coins and new clothes unveil in front of them – A veritable feast for the eyes and imaginative mind.  

The eldest (“karanavar”) in the family gives away gifts (“kaineetam”) of coins and clothes to all members of the household including guests and domestic helps – An opportunity to renew and deepen human bonds.  

The most significant harvest that Vishu celebrates is the attainment of inner qualities and the resultant spiritual awakening. The blossoming of the Self in all its splendour. The harvesting of inner love and joy and sharing them with one and all.  

Vishu is a day of self-renewal.
Love,
Swami Bodhananda.

Swami Bodhananda will give lectures on Patanjali Yogasutras from 3rd March to April 2014 in New Delhi.

Venue: 15, Eastern Avenue, Maharani Bagh West, New Delhi

For info and To attend write to Arun and Rumney Gulati.
Email: <ramni.gulati@gmail.com>

The birthday of our Guru Swami Bodhananda on 27 March is celebrated annually as the "Sambodh Foundation Day". Sambodh Foundation New Delhi is organising its annual Foundation day programme on 27 March 2014.

Time: 5.30 p.m.
Venue: 15, Eastern Avenue, Maharani Bagh West, New Delhi

For info and To attend write to Arun and Rumney Gulati.
Email: <ramni.gulati@gmail.com>

Hinduism & Indian Identity - Free-Flowing, Open-Ended Conversation with Swami Bodhananda

Join us for this conversation on Saturday evening (March 22nd) at Kunzum Travel Cafe, Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi.
Join the Event through Facebook here ...
Contact: Ratnesh Mathur

A short introduction-

"India's search for identity can not be divorced from the 7000 years long Hindu religious and cultural experience. Most often Hinduism is defined in terms of Indian geography with references to the Himalayas and the Sindhu, Ganga and Brahmaputra rivers. Words like India and Hindu refer to the Sindhu or Indus river. Outsiders know and call all Indians as Hindus and not as Vedantins, Mussalmans or Christians. The modern attempt to create a secular India disregarding this historical fact will be inauthentic and futile. Hindus are all over the world--in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific, the Caribbean, and Africa. The Internet age has brought them together and multiculturalism a quest among them for identity. Religious world view and cultural perspectives underlie a people's outlook to life and interpretation of experiences. It is in this context that we engage in this conversation on the Indian identity, both as a nation and as individual Hindus belonging to different countries. "
- Swami Bodhananda

Swami Bodhananda will give two lectures on the Isavaasya Upanishad on 4 and 5 April 2014, in Noida.
Contact: Shyam and Renu Khosla
Email: <sskhosla@hotmail.com>
Tel: 9811722805

Sambodh Foundation New Delhi cordially invites you and family for a Public Lecture by Swami Bodhananda on "Unleashing your Spiritual Power", on:

Sunday 30 March 2014, 7 - 8.15 p.m.
Venue: Gulmohar Hall, India Habitat Center, Lodhi Road, New Delhi

For info contact Dr BP Mathur, Smt. Nalini Sharma, Smt. Rumney Gulati or Smt. Anu Khera. Email <sambodh.india@gmail.com>

All India Management Association, New Delhi is organising a Lecture and Interactive Session on “Wisdom Leadership” with Swami Bodhananda on 28 March 2014.
(Participation only by invitation or registration)

Venue & Contact

Anoobhav Sehgal, Manager – LMA Relations & Membership, All India Management Association, Management House, 14, Institutional Area, Lodhi Road, New Delhi 110003
Email : asehgal@aima.in

Loving all is loving the Lord of all

This year, 2014, Shiva Ratri falls on 27 February. Ratri means night, which is a mystic term for a quiet, reflective mind, free from fear, worries, expectations and frustrations. The inner gaze in devotion to Shiva takes away all agitations of the mind. Devotion is to know that as agents of action and reaction we are part of a larger whole, that is Shiva, and have to interact with an abiding feeling of embedded responsibility towards all creatures that constitute our environment. Shiva is the Lord of of all living and non-living entities. On the Shiva Ratri night, when the world sleeps, the vigilant devotee awakens to the truth that he/she is in love with the dance of Shiva, manifested as this expansive universe. Loving all is loving the Lord of all. On this most auspicious day, Shiva opens the third eye and destroys the evil that soils our minds and souls.  The devotee, who keeps vigil till the wee hours, is redeemed from the thraldom of self assumed limitations and uplifted to the land of freedom and bliss.   OM Nama Shivaya; Shivohum. 

5 Lectures by Swami Bodhananda organised by Ahmedabad Management Association 16 - 20 February 2014.

The Bhagavad Gita & Wise Leadership

Inclusive development, democracy, pluralism, human rights, gender equality, environment, green energy, win-win solutions etc. are the current buzz words. But what the present world lacks is wise leadership in all areas of human activity to lead us out of a pervasive meaninglessness, crass materialism and paralyzing moral relativism. Swami Bodhananda discusses, in the light of Bhagavad Gita, the present leadership crisis taking up five themes --
1. Self reflection of the wise leader
2. Detached engagement
3. The Big and the Small picture
4. The Problem of the Other
5. Fight to win

Swami Bodhananda will give a lecture at the 3rd Leadership Retreat organised by All India Management Association on 16 February 2014, in Goa.

"Consciousness - The Ultimate Human Resource"

Human resource has been identified as the critical resource for innovative and productive activities. Swami Bodhananda recommends reflective action in interactive spaces as the means of tapping into the infinite resource of consciousness. A new strategy for inspired leadership.

Swami Bodhananda will give two lectures on "Spirituality in daily life", and Spirituality - an antidote for mental challenges" in Mumbai, organised by Sambodh Mumbai, on 12 and 14 February 2014.

A new year is like a new born baby—a bundle of hopes and possibilities. An uncertain future full of dangers and opportunities. And the contours of the New Year will unfold as individuals, communities and nations make choices according to their self-interests and aspirations, guided by their perspectives, knowledge and self-perceptions.

An emerging global consciousness is often thwarted by sectarian prejudices and primitive fears and antagonisms. The highest human ideals like love, freedom, justice and community are everywhere frustrated by man's mindless pursuit of power, pelf and pleasure.

2013 was hopeless in many respects, but there were also many unsung acts of grace and charity, of courage and compassion, that kept the flame of hope bright. When I see green shoots and tiny flowers in rock crevices, my heart jumps in joy and I cry out that hope is still alive.

Every new born baby is a messenger of hope. So too is every New Year, and 2014 wouldn't be different. 
Hold on to hope, dream big, take risk, embrace the unknown, act boldly,​and you will never regret. 

Let 2014 be a year of decisive action and “make a small dent in the universe”.
SWAMI BODHANANDA
27 December 2013
New Delhi

Swami Bodhananda's Lecture series and Satsangs in Kerala from January to February 2014

Deepavali Greetings from Sambodh INDIA.
Here is the message from SWAMI BODHANANDA

Diwali/Deepavali is a festival of lights. India is a vibrant country and Hinduism a dynamic religion. Diwali, the most celebrated festival of Hindus,  is the celebration of hope over hopelessness, conservation over consumption, sharing over greed, loving over hating, saving over borrowing, and being over having.
Mythologically, Diwali is the reliving of the euphoria of Lord Rama's decisive victory over demon Ravana.  Historically Diwali signifies the integration of India into the Vedic paradigm. Hence Diwali celebrates India's unity and self-awareness as a unique culture and civilization. For the individual seeker, Ravana represent his/her ego and Rama the higher self. The ego clouds the higher self and using the ensuing confusion abducts the helpless mind into the island of pleasure and pomp.  Finally the higher self asserts itself with the help of self-discipline (Lakshmana) and selfless work (Hanuman) and rescues the mind from ego's captivity and restores the union of freedom and joy.

Swami Bodhananda
10 November 2012
The Sambodh Society Inc., San Francisco

Vedanta Centre for Atlanta
Steadiness in Knowledge - Swami Bodhananda
Click to Listen

Guru is creator, Guru is sustainer and Guru is destroyer: Guru dismantles structures of ignorance, nurtures positive values and inspires creative thoughts and actions. 
Guru teaches in silence and by personal example.
Guru is an ocean of bliss and a storehouse of perennial wisdom. 
Guru is deep, calm and all embracing.
Guru is God, Guru is Self and Guru is Preceptor. 
Guru is the door to Divinity.
Guru is supreme Consciousness.
Guru is motiveless Compassion. 
Guru is interpreter of scriptures.
Guru is father, Guru is mother, Guru is friend and Guru is the beloved. 
Guru is a true healer and an effective physician.
Guru cures the illness of consumerism and the blindness of narrow mindedness.
Guru is the alchemist who creates transformation by a touch, a gesture, a glance or a word. 
Guru is nature -- the forests, the hills, the meadows, the valleys, the deserts, the rivers, the oceans, the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars- that teaches by just being.
Guru is our breath, our heart beat and our very existence
Guru is the whisper of atman in stillness.
Guru is demandless love -- a space where a million flowers can bloom, a million suns can burst forth and a million swans can take to flight.
Guru is joyful celebration - ananda utsava.

On this day, July 3, of the Aashadha month, shukla-paksha, pournami night, our Guru Sri Veda Vyasa was born thousands of years ago on a verdant island gently stroked by the silvery waters of mother Ganga. The son of a poor fisher woman, he grew up fatherless to become the foremost scholar and sage of the day and the founder of Hindu Dharma. Dharma is sustained by a inexhaustible succession of living, practicing preceptors. Dharma is to be interpreted and practiced according to the needs of the times. 

Guru is the repository, the vehicle and the transmitter of Dharma. Shri. Veda Vyasa is the first and foremost among all Hindu Gurus. Devotees of Hindu Dharma pay their respects and obedience to Sage Vyasa on this auspicious day by worshipping at the feet of their living Guru, by singing and offering services and reaffirming their commitment to the Guru tradition and Dharma teaching.
AUM SREE GURUBHYO NAMAH.
Swami Bodhananda 
Sambodh Centre for Human Excellence
Kalamazoo, Michigan

Source: Guru Purnima Message on the occasion of Gurupurnima on 3 July, 2012

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Source: Swami Bodhananda, Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2011 1:35 AM, New York
on the occasion of Gurupurnima on 15th July, 2011

Spiritual and ethical pursuits are the highest goals in life. Unfolding ones happiness by actively interacting with the world is the meaning of ethics and spirituality. Listening about the wisdom the Self from a self realized Guru and reflectively practicing the wisdom in ever unfolding relationship is the means of self realization. Sage Veda Vyasa represent the dawn of Vedic Wisdom and is considered the Guru who initiated the systematic teaching of self knowledge by personal practice and social interventions. Veda Vyasa brought the Vedas into Indian consciousness and expounded its wisdom through numerous commentaries and narratives. He is India's conscious keeper and value maker. On this auspicious occasion of Veda Vyasa's birth anniversary, 15 July, on the full moon day of the month of Ashada, we spiritual seekers prostrate at the lotus feet of our Guru and seek the blessings of all gurus who have come and blessed humanity.
Jai Jai Gurudeva
Swami Bodhananda

Source: Swami Bodhananda
Sent: Monday, July 6, 2009 10:52:43 PM, San Francisco

Guru Brahma Guru Vishnu Guru Devo Maheshvarah
Guru Saakshaat Param Brahma Tasmai Sri Gurave Namah.
Guru indeed is creator Brahma, protector Vishnu and liberator Mahadeva,
Guru is one with the transcendental Brahman that is my Atman;
Salutations to the supreme Gurudeva.

Guru is the remover of darkness, our watchful eyes,  
the all illuminating sun of the world.
Guru is light and love and leads us to our inner soul.
Guru is a metaphor for our journey that begins when all else ends.

In a foggy morning, in the middle of Ganga, in a rocking boat,
energy and experience united in passionate love.
The spring air danced in joy.
Fireflies wove golden fabric in excited anticipation.
The blue sky closed its million eyes in coy shyness.
The Guru was being born.
The dawn of wisdom.

The mantras remained hidden in the hearts of the Rishis.
Wisdom buried in the mantras.
World lost in darkness.
Sage Vyasa cast his net, like his fisher folk ancestors did for generations,
but now for pearls of wisdom.
The Vedas came to light.
Then the high noon of Vedic culture.

We live in a world of metaphors.
Guru is our metaphor for life.
Vyasa is our metaphor for Guru.
Love is our metaphor for Vyasa.
A love that bloomed in a rocking boat, on a wavy Ganga in a spring morning.

Source: Swami Bodhananda
Sent: 10.00am, 5 June 2008, Sambodh Centre for Human Excellence, Kalamazoo, Michigan

This year the anniversary of Lord Veda Vyasa's birth falls on 18 July. He was born to the old and wrinkled Brahmin Sage Parasara in the young and beautiful fisher woman Matsyagandhi. The union took place in a rickety boat, on a misty morning, over the mighty Ganga. It was an unbelievably mysterious and unique conception. The son of the ocean of knowledge meeting in rapture the daughter of the ocean of waters. A rare meeting of wisdom and adventure; of masculine passion and feminine curiosity; a union of experience and youth. That set the ground for the finest flowering of Hindu spirituality, culture and letters.

Krishna (Vyasa's given name) grew up with his mother amidst the fishermen folk in a sandy island caressed by the swirling Ganga waters. He mastered swimming and fishing in the young age itself. Everybody in the fishermen community loved the dark thin boy with large eyes, thick lips, wide forehead and curly hair. Krishna was a pre cautious child.

Since he grew up in an island Vyasa was also known as Dvaipayana, the islander. When Krishna Dvaipayana was seven years old, his father, as per a previous agreement, appeared and took him away and enrolled him in a Gurukula for Vedic studies. The Gurukula was established and run by Parasara himself. Parasara was not married, was lame in one leg and was the greatest living scholar in Vedic interpretations. The young Vyasa instantly became his father's personal assistant and constant companion.

Parasara taught only one branch of the Vedas, other branches were held and taught by other Rishis like Bharadhvaja, Atri, Visvamitra, Kasyapa, Aghora, et al. People belonging to different tribes clashed frequently in the name of their gods to gain territory, cows and gold. As Vyasa grew up to full manhood, he set out uniting these quarrelling tribes with his famous slogan: 'Truth is One, though interpretations are many.' He went around the entire Aryavarta, from Kabul to Kolkota, the landmass between the Himalayas and the Vindhyas, and met with different Rishis, collected their branch of the Vedas and then compiled those hymns into four volumes- The Rik, the Yajus, the Saman and the Atharva Vedas. The central practice of our Vedic ancestors was the Yagna and they believed in many gods and in the concept of Rhythm. Yajna is the subtle exchange between gods and humans through fire sacrifice and Rhythm is the balance and harmony that exist in the universe. Vyasa emphasized the idea of pluralistic toleration and since then it has been the highest ideal of Hinduism. Krishna Dvaipayana got the honorary title Veda Vyasa because of his yeomen service to the cause of Veda- collecting, editing, publishing and propagating.

Vyasa's mother Matsyagandhi alias Satyavati eventually married the reigning king Santanu of the Kuru dynasty. That brought Vyasa into the whirlpool of politics, which gave him an opportunity to test the practicality of his theories of rhythm, atma, brahma, yajna and dharma. Vyasa has already come to the understanding that the individual is part of a cosmic network and that his essential nature is pure consciousness. To present these ideas in a contemporary framework Vyasa wrote his magnum opus- the Mahabharata. In this epic Vyasa depicted human spirit caught in an inescapable web of networks and relationships; the tragedy of human follies and the eventual triumph of the human spirit. Vyasa's characterization of Bhishma, Dharmaputra, Dhritarashtra, Duryodhana, Karna and Draupadi captured fully the complexity and contradictions of human nature. Vyasa's objective was to describe the nature and the operation of dharma in human interactions.

Vyasa wrote the Brahma Sutras to explain the logic of his theory that the individual is the ultimate source of all values. The individual is the source of existence, knowledge and happiness. The consciousness that functions in the individual is the ground of every phenomenon. Vyasa was a thorough going spiritualist- that spirit is the source of matter, that evolution is the process of manifesting what is hidden and latent in consciousness.

The Bhagavad Gita, a part of Mahabharata, is the crest jewel of Vyasa's philosophical thought. Krishna, the warrior hero, teaches his confused cousin, Arjuna, the foremost archer of his times. That one has to perform his/her duty to the best of ones ability and conscience regardless of the consequences. If there has to be a choice between ones well being and the collective well being the hero chooses the latter. The actor is responsible for his actions performed as a call of duty, but has no control over the denouement of outcome; the action, not the actor, is measured by outcome, the actor is free of the action outcome chain. The Bhagavad Gita is a masterly exposition on the relationship between actor, action and outcomes. An action done out of duty is free from the taint of sin even if it hurts a few. A sense of duty gives clarity for choice making. A warrior is right when he kills out of duty. Vyasa impregnating his half brothers' wives is right because he did it out of a sense of duty. A middle-aged man raping a minor girl is an abomination for no duty is involved in that despicable act. The impulsive act of a rapist or murderer is diametrically opposed to the deliberative performance of duty. Detached performance of ones duty, as an offering to ones creator, is the central teaching of the Gita.

Vyasa spent months together in the Badarika forest, his retreat cent re in the Himalayas. He penned most of his works there. He acquired another epithet as a result - the dweller of Badarika forest, Badarayana.

The eighteen Puranas that Vyasa authored show him in his imaginative best. Puranas depict human affairs as a tangled interaction between gods, humans, angels, rakshasas, asuras, gandharvas, kinneras, yakshas, animals, birds, reptiles and even trees. They could communicate and knew each other's language. Instead of explaining every human experience in terms of the procrustean bed of logic, Vyasa took imagination as a tool for interpreting experience and causal connections. Thus if a young unmarried girl become pregnant, it is not her immoral behaviour, but the result of her promise to a Gandharva in the past life, or the infatuation of a powerful kinnara or god. If newborn children die one after other, the couple had an agreement to that effect in a previous life and the tragedy is only expected as a result of a predetermined plan. What is experienced in the theatre of human life is only a shadow of what happened, happens and will happen in other theatres of life. Human life gains an unfathomable depth - several players at several levels are involved in the playing out of even a single episode. The puranas depict life as a pullulating web of intricate patterns with dizzying depths, each strand showing a will, character and individuality of its own. Reading Vyasa's puranas is a therapeutic experience.

Krishna Dvaipayana Badarayana Veda Vyasa is the founder of Hinduism, as we know it today. He lived a long productive life. He was a thinker, organizer, teacher, interpreter, writer, counsellor, troubleshooter, consultant, political strategist, institution builder, tireless traveller and above all an enlightened master. There is no field of human activity that he has not set his mind and enriched. He is tallest and the greatest prophet or Guru of India. He is Adi Guru. The quintessential teacher.

By offering prostrations at his hallowed image we are honouring all Gurus who have come and blessed humanity. When we remember Bhagavan Veda Vyasa we realize the meaning of the paean: Guru is creator Brahmaa; Guru is sustainer Vishnu; Guru is redeemer Shiva; Guru is indeed the supreme Truth; Unto that Guru our prostrations!

Love,
Swami Bodhananda

Sambodh Centre for Human Excellence
Kalamazoo, Michigan
10.00am; 5 June 2008

Source: Swami Bodhananda
Sent: 11.42am, 17 July 2007, San Francisco

In a pluralistic, living tradition, like the Hindu Wisdom tradition, the role of Guru is paramount. In such a culture wisdom is not locked in a book, however sublime and quintessential the book might be. In such traditions wisdom is possessed by living Gurus who have dedicated their lives to the disciplines of study, reflection, practice and teaching by exemplary behaviour.

Every Guru worth his/her salt must experience the Truth directly and speak from the authority of personal enlightenment. The Sat Guru's words do not spring from memory learned by rot, but from the fresh springs of contemplative experience. The true Guru enjoys the freedom to interpret wisdom according to the needs of the times and circumstances without compromising the core vision. He alone has the clarity and steadiness to take spirituality to the everyday humdrum of practical living - to the workplace, to the family, to community life, to academics, and engage in creative dialogue with opposing belief systems and assumptions of reality.

The Hindus believe that periodically paradigm shifts occur in human understanding and mighty movements led by great incarnations/avataras re-evaluate and reinterpret reality and redefine human aspirations. Rama, Krishna, Buddha and Gandhi, Moses, Jesus, Mohammad, Confucius, Newton, Darwin, Einstein et.al. were such epochal manifestations of the Divine. The Hindus had the unique good fortune of having great Gurus appearing from time to time to clean the Aegean stables of misunderstanding, corruption, confusion, greed and violence in human behaviour and community living. Sage Yagnavalkya, Sage Vashishta, Sage Valmiki, Veda Vyasa, Gaudapadacharya, Sankaracharya, Ramanujacharya, Madvacharya, Tulasidasa, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Swami Vivekananda, and Ramana Maharshi were some of them.

Of all these Hindu Gurus, the name of Sage Badarayana Paraasara Krishna Dvaipayana Veda Vyasa, or simply, Veda Vyasa stands out as a beacon light through millennia of Hindu history. He was the compiler of Vedas, and the author of Mahabharata and Brahma Sutras. He laid the firm foundation of Hinduism by his crystal clear and uncompromising teachings and tireless dedicated work.

Vyasa was a great synthesizer and emphasised on mystic statements like: " Truth is one, but paths are many"; " Thou art That"; " Consciousness is Truth"; "The creation is non-separate from the Creator" etc. In a multicultural global society and when science and technology has become the nursery rhymes of every child and material progress the dominant mantra, Vyasa's insights and wisdom help us integrate the best in all traditions and systems of knowledge and create a unifying vision of ethics, conduct and meaning for human striving. I have no doubt that Sage Vyasa's teachings will have more and more relevance as the world becomes more integrated, complex and multi-cultural.
On the auspicious day of Guru Purnima/Vyasa Jayanti I wish all of you blessings from all Gurus who appeared and yet keep appearing on the planet to teach and enlighten humanity.

Jai Gurudeva! Jai Sri Vyasa Bhagavan! Jai Sri Sankaracharya!
Love,
Swami Bodhananda

Source: Swami Bodhananda
Sent: 30th June 2006, Kalamazoo, Michigan,
On the occasion of Vyasa Purnima on 10th July, 2006

The birth anniversary of Sri Veda Vyasa falls on the 10th of July. He was born 5000 years ago to a fisher woman, in an island. His father was a Brahmin scholar called Parasara. From such humble origins Vyasa grew up to become the greatest spiritual and ethical preceptor of India. He is the founder of Hinduism as we practice it today. Hindus call him Adi Guru, the ancient teacher. The birthday of Sri Vyasa is hence celebrated as the day of fullness of Guru.
Veda Vyasa systematised and edited the four Vedas that became the foundation stones of Hinduism. The cardinal principles of Vedas are:

(1) There are many paths to the One God.
(2) The world is a dynamic expression of God, hence Divine.
(3) God is to be realised in the hearts of individuals who cultivate compassion for fellow creatures.

Vyasa further developed these ideas into a system of ethics and social conduct in his famous composition, the Mahabharata. The Gita, the core sacred book of Hindus, is set in the Mahabharata in the midst of a battlefield. It gives the message of detached engagement in the performance of ones worldly duties as a path to spiritual growth. Ever since down to this day Hindus have followed the light shown by Vyasa.

Guru is the vehicle of knowledge transference. It is true with any branch of knowledge, be it material science or spiritual wisdom. We stand on the shoulders of our forefathers. Without words and writing and teachers, civilization will come to a grinding halt. Guru's role is as important today as it was during the ages of oral tradition. It is Guru who transforms data into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom. He interprets symbols for day-to-day living. He welds the transcendental and the terrestrial into a happy harmony in human awareness. He is the Shiva who brings down the Ganga of knowledge from Heaven to earth. Guru is Acharya who teaches by practice, who walks his talk. The syllable 'Gu' in the word GURU represents darkness and ' Ru' in the sense of remover. Etymologically GURU means remover of spiritual darkness or ignorance.

Guru is inspired by his inner energy and motivated by compassion for the suffering world. His words or actions have no tinge of self-aggrandising greed or ambition. Vyasa lived in the forest of Badarikaranya, away from the city, away from power and pomp. But he was there when the nation faced a crisis, with his ethical compass and spiritual torchlight. The whole community listened to him in abated breath. He set standards for kings, philosophers and businessmen to follow. A Guru is a RAJARSHI, that is, an involved spiritual beacon, contributing to the well being of people. Vyasa advised the Kuru dynasty, Vasishta, the solar kings; and in modern times we have the glorious example of Mahatma Gandhi. A Guru never turns his face from the problems of the world. According to Sankaracharya, Guru is "ahetuka dayasindhu"- an ocean of motiveless compassion.

The Katha Upanishad says: " uttishtata jagrata praapya varaan nibodhata" - Arise! Awake! Seek company of great souls and gain enlightenment.
The Mundaka Upanishad says: "tat vijnaanaartham gurumevabhi gachet, samitpanih srotriyam bramhma nishtam" - to know the truth may the seeker approach a scholar well established in wisdom.

The Gita says: " tat vidhi pranipaatena, pariprasnena, sevaya" - may you know the truth through surrender, enquiry and service.
The Veda cautions: "acharyavaan purusho veda" - blessed by a guru one comes to know the truth.

In all these scriptures the importance of Guru is highlighted.
Sant Tulsi Das dares to say: If God and Guru appear together, first prostrate to Guru and then to God, for it was Guru who opened our eyes to God.
Shiva Purana says: Guru saves from God's anger, but not even God can save when Guru is angry.

Such is the reverence in which Hindus hold for Guru and the Guru Parampara, the succession of teachers. It is all the legacy of Veda Vyasa. His full name was Krishna-Dvaipayana-Badarayana-Paarasara - Veda Vyasa. Salutations to this Loka Guru/world teacher of India who taught us 'ahimsa paramo dharma' - ‘coexistence is supreme virtue’. This is the message the modern world, torn in several factions, urgently needs.
Swami Bodhananda
Kalamazoo, Michigan
30th June 2006

Source: Swami Bodhananda
Sent: Thursday, 10 Jul 2003, 20:07:59, Kalamazoo, Michigan
On the occasion of Guru Purnima on 13 July, 2003

We celebrate Guru Purnima on 13 July, the day five thousand years ago Sage Vyasa was born as a love child to Parasara Muni and Satyavati, the fisher woman. Vyasa was called 'Krishna' because of his black complexion, and 'Dvaipayana' because he was born in an island (dvip) flanked by the Yamuna.
He was also called Badarayana, the inhabitant of the Badarika (Jujube tree) forest. Later this great saint came to be known as Veda Vyasa for his seminal work of collecting, editing, publishing, interpreting and propagating the four Vedas- Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharva. Thus Vyasa's full name was 'Paarasara Krishna Dvaipayana Badarayana Veda Vyasa'. His independent works are, the 'Mahabharata', 'the 'Puranas' and the 'Brahmasutras'.

The Prasthanatrayee, that is, the 'Brahmasutras', the ten principal 'Upanishad's and the 'Bhagavad Gita' are essentially the work of Sri Veda Vyasa. The Prasthanatrayee are the triple scriptures of the present day Hinduism. The great Acaryas of Hinduism such as Sankaracarya, Ramanujacarya and Madhvacarya and later Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and Mahatma Gandhi wrote commentaries for at least one of these scriptures.

Therefore Sri Veda Vyasa can be called the father/mother/Guru of Hinduism as we know and practice it today. Sri Vyasa was not only a scholar, but he also was an active statesman who took interest in the affairs of the nation. He came to the help of his mother/queen Satyavati in running the kingdom when his half-brothers, who were kings, were found inadequate for the task. Sri Vyasa even went to the extent of siring children in Ambalika and Ambika, the royal queens, who could not conceive from their husband kings- Vicitravirya and Citrangada.

The central teachings of Vyasa can be condensed into the following:

(1) Truth is one , but paths are many.
(2) World is one family, hence to exist is to co-exist.
(3) God/ Divinity lives in the heart of each human/being.
(4) God/Divinity can be experienced moment to moment in a pure mind.
(5) Purity of mind is attained when engaged in the world through self-giving work.

Whenever Hindus have forgotten to live these immortal teachings of Veda Vyasa then they came to suffer humiliation and cultural degradation. That has been happening to us, Hindus, for the last 1500 years. Instead of responding creatively to challenges of the Muslims and the British, and grow in stature, we withdrew from the arena of action, and tried to find our god in seclusion and in the cocoon of our small self. Now Vyasa's teachings are finding world acceptance and are experimented on the world theatre by globally conscious individuals.

I have no doubt that Veda vyasa's teachings will be the foundation of the emerging world spiritual consciousness.

Salutations to Our Guru, Sri Veda Vyasa.
Jai Jai Gurudeva,
Swami Bodhananda
Thursday, 10 Jul 2003, 20:07:59
Kalamazoo, Michigan

Source: Swami Bodhananda
Sent: July 21st, 2002, 3.30pm, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA
On the occasion of Guru Purnima on 24th July, 2002

Guru Purnima falls on 24, July. This was the day Bhagavan Krishna Dvaipayana Paaraasara Veda Vyasa was born.

He was born to Matsyagandhi Satyavati, the fisherman's daughter, by Sage Parasara, the great master of the Vedas. Shri Veda Vyasa is the greatest proponent of Hinduism as we know and practice it today. Veda Vyasa enjoyed royal patronage of the Kurus as his mother later married the Kuru king Santanu. Santanu's children in Satyavati were Vichitravirya and Chitrangada. They married the princesses of Kasi - Ambika and Ambalika. Since the princes remained childless, Vyasa procreated children in those princesses. These two boys were called Dritarashtra and Pandu. Shri Vyasa continued to take interest in the affairs of the state. This provided him insights into the behaviour of men and women in powerful positions. That is how Vyasa was able to weave spirituality into the nitty-gritty of daily life. The Mahabharata is a classic work of Veda Vyasa in which he describes the passions and drives that fuel people to do stupendous as well as horrendous deeds. The ethical issues arising out of dilemmaic situations and powerful men, caught in the web of their past, struggling to come out of the swamp of their inner confusions are fascinating themes depicted in this epic. And the great teaching of the Bhagavad Gita, showing a way out of this mental paralysis, a beacon light shines in centre of this storm.

Shi Veda Vyasa composed, according to traditional wisdom, all the 18 Puranas including the Bhagavata Purana. He is the undoubted author of Mahabharata and Brahmasutras. Shri Veda Vyasa got his best spiritual training under the tutelage of his scholar-Saint father who was an authority in the Vedas. It was Vyasa who later collected the vast repertoire of the Vedic lore, edited and published in the form that we know the four Vedas today. There could not have been the future Hinduism without Vyasa's foundational work. The later Acharyas like Sankara, Ramanuja, Madhva, Nimbarka, Vallabha, Chaitanya, Tulasi Das and others have only interpreted variously the texts written by Vyasa. Shri Veda Vyasa was the defining moment in the long story of Hinduism. The Hindu world view and ultimate aspirations which determine the Vedantic culture of India and of one billion strong Hindus all over the world were inspired by this great Rishi.

These are the reasons why Hindus worship Vyasa as the Guru of gurus - Adi Guru. Krishna claims in the Gita that among Muni-s He is Vyasa, who is considered an incarnation of Lord Vishnu. Guru is one who guides us beyond the ocean of ignorance, limitations and sorrow. His energy arises from a vast sea of compassion, born of spiritual vision. Lord Krishna, Lord Rama, Jesus Christ, Prophet Mohammad, Moses, Confucius, Socrates were all great teachers who strove to lift human kind from their little selves to the Oceanic Vastness of the Self. By offering Salutations to Vyasa we are actually honouring this long succession of teachers who manifested, from time to time, to bless suffering humanity. It is said that our biological parents bring us into the turmoil of the world and our Guru help us remain above those turbulences.

On this auspicious Day of the Guru, we offer our prostrations at the lotus feet of our Guru, so that He may purify our hearts and lift our spirits to the presence of the all-pervading Spirit - The ultimate Bliss of Union. On this day we rededicate ourselves to the path of spiritual knowledge and self-realization, of ineffable Love and the all-encompassing Consciousness, to the study of the scriptures and a life of contemplation.

Salutations! Salutations! Salutations At The Lotus Feet Of The Guru.
Swami Bodhananda

July 21st, 2002, 3.30pm,
Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA

Source: Swami Bodhananda
Chinmaya Jyoti, Vol.3, No.1, July 1981, pg.3

The socio-cultural dimension of man's existence is not inherited genetically, but acquired in the course of social living. It is culture and social awareness that distinguishes man from the animal.

The process of acquiring this culture is education. The person who helps the transmission of culture is called Guru. Culture is a wide term which includes a vision of life, corresponding values, behavior patterns, goals and expectations in life. It sets the standards by which success or failure is measured. To some success is the increase in the quantity of desires entertained and fulfilled, whereas to others success is freedom from wants and enjoyments there of.

The Hindu Vision of life remain unchanged from what it was 5000 years ago, say in the times of Sage Vyasa, Sage Yajnavalkya, Gargi, Sri Rama or Sri Krishna - the yearning for the limitless, love for renunciation, a happy acceptance of one's lot in life, and a deep respect for others living and non-living.

Culture is a question of attitude, not of mere material advancement, of harmony with nature not of conflict and strife. Such an attitude can be imparted only by those who live that ideal. No amount of theorizing and pamphleteering can achieve it. Hence the need of a teacher who live by his convictions. His life and conduct is the teaching. The Hindu tradition is supremely fortunate in having a succession of teachers like Sri Vyasa, Acarya Sankara, Swami Tapovanam et.al.

July 17th we celebrate Vyasa Jayanti as world teachers day. Krishna Dvaipayana, alias Veda Vyasa was the greatest of all Hindu teachers. He collected all Vedas, edited and published them. He devised a method of teaching and is the first spring of Guru Sisya Parampara, whose blessings we enjoy through our teachers.

Our salutations to Sage Veda Vyasa,
and Poojya Gurudev who blazes our path towards peace and Godhood.

Source: Swami Bodhananda
Chinmaya Jyoti, Vol.3, No.1, July 1981, pg.3

On the Maha Kumba 2001
Swami Bodhananda

My piligrimage to the Maha Kumbha at Prayag was a soul-stirring experience. 

The Sangam at which the mighty Ganga and Yamuna joins is the epicenter of this great religious concourse. The vast river bed of the Ganga has been converted into a mythical land where different religious sects have set up their temporary abodes. Seen against the fort supposedly built by the legendary mughal emperor Akbar the vista of the blue Jumna and the silvery Ganga presented a spectacle of cosmic union.

The Maha Kumbha happens only once in twelve years and this is a continuation of the Aryan Brahmanical tradition of religious gatherings where great scholars and saints and householders from various regions of India met and exchanged their experiences and thoughts. And Indians have always worshipped rivers and the bath in a river is considered a holy ritual.  

Visit to an Amish Community
Swami Bodhananda

... I came back from the Amish Territory an hour back. 
Essentially, we visited a patriarch, 67 years old, potbellied carpenter -preacher and father of eleven-- sons (8) and daughters (3) and sixty seven grandchildren. I saw two of his sons and three daughters and several grandchildren. His furniture show room was full of furniture and they were cheap too. There were cows grazing in enclosed pastures. Three big houses shelter his ever expanding brood. 

Amish people are Christians who broke off from papacy in the 16th century on doctrinal matters. They believed that an adult alone should be baptized, and that Christian should practice the teaching of Jesus Christ. The Roman Catholics and Lutheran Protestants unleashed the most vicious physical violence against this unarmed and sworn non-violent people for this slight deviation from the official path. The Amish people were hunted down; their leaders were thrown in to dungeons, 3 square feet by 9 feet deep, after most murderous tortures. 

I saw in the museum some specimen instruments used for torture. Then all these people came to Pennsylvania (Penn's woodland) on the invitation of William Penn, a Quaker who escaped from Europe with his followers and settled in the US. All married Amish men wear beard like the Muslims--moustache removed from upper lips and side of the cheeks.

They live in joint family. Women, as mark of obedience to God and husbands cover their heads with a piece of white cloth. They wear simple clothes and meet twice in a month for a three hour worship in different homes. They don't have a formal church building. Any adult male member can officiate a priest. 
Amish homes are simple, self-built and they live on produce from their land. Their children study in their own schools and after completing eighth grade they join family trade or farming. I talked to two young men, siblings of 18 and 15 years of age, who have joined their father (patriarch's second son) in his furniture manufacturing business. They use home generated electricity and modest tools and machinery. 

Furniture was of highest quality and perfection. They generally don't go to doctors, unless absolutely necessary. Deliveries of babies are assisted by community nurses. They don't use cars, electricity, T.V, or telephones. What struck me sad was that they all looked, especially women and children, sullen and depressed, resigned to their fate. Children were emaciated, their eyes bulging with skinny bodies and vacant looks. They all looked strange and lost. 
May be my prejudice and lack of sympathy. May be I am judgmental. But I think in these matters objective standards are possible. True, their lifestyle is environmentally superb, but I must say that these people are stuck somewhere in the past, perhaps they left their souls in the dungeons from which they escaped after years of struggle. Alas! The torturer and the tortured are both damned, it seems.

 (Swami Bodhananda in an Email response:
Sent on Wednesday August 21, 2002, 8.36am.)

... I reached yesterday 4PM at Grand Rapids from New York via Chicago, drove down to Kalamazoo to deliver a talk at the Osthemo Library.

... The cross country drive was fascinating.
We started on 16 August 7AM. The previous day I flew from Detroit to LA after a one day program at Troy. From LA we drove to Salt lake City in Utah, the epicentre of Mormon branch of Christianity. They call themselves ‘Later Day Saints of Christ’. Has built fabulous temples all over the world and has 6 million adherents. We visited their temple and listened to the organ music in their acoustically perfect Tabernacle. We also went to see the salt lake, the world's largest inland body of salty water, sitting in a huge valley, deep in the Rocky Mountains. Salt Lake City is 36 miles east of the lake.

The Mormons, a persecuted religious minority, trudged all the way [ 2000 miles] from New York and Ohio to this God forsaken barren valley in the 1850-s on hand carts and horse drawn carts. What I found fascinating as well as intriguing in them was their youthful innocence, enthusiasm, cleanliness, but frightening secretiveness and mechanical orderliness. They also seem to have a fetish with white cloths.

It is interesting to study how America, the most advanced country, promotes such cult organizations based on incomprehensible and nonsensical creeds and beliefs. Our drive to Salt lake City was via Las Vegas, but no stop at this sin city. Las Vegas, if you see at night, is a city of dazzling lights, a wavy sea of diamonds, a vista of blinding fireworks ...

It was about 700 miles drive, and we reached SLC at about 7 PM. The following morning we were up at 6 AM and were ready to go by 7 AM to Jackson in Idaho, 600 miles to the North. This small city surrounded by mountains, like even a lamb in the bosom of a belle, is the base camp for those who visit Yellow stone State Park. The drive to Jackson was fabulous. The deserts, valleys and the hills and mountains were otherworldly; they gave a me a eerie feeling, as though I trespassed into the land of ghosts and other disembodied pale spirits.

As you climb up a pass (Ghat) you feel sucked into a tunnel and then you are disgorged onto a vast plain of shrubs and cactuses to float on your wings.

From Idaho Falls 100 miles short of Jackson, we took a wrong turn and went 80 miles on the wrong track, before we realized that we were heading back to Salt Lake City. The mistake helped us to explore our way and take to a scenic route which was simply breath-taking. I couldn't believe my eyes that people lived in such heavenly places, unbeknown to the lusty beasts of the city, tucked away in the lap of beauty.

Jackson was on the other side of a mountain of 8000 feet elevation. It was dark, cold and drizzling, terrifyingly silent and lonely. We cut through the silent mist over a silvery river and on our right was the smiling Jackson, waiting anxiously.

Next morning we went to National Yellow Stone Park, in the state of Wyoming. Almost 100 miles north of Jackson city. We passed by the Grand Teton mountain ranges, a garland of rugged snowy granite spires, like hoods of aroused serpents, rising vertically from the flat stomach of the long valley. The Yellow Stone Park must be about 1000 square miles of which 200 square mile area is full of sulphur. Geysers, sulphur mixed with water shoot up 100 to 200 meters, and there are hundreds of them. Some of them spew sulphur water 100 degree centigrade temperature, which can scald and in some cases sear your shoes even. There are sign posts all over warning people of dare consequences if they stray from designated paths. In one area I saw a pond full of blue and violet boiling water, beside a large field which was like a raw festering wound on the stomach of Earth, or like a large womb, streaks of red, yellow, crimson, blue liquids flowing, creating a sense of the grotesque. The tallest sulphur jet occurs every one hour and is called significantly 'The old faithful'. This is the central sanctum of Yellow Park. The continental divide passes through this park.

'Dragon's mouth' is a mud and sulphur volcano, the jet of boiling hot water moves in a spiral, causing the grunt and rumbling sound of undigested food in a dragon's cavernous inside. The Yellow stone River and lake were sights to see.

... Rapids City in South Dakota. This was another memorable drive of 600 miles. The mountains were bigger and the valleys larger, endless stretch of cloudless blue sky canopying over dry grass lands. The drive through canyons was unforgettable experiences, 2 billion years old rocks beckoning you on both sides with their wordless stories. The rocks sat uncomfortably on piles upon piles, some were lying on mirthful poses as though after an drunken party. Rapid city we reached about 10 PM. An ungainly western outpost, of cowboy rowdiesm, of guns, liquor and music.

After Rapid City, it was almost plain land, stretching indolently, laden with flat dry fussy hills. It was 21 August. We were driving along South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin...and finally reached Rochester, after 600 miles of driving, slightly off the mighty Mississippi.

On the way we took off to a side road 30 miles inside to see the Devil's rock. ...Another interesting sight was the Rushmore Mountains, where on one of the black hills the busts of four American Presidents- Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt - were carved to perfection.

From Rochester it was plain journey, nothing memorable. 21 August we stayed in Mishawaka, Indiana, after a pleasant drive of 600 hundred miles, via Chicago. This was familiar territory for me. Nothing exciting to the eye. Never ending green fields on both sides, sometimes broken by patch of forests.

... The following day we were on the last leg of our odyssey. To Boston.

Swami Bodhananda in an email response
Sent: Friday, August 27, 2004 1:27 AM

The China Diary
Swami Bodhananda
(on His visit to China in September 2007)

ONE

The Dragon wants a make over to the Panda image on the eve of the Olympics in Beijing, 2008. Dragon is a fiery, fork-tongued, scale covered, bulge- eyed, crocodile like, and huge reptile. It is mythical and reminds of the extinct dinosaur. It moves like the thunderbolt the weapon of Indra, the Hindu king of gods. The exclusive symbol of Chinese emperors, dragon represents power. Chinese palaces install two dragons as gate keepers- one holding a ball, symbol of male-yang-power; the other caressing a cub, symbol of female-yin- loving care. Panda is an endangered animal, exclusively seen in China. They look a smaller version of black bears, with white strips around the neck and belly. The total population of Pandas is only three thousand and the Chinese government has patency rights over all Pandas in the world zoos. I visited a Panda sanctuary in Chengdu, south central China, in 200 hectares of bamboo reserve exclusively for Pandas. Pandas are veracious eaters (a telling symbol for the consumerist culture that China want develop). They eat ceaselessly and then fall asleep. They consume 40 KG of bamboo shoots in a day. But they digest only one third of what they gobble up and the rest is excreted. The Panda excreta have great medicinal value in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). They use it in beds and pillows, for curing headaches and joint pains. They are cute cuddly harmless carefree animals.

China wants to be like Pandas, not dragons and evoke fear in others. They no more talk about people's wars and nuclear attacks. They talk about getting rich fast, about cell phones, blue jeans, global trade, foreign exchange reserves, tourism, English language, high ways, toll roads, super power status, national pride, the inevitability of inequality, the rich and the poor, the lazy and the smart and finally the need for pragmatism, and the creation of a peaceful harmonious society.

China is one of the oldest unique living civilizations of the world along with India. But unlike India they had an uninterrupted imperial rule up to 1911 AD when Nationalist leader Sun Yat Sen overthrew the last Chin Emperor and established the first Chinese republic. The Mongols (Ghenghis Khan and Kublai Khan) and Manchus who ruled China got fully assimilated to Chinese culture and language. 93 percent of Chinese are the Han race (ref. Han Dynasty 206 BC to AD 211), small built feature less, hairless, lean people, who flourished in the Yangtze and yellow river valleys. China got its name from the Chin dynasty – 221-206 BC. They called their empire the Middle Kingdom (Zhong Quo). Chiang Kaishek who was over thrown by Mao Tse Thung whose communist party established the People’s Republic of China in 1949 succeeded SunYat Sen.

I saw the boat shaped fortress gate of the Forbidden City, from the ramparts of which Chairman Mao proclaimed the new republic after trouncing the Nationalist forces. In front is the vast Tienenman Square, three times larger the Red Square in Moscow. It is here in 1985 the Chinese tanks mercilessly rolled over and mowed down protesting Chinese students who wanted democracy and installed a statue of Liberty. Li Pen was the Prime Minister and Theng Hiaso Ping the paramount leader of China at that time.

On the south side of Tianenmen Square is Mao's Mausoleum, where the corpse of modern China's architect is kept embalmed. Russians started the practice by embalming Lenin; Vietnamese has kept Ho Chi Min's dead body and North Koreans that of Kim 1. I am sure Cubans will embalm Castro's body, thus continuing the superstitious practice of the Egyptians by atheistic communists. We in Goa have kept the corpse of the 16th century Franciscan St. Francis in his Church. I was disappointed that I couldn't see Mao's embalmed dead body, as the Mausoleum was not open. I did see Lenin's body lying in state in the Red Square in Moscow. On both sides of the Tianenmen Square are the House of Peoples' Congress (meets only in five year intervals to rubber stamp politbureau decisions) and the Beijing Opera House.

I reached Beijing 10.30 local time on 21 September 2007. After 12 hours flight from Los Angeles, three hours wait in Norita, Tokyo and another four hours flight to Beijing. I spend my flying time reading a book on Chinese culture and history. I prefer window seats for my flights and get to see a bird's eye pre-view of the city that I visit. Beijing from the sky looked non-descript. But the ground reality was totally different and mind-boggling. The airport was a swanky, marbled showpiece; but lacked finesse. Immigration and customs officials asked no questions and cleared me in a second. I had the same pleasant experience while leaving China from Shanghai. I was alone, (my party was to leave 8 hours later) and had two huge bags, but the young lady at the customs were so reverential that she helped me out of her way. Chinese instinctively respect saints and old people.

Chinese, like Indians, talk loud, crowd around and couldn't care for personal space. The airport lounge was full of people waiting to receive their friends and relatives. Outside it was like New Delhi International Airport, so-so. The travel agent was there to receive me with his broken English, trained mannerisms and innocent, eager but phony hospitality. Chinese Universities give two-year courses in Tourism and related subjects and Spoken English. These trainees, mainly smart young women, know just enough history and local facts to satisfy the idle curiosity of tired tourists. They are prone to exaggerate and feed all the fads and notions of their customers. W had four male and five female tourist guides helping us in different cities. Male guides were sedate and eager to get work done, where female guides went out of their way to please us and exceptionally smart. Beijing was awash in smog. The van that took us to the Jade Palace Hotel on third ring road (Beijing has six ring roads encircling the city, where as Delhi has only two and Bangalore just one) was dirty and jerky. The guide crooned a Korean love song.

There are certain things that are emblematic of China- the ancient Silk Route connecting old Chinese capital Xian to imperial Rome; the Jade road connecting Beijing to Tibet; the great wall built by the Ming Emperors in the 14th century. The Chinese discovered the gunpowder, the compass and printing. Chinese don't use gold, instead they wear jade- rings, bangles and pendants and rosaries. This is contrast to Indians who will die for gold; we are the biggest consumers of gold in the world.

We Akhilesh and me walked up the Great Wall north of China. It was difficult, the steps were three feet thick and I had to literally lift my foot with my hands. Mountains on three sides except on the south surround Beijing. The Great Wall came to its present gargantuan size (5000 KM) over many emperors' time. It was to keep the northern hordes away from the imperial capital. The Wall connects several mountains. I chanted the whole Bhagavad Gita (700 verses) sitting on the Wall. The Wall is one of the Seven Wonders of the World, but not as high as to be seen from the moon.

In Beijing we visited the Forbidden City, the seat of Imperial Power, the Emperor's Summer Palace and The Temple of Heaven, where the Emperor worshipped annually. The Forbidden City was inaccessible to commoners in the imperial times.

Common people were also not allowed to use the symbols of the emperor – the dragon, number 9 and color yellow. The forbidden city, spread in 72 hectares of land and surrounded by high walls and broad deep moats, is a cluster of places- all plain, square shaped, with boat roofs and painted in bright colours. The palace complex has 9999 rooms- again number 9, all painted yellow. The complex has no trees, because the Fengshui, the ancient Chinese concept of architecture, proscribes enclosing trees by buildings. Women were not allowed to be seen, their feet were put in iron castes from child hood to make the feet small and prevent women from running away. The emperor kept an army of eunuchs to keep watch on his harem of wives concubines and male lovers. But the queen was allowed to listen to conversations from behind a curtain and intervene and counsel the emperor when needed. Nobles of the city practiced the same custom. Water in huge brass jars (ancient China was very advanced in bronze casting) was kept at different points to douse fire catches the wooden structures) Another interesting tidbit of the imperial times was that the emperor had no voice in selecting his concubines. The queen selects them and she must have made sure that the ugliest ones were selected unless she herself had lesbian interests. Civil service examinations took place in the palace complex and topper was rewarded with plum job and matrimony with emperor's daughter. The present Chinese leaders don't stay here; they think that the city is jinxed.

The summer Palace (built during the Ming dynasty1368-1644 AD) sits on an enormous man-made lake. Behind on the north is a hill. This is according to the Fengshui tradition. The northern hill hinders the cold winds blowing from the Siberian Iceland’s, and the lake keeps the habitat warm- a balance of yin and yang and the awakening of Che. The front building of the summer palace has in the courtyard statues of dragons, peacocks, roosters - representing power, peace and prosperity. The stone garden was exquisite. A particular type of stone, may be sand stone, is used in this art: they cut the sides to look it like a buxom lady for balance, then cut several holes in it for movement of energy, then carve wrinkles to make it look wise and then deposit the piece in the bottom of lakes. After fifteen years of curing they lift the stone, which become rounded and smooth implying harmony. These stone gardens are Chinese masterpieces. The summer palace has a very long winding corridor hugging the lake, perhaps for the emperor and his entourage to enjoy cool evenings. What is striking about the palace is its unobtrusive plainness and flow of spaces.

The Temple of Heaven, Peace and Harmony, where the emperor worshipped annually for rain and good harvest is an imposing but open structure – An enormous square wall enclosing a round platform. The square wall, which has 12 gates three on each side, represents earth and the round platform heaven- symbolizing the Universal Parents. The platform has stairs of nine steps on all four sides and a central altar for sacrificing animals, the altar ringed by nine concentric layers of stone tiles (note the recurrence of number nine). White and red bulls were sacrificed and then the meat was cooked in huge vessels, which will be shared among participants. Jade and wine were also used in worship.

There was another building to the east as you walk down. The main deity here is again Heaven- a tablet with calligraphy on the altar, nine steps leading to it. On both sides of the central altar there were nine other tablets each. Outside two buildings, on both sides housing, further tablets representing the Sun, the Moon and other planets. What come across these structures and altars are simplicity, openness and subtle suggestiveness. The temple gates had cloud embossing suggesting that Heaven is beyond the horizon. In the evening we went to visit a traditional Chinese street, "Hutong" something like an Indian 'galli' or' Mohalla'.

I felt as though I was in Pahadganj, New Delhi. Narrow winding streets, houses with central courtyards; women, teens and old people living in separate segments; kitchens a mess of modern and old vessels and gadgets; old men patting round bellies and picking tooth idling on wooden benches; hungry dirty children playing in mud; dogs, pigs and chicken running helter-skelter; garbage heaped in street corners; young men speeding on motorbikes and two wheelers- it was like any third world over crowded city street, a century away from the Beijing I saw in the morning.

At the end of the day we saw a spectacular Kung Fu show presented by Kung Fu Martial Arts. The whole show was threaded around the story of a young boy reluctantly leaving his mother and coming to a master. He masters all the skills in record time, excels all, but falls in for arrogance and feminine temptations and loses his focus and the affection of the master, but later regrets, undergoes severe penances and discipline and regains his mastery and attention of the master, later enlightenment and the abbotship of the monastery. His training and later rigorous penances are the meat of the show. I kept my breath still during the entire show, my mouth open, my eyes wide and glued, my body stiff on its toes- I have never experienced in my entire life such magic and thrill: gliding through rings, somersaulting, climbing on ropes and bamboo poles, swinging from one pole to the other, juggling several hats, lying on the point of a sword- it was an amazing display of power, speed, stamina and physical mastery and mind control. I mentally saluted the real Chinese people.

Sent by email on Friday, 2 Nov 2007 13:08:30
Kalamazoo

TWO
I thoroughly felt at home in China, though I did not understand a single word that they spoke. I liked tofu, eggplant, bitter gourd, and with peanuts I could manage to stay well fed. My favorite Soya milk tasted bitter in China. Surprisingly, Chinese don't drink milk. I hardly saw any cow, buffalo or goat in China. The joke is that the 1.2 billion hungry Chinese have eaten up long back all that moves and breaths. They get their protein from Soya. India is the largest milk producer in the world (something to be proud of) and Indians love milk. The fat free protein could be the secret of the lean sturdy physique of the Chinese. Chinese do eat pickled snakes, frogs and moths. But I did not see them eating snakes in hotels. Pork is their staple meat. They put pork pieces in everything and soups are invariably meat based. Chinese eat from small bowls using chopsticks. They mix everything in the bowl, bring it close and pick pieces of vegetable or meat and rice with chopsticks and push into the mouth. Then sip the soup. Rice soup is popular. I also learnt to use chopstick and pick peanuts successfully.

The Chinese language is unique in comparison to the Semitic and Indo-European family of languages. It is highly nasal and the same word changes meaning as the tonal emphasis changes. Chinese language has no script as ours, the characters being clusters of pictorial representations. An average literate person masters 3000, while a scholar has mastery over 10,000, characters. I was told that all these characters are combinations of five types of strokes. The language is not phonetic and hence though the characters are the same spoken dialects vary from region to region- like Mandarin, Cantonese etc. Mandarin is the official language of China. It is the language spoken by more people than even English and one of the five official languages of the UN. I could pick up only four words- 'Sheshe/thank you', 'Nihai/how are you', 'Maidan/bill’, and 'Fo/ enlightened’. It is impossible to travel in China without a Chinese guide.

Travel in China is restricted unlike in India. Tourists are required to visit government emporiums and stalls. There they will swarm you and pester you to buy silk products, jade, jewelry, paintings, (we bought some pieces from an artist who paints with his mouth, he is born without both hands, but is married to a beautiful wife) embroidery, ceramics, antiques, pearl and host of other items. We are not allowed to stray and talk to strangers nor will they answer inconvenient political questions.

All my questions about village poverty, the jobless and homeless, freedom, democracy, Tianenmen massacre, etc. were stone walled by our guide. Chinese TV is boring to watch and nothing in English. Chinese society is still hierarchical – men wield power and elders are respected and parents are revered. Burial grounds are considered sacred. Chinese believe that dead parents live in heaven and that they dead will join them. Atheist Mao consoled himself thinking that he will join Karl Marx, Frederick Angels Lenin and Stalin in Heaven. Such is the hold of ancestors in the Chinese imagination. Burial of dead parent is a solemn elaborate ritual. The Fengshui master will be consulted immediately after death to determine the time and place of burial. The master after consulting astrological calendars determines the proper time for burial. He also chooses the right place according to Fungshui principles. Fungshui is based on the dialectics of Yin and yang and energy of Che and the equilibrium of Ming. It also accepts the five elements as the foundation of the visible universe. The five elements are - Earth, Water, Fire, Wood and Metal. According to the Chinese these elements are independent principles/ energies/ vibrations constituting the subtle and gross worlds, including body and mind affecting health and ill health. These five elements further groups into Yin and Yang and balance determine the appearance Che, the energy and the Ming the material outcome. Yin and Yang in their extremities morphs into each other and in their balance contains each other. The Fengshui master selects a burial place where Yin and Yang balances, like between a hill on the north and lake or pond in the south. The burial ceremony includes invoking the spirit of the dead parent on to a wood tablet which will be worshipped daily at home.

For the Chinese deceased parents in Heaven are gods. The Chinese are very artistic people. They love calligraphy and painting, write pithy ironic poems. They build their houses to synchronizing with the rhythm of the seasons- summer, autumn, winter and spring. The noble's house that we visited in Shanghai was built according to Fengshui, between water body and a hill and also to enjoy the season. The house was plain and open hugging the pond to reflect the beauty of seasons.

Xian – the old Charming city: We left Beijing by flight for city of Xian on 8th September, reaching about 12 AM and checked into Grand New World Hotel.

Xian is 700 miles south west of Beijing. The city is an hour’s drive from the airport. It is a brand new facility, gleaming steel and glass structure. The four-line road drive to the city was traffic light free. The city of Xian on the yellow River, with a population of 8 million, was the capital of Imperial China for about 1200 years during the Chou (1112 to 221 BC), Chin (221 to 206 BC) and Han (206 BC to AD 221) dynasties. The present Chinese national and ethnic identities are known these dynasties. The capital was later moved to Nanjing and later to Beijing. The city of Xian is relatively sedate; six lane tree lines roads were deserted in the day, but became crowded by evening. After lunch we visited a 1200-year-old temple dedicated to Confucius. The temple built in the boat like style had a collection of 3000 tablets depicting Confucian teachings. On these stone manuscripts paper was pressed then ink was applied to make more copies. This practice was the genesis of printing press. These stone tablets could be any size between 2' x 3' to 5' 7'.

After visiting the Confucian temple we watched a traditional Chinese music and dance program. Chinese theatres are very advanced in settings and lighting and very punctual. One young artist could excel in producing all kinds of bird sounds. The instruments used were- drums, cymbals, violin, variety of mouth organs, bells, flutes etc. The girl dancers wore extra-long sleeves they could swing any which way creating an impression of birds of long plume in-flight, or bamboos swaying in wind or waves in ocean or clouds floating in the sky. The Terra Cotta museum was one-hour drive to the east of the city. Seven thousand soldiers, horses, chariots and other animals were dug out from an emperor's tomb. It was spectacular. Back in city we walked on the city wall, 8 km circumference, the only ancient city wall in the whole of China. The Ming Big Bell in the walled city center was another attraction. The 7 story Buddhist Wild Goose Pagoda, built in Indian style in 652 AD, established by Xuanzang (596-664 AD) who visited India and translated 1000 volumes of Buddhist literature into Chinese was elevating experience. His journey to India was immortalized and lampooned in Wu Chengen's novel ' Journey to the West' (Xi Yu Fi). Xuanzang's statue recently installed in front of the Pagoda shows a tall, hefty, moon faced, determined regal monk, holding a staff, with head shaven. Xian was exceptionally green, and gentle.

The Panda Land- Chengdu: One hour's flight from Xian, Chengdu is the capital of Siachuan province and the largest city in the bowl like valley of Siachuan. China is largely mountainous. Only 13 percent of the total land area is arable, compared to India's 53 percent. Land available for cultivation is the same in both India and China in spite of China being three times as large as India. The Indo-Gangetic plain is one of the largest and fertile real estate in the world comparable to the Mississippi Valley in America.

Chengdu was bigger and the airport was larger than Xian. 14 million people lived in the city and suburbs. Roads were wide, hedges lush green, tree lined avenues, clean side walks and cycle lanes, highways with flyovers, fabulous lighting in buildings and street lights, and breathtaking greenery. The first thing we did was to visit the Panda sanctuary. There were fifty of them. After the Pandas we visited an ancient Dao temple, the Dao Tse Chin. The venerable sage Lao Tsu and other eight immortals are worshipped here. Incense and candles were burned as offerings. The deities were fearsome, with raised eyebrows, wild black beards and large protruding eyes. Daoism is a living practice, we saw some male and female monks engaged in serious discussion.

Leshan and Emei Shan: We drove out of Chengdu to Leshan, about two hours away. Leshan, a town of 2300 years of history, (though presently it looked every inch modern, one site read" city of Future") sits on the confluence of three rivers – Min Jiang, Chang Jiang, Qingyi Jian. It was raining and cold. It was our first drive along a highway cutting through villages. Houses were one-two story two room sets with courtyard. I was told most of the households raised pigs in their toilets, which were generally ten yards away from houses. Occasionally we could see old people sitting around in chairs. But no children playing, may be the result of one child policy. The fields were ill kept, and farming was not modernized. The most important sight in Leshan is the huge stone statue of Buddha (Da Fo) standing 300 feet high carved on the side of a mountain overlooking the river Min Jian. WE gazed at the peaceful statue straining our necks from a boat. It is amazing that the monks took all the trouble to carve this statue hanging precariously from the cliff. Power of Buddhist concentration, or is it faith? At Emei Shan we checked in Tian Fu Sunshine Hotel. It was cold and raining. The mountain ranges were spectacular. The following morning we went up the mountain to the Golden Buddha Summit- first three hours’ drive, then half an hour walk, then five minutes cable car. The three Buddha statues- Manjushree, Avalokitesvara and Sakya Muni seated on lotus surrounded by elephants on four directions on top of the pagoda and a standing Buddha inside was humongous. The cloudy mountain scenery around was fabulous.

We came back to Chengdu the same day.

SWAMI BODHANANDA
Sent by email, Saturday, 3 Nov 2007 19:50:04 Kalamazoo

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THE TIGER IS THIRTY YEARS BEHIND THE DRAGON
Swami Bodhananda
(30 October 2007)

India is touted as a knowledge power and China as the muscle power of the world. But objectively, I think that this comparison is crude and unrealistic. The fact of the matter is that India is at least 30 years behind China, if not more. China will soon send a man to the moon and catch up with India in information technology and mastery of English language. All their high tech and scientific communications are in Mandarin Chinese while Indians are struggling with dozens of languages and an ill digested English, making education, communication and discussions a farce. There is appalling disconnect between masses, leaders and intellectuals as a result. There is absolute lack of theory building and creative thinking based on research, experiment in India. China is investing heavily in research and education.

China is confidently, but quietly, strutting on the world stage, planning their moves strategically, to weaken India militarily, neutralize India politically and diminish India economically. They engage with Americans, Europeans and Russians patiently drawing strength from every encounter, without yielding much. The Indian leadership wasted two years of energy and time with America negotiating an aborted nuclear deal. Evidently India has no stomach for strategic thinking and calculated action.

India has no time to waste. It has to discover collective purpose, determination, strategic vision and leadership and a willingness to take risk and bold initiatives.

I hope ideas in this booklet will inspire Indian managers and leaders to think on those lines.

China Visit
I was in China for three weeks in September 2007. It was an eye-opening experience. I visited Beijing, Xian, Chengdu, Emeishan, Jiuzhaihuan, Chongquing, Shanghai, and Su Zhaou. We, including three of my disciples from Los Angeles, also took a 700 km cruise in the Yangtse River from Chongquing to the Three Gorges Dam.

No visit to China is complete without seeing the Great Wall, north of Beijing, stretching 5000 km, East to West. This granite wall, built in the 14th century, connects several mountain peaks, with observation posts, purported to protect China from the northern hordes like the Mongols and Manchus. Ninety-three percent of Chinese are the Han race: small built, fair skinned, featureless people. Comparatively, the Mongols, Urghirs, Manchus and Tibetans are big built people with sharp features.

Another big attraction of China is the 7000 Terracotta Warrior Statues excavated from one of the Ming Emperor's grave situated 40 miles outside of Xian, the old capital of China for 1200 years. The fabled Silk route began from here that went all the way to Rome.

China also boasts of being the exclusive home for Pandas. We visited a Panda sanctuary in Chengdu, in the Siachuan province. A single Panda, one-third the size of a black bear, eats 40 KG of bamboo shoots every day but only a third of it is digested.

Land and People
China is three times as big as India; But very mountainous. The vast Tibetan plateau, 12,000 to 14,000 ft elevation, the desert of Inner Mangolia and Sinkiang and the cold wastes of Manchuria are sparsely populated. Most of China's 1.3 billion people are concentrated on the Yangtse and Yellow river valleys. And most of China's industrial activity is concentrated on this region. Hongkong and Shanghai, the two engines of China's growth, are in this area. Chongquin, a major production center on the confluence of rivers Yangtse and Jialin, the largest Municipality in China with a population of 30 million and an area of 12,000 square miles is 17,00 km west of Shanghai. China has about 150 cities with population of 1 million or more.

The area of arable land available is the same in India and China, but the grain production in China is three times more than in India. China consumes four times more power, steel, petrol and cement than India. China's Forex reserve is more than one trillion dollars compared to India's $ 275 billion. China enjoys a trade surplus unparallel in history. India's trade balance is appallingly in the red. China's saving rates are far above than India's. China attracts $70 billion every year in foreign investments where as India gets only 3 to 5 billion annually.

No wonder China has become the workshop of the world.

China's Ruthless Determination and Ambition
The Three Gorges Dam project is a classic example of Communist China's ruthless determination and ambition. The Three Gorges Dam is a reservoir of 800 km long and 100 km wide, water level going up to 175 meters. All the cities along the river Yangtse suffered when the water raised inundating houses, graveyards, ancient monuments and temples. 1.5 million people were uprooted and resettled. When water level rises further another 3 million will have to be resettled. As we were cruising along the Yangtse I could see brand new cities gleaming under the blue sky. But this was achieved under tremendous financial and psychological cost. Some of the old people refused to vacate their homes leaving the graveyards of their revered ancestors, preferring to drown in the surging muddy waters. The total costs of the Dam including resettlements were 30 billion dollars. The objectives of the Dam projects are (a) Flood control (b) Tourism (c) transport (d) irrigation and drinking water for the parched areas of the north (e) Power generation. When all the 32 generators are fully operational the power generated will be 18,600 Megawatt units, which will cater to one third of China's needs. 68 billion dollars will be spend on bringing water to the north through three canals of two thousand km long each. Only China can accomplish such Bhagiratha feats. We have to only watch the chaotic and rudderless Indian scene to understand the enormity of China's accomplishment. The Medha Patkars, Bahugunas, Babe Amtes, Mamta Banerjees, the VHPs, the Communists – this strange assortment of bedfellows clamoring against India's development agenda, whether it is the Narmada Dam or the Linking rivers Project! No doubt China has yet to calculate the ecological, socio-psychological and cultural cost of their rapid development.

Geo-politic Importance of Tibet
India lives under the looming shadow of China – geopolitically and economically. India has no broader with China if Tibet regains its independence. Tibet has enormous strategic value for India. Tibet looks like the head of India. The rivers Sindhu and Brahmaputra, the two arms of India, flow from Tibet. Mount Kailash, the abode of Siva and Manasarovar, the symbol of Shakti are in Tibet. Chairman Mao Tse Tung being a ruthless geopolitical strategist knew the importance of Tibet to China while Prime Minister Nehru, a compassionate idealist statesman, failed to see Tibet's value for India'. For Nehru Tibet was a barren waste with no political or economic significance. But the shrewd Sardar Patel alerted Nehru about the strategic importance of Tibet and cautioned him about China's intention. Tibetan Plateau, almost the size of India, broods over the Indo-Gangetic valley to the south and the Yangtse – yellow river valleys to the north and east. Tibet mediates between India and China. Whoever controls Tibet, the roof of the world, controls India-China dynamics and eventually Asia. All Chinese maps show Indian state Arunachal Pradesh as theirs. When I protested, my tour guide exclaimed ‘is it so?'. This claim is China's strategic bargaining chip as a trade off in future negotiations against their illegal occupation of Aksai Chin.

The Chinese Dragon is Galloping
The Chinese Dragon is galloping in mind-boggling speed. The Tiger turned Indian elephant is still ambivalent, hesitant, shy, and is just prowling shackled by vested interests in taking the leap. China successfully implemented the Special Economic Zone Policy and is reaping enormous economic benefits. Teng Hiao Ping's post Mao policy of iron grip political control and free market capitalism has worked magic for China; Whereas India is vacillating in the implementation of special economic zones and losing valuable time. The Nandigram protest is a perfect example of short sightedness on the part of politicians and general public.

What amazed me about China was the energy and purpose exhibited by ordinary people. Both women and men are trained, motivated and dressed up to pursue a single goal- to sell their products: silk items, shoes, garments, toys, durable consumer goods like TVs, ACs, washing machines, cell phones, automobiles, apartments, tourism (100 million tourists in 2006), Traditional Chinese Medicine, you name it, China produces it. India is nowhere in manufacturing and exports compared to China. India's much vaunted IT industry employs a meager one million people of the vast 500 million job seekers and contributes only 3 percent of the Indian GDP.

People and Housing
China is in a building boom. Whichever city you go, Beijing to Chengdu to Chongquing to Shanghai it is construction and more construction. 25 to 50 story apartment buildings jostling for space as far as your eyes can see. I felt that Beijing and Shanghai have several Manhattans of high-rise buildings. But you hardly see any single standing house like you do in India or Los Angeles. These Chinese cities are like beehives or anthills. You can see old helpless men and women peer through square windows of box like tall buildings. The price for providing living quarters for all! ‘Sometimes’, my tour guide told me, ‘10 to 15 people crowd together in a small room of the size of 10x 7 square feet area’. No creativity can emerge from such cramped habitats. China may not care for creativity, innovation and individual freedom. They are good at imitation. They learn fast. They took Buddhism from India and market capitalism from America. Xuang Zang (596- 664 AD) visited India, lived in Nalanda and Takshasila for 12 years with Buddhist monks and took away 75 volumes of Buddhist scriptures and translated into 1000 volumes in Chinese. His lineage called the Pure Land Amitabha Buddhism is very popular in China today. The Pagoda that the Emperor built for him in Xian is a bustling thriving spiritual centre. Similarly, ever since Teng Hisiao Ping's visit to America in the 70s, which opened the old commissar's eyes, China's dream has been to emulate and excel United States in every field. Sometime they sound and look, to the visiting foreigner, irritatingly imitative. The size and layout of highways and airports, announcements by flight attendants, sophisticated greetings of the waiters and ushers sound so Americanized you can't help chuckling. China is the alter ego of America.

Infrastructure
China has so much ready cash to spare (more than a trillion dollars) that they are building fast track swanky new airports, six lane high ways, amusement parks, malls, museums, theatres, national parks, high speed rail lines and metros, educational and research institutions, state of the art hospitals and 5 to 7 star hotels. During the last 20 years China has built 30,000 km of six lane high ways (the same length that USA has). The ride from any airport to the city center or hotel is an amazing experience- well maintained hedges as dividers, shade trees on both sides, side tracks for cycles, high walls separating the apartments from high way traffic and noise, efficient signals and traffic signs (true still you find the tendency to cut and overtake and jump signals and I found traffic snarl caused by such lawless driving. Traffic police often seems to look the other way). Maximum High way speed permitted is 120 km (75 miles) per hour. I found India far behind China in infrastructure building. The 7000 km golden triangle and corridor projects in India are moving snail paced and without the facilities of over passes, exit points and rest areas. India is criminally wasting time and resources in a half-hearted project. This will make India a laughing stock in the eye of the world.

Another fact that I noticed in China is that their cities are remarkably clean. No litter anywhere. I saw some cigarette butts and some people engaging in the famous Chinese pastime of spitting on the road- but they were rare. I saw few emaciated aggressive beggars in the Tianen-men area. But no slums; neither in Beijing nor Shanghai. China has succeeded in housing most of its vast population.

I experienced no power shortage in China. Most of the cities that I visited had hundreds of tall buildings and all of them were well lit and some excelling in dazzle and lighting even the time square in New York.

Will China’s Example Spur India in Learning Lessons?
I felt ashamed comparing India with China. China is undoubtedly far ahead of India. India badly need two raps on the knuckles, Indian communists tweaks on their ears and BJP a hard slap across the face and congress a bucket of ice cold water on its head. And the poor toiling Indian masses deserve to be told the truth that India is far behind China.

India and China were economically in the same space in 1948, but after 60 years of independence India's per capita income shrunk to one third of China.
Is it the end of the road for India's great power ambition? Will China’s example spur India in learning lessons of hard work, discipline, and national purpose? Or is it that India is building slowly, like the proverbial turtle, and will eventually overtake China through the innate power of democracy, inspiring individual initiatives and coordinating free choices of citizens? Only time can tell. But as of today, the Tiger is limping (yet to leap).

30th October 2007
Kalamazoo, Michigan
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BLACK FAMILY IN THE WHITE HOUSE
Swami Bodhananda
Tuesday, 9.33 AM, 4th November, 2008.

Americans are voting to elect the first Afro-American president. The polls predict a landslide for democratic candidate Barack Obama. History has come to full circle. A Black, whose ancestors were sold as slaves, becomes the commander-in- chief of the most powerful nation of the world. A Black family in the White House, not as butlers and maids, but as the Chief Executive and the first lady.

In one sense this historic event is fulfillment of the spirit of the American people. Theirs is a nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, regardless of religion, race, gender, language or nationality. America doesn't bother about your past; it is all about your future. As Barack Obama very eloquently put it 'America believes that your destiny is not written before you are born'. It is a land of opportunities and dreams—full of rags to riches stories. America is the land of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and now Barack Obama.

I was a supporter of Hillary Rodham Clinton. But she couldn't make it against the blistering storm of this young Afro- merican, an upstart from the back waters of Chicago. With great determination, panache, silver-tongued oratory and the sheer force of character this one term senator from Illinois trounced the two terms New York senator and former first lady. Then I expected that Obama having proved his point would gracefully ask Hillary to be the presidential candidate and him as her running mate. 
Something like a young African male brings and offers his trophy at the feet of his hereditary chief. That would have been a great moral revolution in a culture in which the winner takes it all. But Obama is a master champion, charmer of masses, heartthrob of the young and harbinger of the future- fate wanted him to have all the glory.

It will be historic: an Obama win. The love child, born on 4th August 1961, of a Black Kenyan man and a Kansas White woman, in the enchanted island of Hawaii. Obama is not fully Black, but is of mixed race and was brought up by White grandparents. For four years, in his early childhood, Obama lived in Jakarta with his second father, an Indonesian, whom his mother married. Obama had his education in California, New York and got his doctor in Law from Harvard, where he was three times editor of Harvard Law Review. He wrote his first book ‘Hopes of My Father' soon after. This autobiographical work describes his early life, his community work in Chicago and his visit to Kenya in search of his roots and identity. Obama is a masterly writer, a weaver of gripping stories. He was not an exceptional student, but was intelligent, innocent and intent. People loved him.

I said that history has come to full circle with Obama in the White House. Especially when American capitalism is biting dust. The collapse of Wall Street, the end of American financial dominance and the emergence of other power centers have framed the spectacle of a Black man's ascendance to power in a white dominated nation, whose economy is equal to the combined GDP of China, Japan, India and Germany and whose Defense expenditure is equal to the rest of the world.

Long ago, in 1619, a Dutch Ship brought the first batch of twenty enslaved Africans to James town, the Virginia Colony of British North America. Subsequently 500,000 Black Africans were transported to America in chains to work in the plantations of white masters. Nearly 240 years passed until 13th amendment to the constitution officially ended slavery in 1865. The 15th amendment passed in 1870 ensured right to vote to all male citizens regardless of color or previous condition of servitude. It is incredulous to note that it took another fifty years for the lawmakers to pass an amendment granting voting rights to women.

Hindus believe in Karma. The whites are paying their karmic debt to the Blacks. With the first Black president in the white house the Blacks have redeemed their honor and the whites have cleansed their soul and United States of America has fulfilled its constitutional pledge. All are winners in the game. All Americans can celebrate Obama's victory. Such occasions come but rarely in history.

Obama drew huge crowds wherever he went. In Berlin a record crowd of 200,000 people came to hear him speak that he was proud of being a world citizen. In Iowa, a massive crowd of 100,000 people came to hear him expound economic policies. It was the same hysterical crowd wherever he went- in Minnesota, Florida, Virginia and Portland and the democratic national convention. Obama comes to office as a world leader, loved and feted by all, as a true world citizen, with African, Asian, Islamic and Christian backgrounds. A true liberal with Anglo-Saxon education.

Barack Husain Obama comes to office with an unblemished personal history. The whole world wants him to succeed. He inherits a much weakened and tarnished America. Perhaps he is the right person with a humble background and Black pedigree to represent America as its fortunes decline in a world of multipolar powers. United States of America owes a trillion dollars each to China, Japan and the Arab nations. Its combined debt is ten trillion dollars, 70 percent of GDP. Medicare and social security indebtedness is a whopping 43 trillion dollars. It imports 70 percent of oil requirements. Americans stores are flooded with cheap consumer goods from China and other East Asian countries. Its car industry, the signature of American mobility, is in shambles. 

The world may or may not love America with Barack Obama in power, but what is certain is Uncle Sam will be feared less, with a Black man at the helm of affairs.

Is it the end of Anglo-Saxon Era? The beginning of the end of a success story that began with the British colonization of India and America? The Second World War was fought by the British Empire and won by America and Russia. During the cold war period America witnessed unprecedented economic growth, supreme military power status and also became the acclaimed leader of democracies around the world. Soviet power imploded and collapsed and America was hailed as the sole super power. Some neocon thinkers even predicted the end of history and the arrival of the last man in the rational choice maker and the ultimate idea in market democracy. America was at the zenith of power and prestige when terrorists attacked and blew up the Twin Towers, the symbol of capitalism and crashed into Pentagon, the symbol of military might. 

Power is shifting to the East, mainly to China. A weakened America under Obama, both literally and figuratively, may go back to its old style of self-sufficient inward looking mode. More taxes, more tariffs, more barriers to international trade [ to keep jobs home], more money for social welfare; may be more for education, for infrastructure, more for alternate sources of energy and less for defense.

I am not sure if Obama will go for immediate withdrawal of forces from Iraq,( though delay will make him look worse than Bush), but he will certainly continue operations in Afghanistan fighting against an emboldened Taliban and Al Quaida and continue to deal cautiously with a more belligerent Pakistan and Iran. If Obama withdraws troops from Iraq in haste, it will doom Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Israel, and cause a resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism in the heartland of Arabia. Iran will go for Nukes upsetting the balance of power in the Middle East. India will face a resurgence of violence in Kashmir and China will tighten its arm around Taiwan and let a nuclear North Korea distract japan and South Korea. A weakened NATO with a humbled America will face an emboldened Russia flush with petro-money. When the dust is settled in 25 years’ time, China will be a prowling lion and America a limping pachyderm. There is possibility of war in the Middle East, on the Line of control in Kashmir, on Russian boarders, between Koreas and wide spread clashes in Africa resulting in famine and epidemics. The UN, which is already weakened by America's unilateralism, will look on helplessly and China, the most powerful nation, will keep chewing bamboos (after the leisurely pandas) waiting to fish in troubled waters.

Anglo-Saxons have lost their enlightenment values and zeal. Their secularist moral relativism and intellectual post modernism on one side, and the unique American atavist evangelical anti-science-ism and corrupting consumerism on the other, has brought the enlightenment experiment of the last 400 years—human rights, rule of law, markets, democracy, freedom, equal opportunity, rational choices—to a grinding halt in the collapse of globalized financial institutions.

Barack Obama has fought glitteringly to pick up a job that has lost its glitter. He was riding a wave which denied him the opportunity of learning swimming and which ironically has drowned all the expert swimmers. His has to swim back to safety in choppy waters. The angry Blacks, the disgruntled youths, the illegal Hispanic immigrants, the almighty media, the starry eyed females, the arrogant Hollywood moguls and insecure Silicon Valley netizens and the rest of the growling world will ask for their pound of flesh. They followed the prophet into the Promised Land. 

I pray for Obama, before they turn into a pack of hungry wolves, may the good Lord give him a magic wand!
Swami Bodhananda, Tuesday, 9.33 AM, 4th November, 2008.

Can there be any better advice to today's manager
Swami Bodhananda

...In the corporate world what matters is market share, customer satisfaction, share value, innovation and quality products. This creates fierce competition among corporate players. Though the above are the declared objectives of all players, corporate governance takes to many undesirable stratagems to gain market share and profits. As the saying goes, 'everything is allowed in war and love'. Companies consist of people with varying interests, backgrounds and expectations. To knit them together and motivate them to pursue a shared goal is difficult involving many compromises. Both these tasks lead to unethical practices.

The old problems of ego, arrogance, intolerance and greed creep into the civilized corporate world. In India we have the additional problem of poverty and the resultant corruption- using public office for private gain or taking without contributing in the name of social justice. So leadership has many contradictory challenges- to eradicate poverty, illiteracy and illness; to develop infrastructure; and to create an entrepreneurial mind set. Indian corporations have to operate in such a constrained environment.

These problems are systemic, not just individualistic; cultural than ethical, political than economic, leadership than managerial, theoretical than practical, strategic than tactical, long term than short term, has to deal with the big picture than tinkering with small issues. India is like Stephen Hawking, the famous astrophysicist who suffers from a debilitating motor organ disease. India's legs and heart are week, but the brain is in excellent condition. India's legs are the 700 million poor, the heart is the 200 million middle class and the head is 100 million upper class and professionals.

India lives in three layers. Dialogue and collaboration between these three layers are important for purposeful and sustained growth. Our effort to create an Indian Management style will have to take all these factors into consideration. Essentially corporate management is an upper class activity, but they don't have much voice in determining the political environment, which is influenced by the lower and middle class people.

Duryodhana's arrogance and stubbornness has to be understood in this light, like even the Indian corporate world has to deal with the arrogance and irrationality and populism of the Mayavati-s, Laloo-s, Paswan-s, Mulayam-s, Mamata-s and Jayalalita-s as well as the stubbornness of the Leftist Marxists and the Trade Unionists. If Dritarashtra were not born blind he would have been the king and Duryodhana would have been natural heir to the kingdom. But that was not to be. Duryodhana felt cheated by fate and became bitter, jealous and vengeful. In a materialistic culture where there is no inner discipline or acceptance conflict is inevitable. Duryodhana's intolerance led to war and the more accommodating Pandavas won.

The lesson I learn from this collaborative, win-win, policies are always better than intolerance and zero sum games. Pandavas were forced to play a zero sum game and at the end all lost heavily in terms of men and material. The Mahabharata war was a case of mutually assured destruction [MAD]. Hitler's were a zero sum game as well as that of Pakistan in the Bangladesh war. Can you, Give us some analogies from the corporate world for zero sum games and win-win situations? The key negative words are 'arrogance', 'greed', and positive word is 'Coexistence' and 'collaboration'. A paltry settlement is no settlement and Pandavas would not have long been happy with that kind of a humiliating situation.
....
Dritarashtra had a weakness for his son which was genetic and psychological. D felt guilty that because of his blindness his son was denied his natural right to the kingdom and his wife Gandhari was denied sight and the pleasure of seeing her children grow up. It was this guilt that made D indulgent to his son Dryodhana and turns a blind eye, literally and figuratively, to his misdemeanors. Poor Dritarashtra deserves our sympathy. Indian wisdom tradition brings Vidhi/fate in the understanding of fateful events whose denouement follows the inevitable twists and turns of a Greek Tragedy. Now, my question is: is there any thing like this vidhi/fate/karma concept in the corporate vocabulary to understand certain decisions taken- like the BJP decision to go for general election before schedule- which lead to inevitable disaster. In such situations only spirituality can come to your aid at least in absorbing the shock.

Recently I read that there are three requirements for success - 'Competence', 'concept' and 'connections'. The last requirement is very important for business success anywhere in the world. And there are economic and practical reasons too for that. It is said that in B-Schools what you pick up is just connections and nothing else. Now my question, How you s distinguish between using connections and nepotism? The Kaurava model was successful in the case of the delinquent Samir Jain of Times of India taking over the reins after his father who increased business from Rs. 250 crores to Rs. 800 crores in five years. Can we have a SWOT analysis of the Kaurava model that is universally practiced? Capitalism and the corporate world thrive on inherited wealth and power. What is the role of professional management in all this?

....
Who will be the sacrificial lamb - hero- in business wars? Is he the one who takes risk, incubate and commission new projects and if it doesn't work pack up and leave as per the exit plan or B plan? Where will you place Abhimanyu in a business model? I am sure such heroes are the initial trailblazers after who march successful men.

....
Focus on the process with awareness of the error free end in the background, without unduly worrying about the result and anxiety for personal pelf is the central teaching of the Gita. Therefore, since there is no other way for a dignified life, Arjuna, Get up, fight and win, gain glory and enjoy power and wealth that success brings. (Gita 11-33)

Can there be any better advice to today's manager? 
War is the last resort after sama, dana, bheda and danda. But unless one is battle ready one will not have the leisure, wits and self-confidence for employing the earlier methods of conflict resolution. Strength, tact, vigilance and the determination to win are the price of success. "It is the striped one who survives in the corporate jungle"- A judicious mix of collaboration, conciliation, manipulation and flexing the muscles according the contingency of the situation is the right solution.

SWAMI BODHANANDA
In an Email Response
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004, 9.04 PM

...'Akurvata' is in the past tense and means 'did do'. Dritarashtra asked Sanjaya: "What did my sons and those of Pandu do, assembled in the sacred ground of Kurukshetra, etching to fight?" In fact this incident occurred on the 9th day of the battle after the fall of Bhishma and the war turned in favour of Pandavas.

...I would like to bring a few points to your notice just for the sake of perspective. There are three motifs in the Mahabharata which flovours the story and its philosophy of life. First, the ideal of yagna- the Raja suya in the beginning and the Asvamedha in the end. In both these rituals the king first fights to aquire enormous wealth and then distributes all that wealth among his cityzens.

Second, the game of dice. The king is obligated to risk and wager all his wealth and possessions in the game of dice. Third, war. It is Kshatriyas duty to fight incessantly to expand his kingdom and subdue his enemies.

Life is constant risk taking, recklessly thrown to the uncertainties of chance, and the passion to die with boots on. These are the ideals of a Kshatriya. He is mainly interested in power and fame/kirty. It is the Vaisya's duty to create wealth through agriculture/krishi, husbandry/goraksha and commerce/vanijyam.

The Brahmin is responsible for creating knowledge and ethical values and dissemination of those values. And the Sudras, constituting 80 percent of the population, were split into many castes according to their crafts. When we read Mahabharata this socio-political-economic template/varnashrama dharma has to be kept in mind.

Today India is pursuing a competitive market economy and parliamentary democracy where every citizen regardless of gender, religion, race or language is constitutionally guaranteed equality of opportunity. We read Mahabharata for insights about human nature and mind and interpersonal dynamics in the pursuit of power, wealth and fame. The actual knitty-gritty of wealth creation-distribution-consumption is not the core of this study. And high level management and leadership are essentially a matter of power or decision making and risk taking/a mindset of living dangerously and in total freedom.

The key negative words are ‘arrogance’, ‘greed’, and positive words are ‘coexistence’ and ‘collaboration’. A paltry settlement is no settlement and Pandavas would not have long been happy with that kind of a humiliating situation.

SWAMI BODHANANDA
In an Email
Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2004, 8.16 PM

Source: Murthy, Ambani and tips to win from Mahabharata
Author: Laxmi Devi
Publication: The Economic Times
Date: November 14, 2005
URL: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1294033.cms

... Swami Bodhananda explains the role of managers giving examples from Mahabharata:

Some of the memorable names from Mahabharata in the context of management are Bhishma, Dhritarashtra, Dharmaputra Yudhisthira, Karna, Abhimanyu, Draupadi and the inimitable Lord Krishna himself.

Bhishma is the perfect example of an upright manager caught in irreconciliable conflicts who was forced to take wrong decisions by forces beyond his control. With Bhisma, his vow of celibacy takes precedence over everything else, including the public will.

He is not bothered about the chaos that will occur in Hastinapur with no one to inherit the throne. His major concern is that his vow must remain intact. His motivation is highly complex!

Dhritarashtra's was an example of warped decisions caused by extreme attachment to his son Duryodhana. Yudhisthira is a shining example of managerial wisdom, though he also was compelled to deviate from his principled stand on practical considerations, faced with a ruthless enemy.

Krishna is the perfect example of a leader-manager who kept his eye on the ball till the desired outcome was achieved. And Draupadi is the classical model of a woman powerhouse who kept others motivated till the goal is achieved.

Abhimanyu, the son of Arjuna, is an example of a dare-devil leader without a business-plan of escape. He fought his way into the chakravyuha, but failed to come out and was brutally cornered and killed by Drona and others.

Karna is a tragic example of a manager who fought his way up the ladder but could not keep up with the pressure and tensions and met a tragic end.

... Today there is intense competition within as well as between organisations. One lesson we learn from Mahabharata is that an all-out zero-sum battle ends with the destruction of all. The victors of the Mahabharata battle suffered equally as the losers, and what they got was a desolate land and a ravaged country.

If there is a single lesson from the Mahabharata, it is that competitors must try to find areas of collaboration wherever is possible, pool their resources for research and development and offer innovative solutions for customer's money (eg. the Airbus Company in Europe). Companies must also look into the social as well as environmental implications of their activities.

Source: Murthy, Ambani and tips to win from Mahabharata
Author: Laxmi Devi
Publication: The Economic Times
Date: November 14, 2005
URL: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1294033.cms

From Life Positive Magazine February 2011
The Quintessential Vedantin
Meet Swami Bodhananda Saraswati, renowned teacher of Vedanta and founder of 11 organisations and noted speaker at the LP Expo 2011 in March this year... Read More >>

Swami Bodhananda has often been described him as a cool, ‘cutting-edge’ swami. It was no surprise therefore that when I called him for an interview and wound up with a respectful “Pranam Swamiji”, he responded with a “See ya, bye”! The vibrant voice reminded me of a CEO of a corporate firm. That is not far from the truth because management is one of Swamiji’s abiding passions, albeit through the eternal values of Vedanta. A renowned teacher of Vedanta and meditation, he is the founder and director of 11 organisations and ashrams operating under the Sambodh Foundation in New Delhi. They include the Bodhananda Research Foundation for Management and Leadership Studies, Trivandrum, and The Sambodh Society in the Unites States. 

He advocates employing the principles of Advaita Vedanta in modern management and has written several books on the subject such as Indian Management and Leadership, Management & Mahabharata, among others. 

I met Swami Bodhananda at his ashram in Kaladi, Trivandrum, on a quiet Sunday evening. 

Many people have the perception that Vedanta is highbrow philosophy and beyond their understanding. What is the essence of the Vedantic philosophy? 

Vedanta is the final flowering of Indian spiritual thought. It is a very simple philosophy. Man is essentially spirit and the spirit is blissful. This awareness can be realised by selfless work and meditation. This understanding helps you to live in this world as a creative individual, invoking the spirit through your work. It is a matter of shifting your perspective from ‘I am the body’ to ‘I am the Spirit’. A simple leap from limited awareness to limitless awareness. 

All of us seek to be happy, content, creative, loving – this becomes your natural state of being when you realise that you are the blissful awareness in the presence of which everything happens. 

So what is the difference between a Vedantin and a karma yogi? 

There is no difference. We all seek happiness by having children, accumulating wealth, name, fame, even getting into heaven. But when you search for happiness, you forget that happiness is your real nature! Vedanta says that instead of seeking happiness in the outside world, realise the happiness inside you and then happily live in the world. 

Working with happiness, you become a karma yogi. Working for happiness, one remains a samsari, a person of the world. 

You are an advocate of employing Indian thought and philosophy in management. Could you please explain the core of the Indian style of management? 

I wandered into this area when I observed that most of the people whom I addressed were professionals like doctors, engineers and lawyers whose biggest problem was management. Managing people, taking decisions, managing conflict, learning how to delegate, how to become productive and how to motivate people. 

The Vedantic philosophy is very useful here. The individual is the ultimate resource. This Vedantic ideal can be used to shift your perception about yourself. Tapping into the resource that is your self, you will be able to become a productive worker, a competent team player and naturally motivated to work for higher goals. 

Vedanta is about going beyond the conscious and subconscious mind, into the limitless consciousness of the self, where the individual is able to flourish and perform his duty at his highest potential. When an individual becomes aware of the true nature of his self, he goes beyond the aberrations of the mind that cause depression, delusions, boredom and laziness. 

How effective would an Indian approach to management be, in today’s cross-cultural work environment where one works with people from different corners of the world? 

Today the world has become not just a global village but a single family. Both families and workplaces have a mix of individuals from around the world. Multicultural teams bring a varied mix of perspectives that promote creativity in work.” 

As advantageous as this diversity is, it still needs to be managed. And managing diversity comes naturally to India where several languages, races, religions and cultures have co-existed successfully in harmony for thousands of years. We have lived by the Vedic dictum Ekam sat vipraha bahuta vadanti, the truth is one, but people have different perspectives about it and all perspectives are equally valid, like a diamond with many facets. Indian thought has evolved out of this unity in diversity, by accepting differences and making diverse entities function together as an integrated whole. The Vedas called this ‘ritam’ – the harmonious balancing of diversity which is backed up by the invisible balancing power of dharma that does not come from a single religious or political authority. 

Your books contain several case studies connecting mythology and management. How relevant are the references to the Ramayana and the Mahabharata in today’s Kali Yug, where society and people are in a constant state of change, leaning towards a materialistic way of life? 

Human nature has more or less remained the same over the ages. The same jealousy, greed, insecurity, anger, ego and fear continue to prevail among people in the relentless everyday struggle for survival. Earlier we used to fight striped animals in the jungle, now we fight striped animals in the corporate boardrooms of the concrete jungle. We are unable to express our divine nature due to the insecurity and fear within us. From Ravana to the terrorists of the present day, all people are essentially good but unaware of their goodness and their spiritual dimensions. Duryodhana’s greed is not very different from the greed that we see among the developed countries and the politicians of the present day. All our issues over the ages deal with human frailties and the strategies that people employ in the struggle for survival and these remain the same. 

The messages of the scriptures are extremely relevant in the present age for they are based on an understanding of the human spirit. For example, the Vedas say that by chanting mantras, you are able to control the world and create desirable outcomes. Chanting mantras help to organise your energy fields and develop your powers that help you accomplish your goals. Mantras help to motivate people and energise them. ‘Workers of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose except your chains’ is also a mantra. Entire countries were built on that mantra. In the present day, companies have mission statements as their mantras, which guide their activities. 

Again, scriptures like the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita deal with human conflict, both inside and outside. The context around which these epics were written was a battle. The battle goes on even today. One of the major challenges in corporate, political or social life is conflict management. And these are living epics which are still quoted by people from all walks of life in the present day. People often refer to situations being ‘their Kurukshetra’, of wanting to see a ‘Rama Rajya’ in society and so on. These scriptures are all the more relevant in the present day. 

What is your advice to the managers of today? 

All of us are managers. We have to manage not only our work but our homes, communities, societies and above all, our own selves. Management is the art of using limited resources to create optimal results. As resources become more and more scarce, we require more management. 

Management is managing complexity while leadership is managing change. For example, a war is a war whether it is fought with bows and arrows or intercontinental ballistic missiles. The technology has changed over the years, but what we really need to change is the mindset of the people. As Gandhiji said, ‘the heart of change is the change of heart’. We need to make the transition from managers to leaders who can bring about this change.” 

How can one maintain balance between work, relationships and the self? We see glorious examples like King Janaka in the scriptures but in real life, many of us go crazy trying to maintain this balance. 

Time management is the key here. Every individual has to consider all four aspects – work, family, the community and the self. Depending on your objectives, your goals and your nature, you have to give adequate time to each of these areas. You have to constantly update your skills to keep up your performance in the workplace, you have to spend quality time with your family, you have to give back to thecommunity in which you live and also find time to nourish your body, mind and spirit. 

How relevant is spirituality in these times where people are becoming homogenous in terms of lifestyle and culture and the motto of everyone’s life seems to be work hard and party harder? 

It is true that the world is becoming homogenised at one level. But at the same time, people are also becoming more and more individualistic. For example, the demand for custom-made products is growing like never before. This maintains the balance in society. Our scriptures have always promoted a healthy balance between the world and the spirit. Just like a computer needs a certain environment to function properly, the human brain also requires a certain level of comfort and convenience to work to its highest potential. 

People are becoming more spiritual than ever before in the present day. They express their spirituality in many ways; there is the whole gamut of New Age movement. Spirituality is not sitting around meditating, doing nothing. 

One must live and work in the material world, with the proper balance between artha (material security) and kama (worldly comforts) which leads to dharma (right living) that eventually leads to moksha, the final state of enlightenment, which is nothing but unfolding your complete potential in the world. 

There are many theories these days on free will and destiny. The Gita talks about karma that manifests as one’s destiny. Books like The Secret talk about the law of attraction, manifesting one’s destiny through free will. Can you please share your thoughts on these contradicting theories? 

Indian thought has always been about balancing different ideas. I believe that your destiny is determined both by your prarabdha, actions that you have done in the past and your purushartha, your efforts. Based on your past actions, you can make the choice using your free will to shape your destiny. Again, you cannot completely predict your future for that would take out all joy of living. A human being is not like a coconut tree that once fully grown, continues to produce coconuts and nothing else. Your life is ever dynamic, ever changing and what you have is the ability to control this change by tapping into the consciousness of your self. 

What is the goal of human life? 

To expand your awareness, to move into that level of awareness where you see and feel the presence of the spirit everywhere.

What is your message for Life Positive readers? 

Be responsible. Responsibility is the ability to choose your responses to the ever-changing challenges of the world. You have that ability to choose your responses not from the memory alone but deep from the spirit in a spiritual, creative, healthy way. And of course, be happy. 

Swami Bodhananda chuckled as he concluded the interview, handing out some very cool prasad of ladybird-shaped chocolates. 

Source: Life Positive Magazine, February 2011
http://www.lifepositive.com/Lifemag/full_story.asp

Another version from the author
http://awriterfromindia.blogspot.in/2011/02/applying-vedanta-in-management.html

Source: http://manlionmedia.com/articles/personal-growth-knowing-playing-growing/

Shri Bodhananda

At the close of Day II, Swami Bodhananda spoke on how the path of the mystic and that of the meditator are one and the same. “A mystic is one rooted in the self and ecstasy is the transcending of the ego. This is only possible through meditation which involves watching the body and the mind and being aware of the rise and fall of breath,” said the Swami.

Swami Bodhananda spoke on how people blindly react from memory. “A man will unthinkingly call his son the son of a donkey! The mind goes where we do. Which is why moving to the Himalayas does not help.”

The Swami pointed to the value of doubt in spiritual life. “Positivists say that all self-doubt is destructive but I would describe self-doubt as the beginning of a spiritual journey. We need to put the brakes of doubt when we speed like mad men through life,” he explained.

The Swami welcomed questions after his discourse.

Responding to a question on degradation of values in the contemporary world, the Swami said he did not think society was undergoing degradation. “People are getting more assertive. Children don’t like being talked down to, wives will no longer put the husbands over themselves, chelas will not listen to their gurus with unquestioning obedience. Is this degradation? I don’t think so. I think the change is positive,” he said.

To watch the Video: Write to Sambodh

Hinduism & a Geopolitical Vision for India
Swami Bodhananda
(in an email response to JK
Sent: Friday, August 01, 2003 4:27 PM)
...
Thank you for the note. I was articulating a geo-political vision for India. She has to interpret and integrate her past in determining the choice of her present actions in interaction with her complex challenges.
The British had a geo-political vision while they were running India.  But the Republic Of India had none. We had an ideology in non-violence and non-alignment. But ideologies are empty unless you have the power to protect and expand it.
The collapse of soviet communism and third world non-aligned movement is ample evidence for that. The Hindu civilization does need a state. Just as the Judo-Christian civilization had a succession of states (the present one, but not the last, being the United States) to further its influence globally (through proselytization, colonization, techno-knowledge, capital, consumer goods and services and ideologies).
Similarly Hinduism has to aspire for global influence. Dharma in it's minimal sense is universal to all religions. Hinduism has no lock on that idea. But Hinduism has better vocabulary and institutional, intellectual and spiritual frame works to investigate, interpret, innovate, protect and propagate the idea of dharma.
Thus an idea has to become a way of life and culturally and politically expressed in legally and morally justifiable institutions and practices. Dharma has also to be expressed in people's productive and distributive enterprises, in the modalities of defending their way of life, and expanding their influence.
If Hindus don't expand/ adapt/innovate they will continue to be an ensemble of empty noises. Creative peace and happiness in which every individual is free to grow and express the way he/she chooses should be the Hindu ideal. Mere sloganeering about dharma will not take Hindus to that goal. What Hindus need is purposive action, not pious words.
Its driving force will be geo-economic-political.
Swami Bodhananda.
Sent: Friday, August 01, 2003 4:27 PM

China's Attitude Towards India
Swami Bodhananda
(In an email response to PNS
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 3:07 PM)

...I am happy that the General body meeting went well.

The stand of Tamil Nadu Government is timely. We need only 15 per cent of the present employees to run the government effectively. All the states in India are heavily in debt and tax revenue is hardly enough for day today running of the government. The only way out is to encourage entrepreneurship by creating milieu for investment, by reducing tariffs, introducing labour laws conducive to productivity, rationalizing taxation, improving infrastructure and investing in publish health, education and housing.
I firmly support a uniform civil code. I don't think that in a secular democracy you need to consult religious leaders on these matters, a majority in parliament is enough to pass a resolution to that effect. So too about the women's reservation bill. I am for it, but don't think it is a pressing issue. Women already enjoy reservation in Panchayat samitis. First extend it to state legislatures and then to Parliament. Somehow I don't agree with the whole idea of reservation indefinitely, though one may have valid arguments for it in the Indian context.
China's attitude to India is funny. They are ruthlessly pragmatic, self centered and geopolitical in their strategies. They run a undemocratic, communist, authoritarian state, not afraid of the political cost of their policies. India will have to live with china's strategic hostility. Chanakya and Machiavelli have said that powerful neighbours will always be enemies. The funniest thing is that the repetition of China's claim over Arunachal Pradesh came just after Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's much touted recent state visit to China and before that of Defence Minister George Fernandez's. It happened before, when Vajapayee was visiting China as foreign minister, that country attacked Vietnam and Vajpayee had no clue about it. Eventually he had to cut his visit short.
India in my opinion is an unfinished work- a nation in the making. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Burma/Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Tibet and Maldives are all part of India's sphere of influence. It is only when we make it a political and economic reality that our civilization will really flourish, and we can fulfill our ambition of becoming a super power and an independent player on the world stage. The British when ruling India made sure that Tibet and Afghanistan remained neutral countries and the rest of the above countries were under their direct rule. As Guru Golwalker lamented:  "Mother India has been reduced to a torso". Her feet/ Sri Lanka and Maldives; Her hands/ Pakistan and Bangladesh; Her head/Tibet; Her flowing long thick locks/Burma and Afghanistan; Her colour bone/ Nepal are all cut off. Now she is reduced into an imbalanced inverted triangle.
Gandhari, who denied her the privilege of sight in sympathy with her blind husband, came from Afghanistan, Indra's tusker elephant Iravata came from the jungles of the Iravati river in Myanmar/Burma. India's two major life giving rivers - Sindhu and Brahmaputra arise in the Tibetan plateau. Our most revered Godhead Shiva is believed to be residing in the Tibetan Kailash, the reflection of which in the Manosarovar Lake nearby is an eternal symbol of Shiva -sakti union, the spiritual ideal of Hindus. Nepali Goorkha is the Kshatriya ideal of India. We have to think hundred years ahead to complete the Indian ideal. That unfoldment will materialize through our engagement with China. Either China or India- Bhai Bhai is not possible.
Our geopolitical interest is in breaking up China along Sinkiang, Inner Mongolia and Tibetan fault lines, by demanding human rights, religious freedom and democracy in China.
These are my random thoughts.
Love,
Swami Bodhananda.
Monday, July 28, 2003 3:07 PM

Human Values and Development
Swami Bodhananda
(In an email response to BPM
Sent: Monday, May 31, 2004 8:59 AM)

...
Please find the following notes for the talks:

A. On Human Values:

Values are set of principles that people cherish and try to live to enhance the quality of individual and collective life. It involves personal and community disciple and sacrifice/restraint/postponement of immediate gratification needs. Quality of life is a product of physical, social, environmental, mental, and spiritual health and wholeness.

1. Philosophical basis of Human Values-

What are the philosophical bases of Human Values? Theological, Ecological, Humanistic or survival of the race? Should values be based on reason and scientific knowledge; or pragmatic-empirical-utility considerations like maximum happiness of maximum people/common good etc.; or romantic ideals like equality, love and justice for all; are values revealed by God or are they precepts of exemplary people or self-evident axioms?

2. The Vedic roots of Values-

The Vedic statements like 'Truth is One, but paths are many', 'Truth alone Triumphs', 'All this is Brahman', ' World is One Family',' Let Noble thoughts come from all sides',' Love/Non-injury is the highest virtue', 'Thou art that',' 'Nishkama Karma, 'Loka samgraha', will be explored in understanding the Indian ideals of Values.

3. Human Values for the Global society and trans-national person-

The entire historical experience of humankind is the common heritage of all humanity. Nobody or no nation or no group or race can legitimately make any exclusive claim to what is common heritage and was the result of intermingling of ideas, people and movement of goods and services. This talk will be an enquiry into what is common to humanity and values and make it available for people without prejudice and who want to unfold their hidden potentialities.

B. Defining Development:

Industrial development based on scientific outlook and productive power structures have created enormous wealth at least for 1/5 of the human race. It has been proved that we don't have to live in poverty, ignorance and illness. But the hidden cost of this development also has been humongous. Stress, loneliness, violence, exploitation, disparities, pollution, environmental degradation and dysfunctions and illnesses related to these factors have taken away the sheen from the gains of unprecedented economic development. It seems that economic development is not possible without exploitation, domination and violence and uprooting large masses of humanity from their jobs and livelihood. There are three yard sticks to measure growth- the GDP approach, the HDI and the PPP. Some people recommend a new yard stick called Human Happiness Index or Quality Of Life Index. A new approach and measuring rod to Human progress/ Development has become necessary factoring all hidden costs and interests of all stake holders if we have to correctly assess human condition and prescribe directions and policies for the future Redefining the meaning of Development is the need of the hour.

Love
Swami Bodhananda.

Psychoanalysis & Deconstruction
Swami Bodhananda

...I believe in the free expression of ideas with good conscience, and in a spirit of fearless enquiry. I am not sure how far you have to be politically correct and belief/culture sensitive in articulating ideas. But a sceptical caution and humility in making truth claims are valuable qualifications for a scholar.
Psychoanalyzing/deconstructing Ramakrishna Paramahamsa may be a useful project if it helps us to plump the mysteries of human psyche. We all have the right to offer counter points. The present dialogue is falling into the level of Jalpa [wrangling] and Vitanda (fundamentalist posers).
Freudian analysis has serious defects being reductionistic and libido based. It doesn't lead to higher possibilities in terms of values, consciousness and sublime experiences. Maximum it can think of is of an adult personality, well-adjusted to the society.
The Tantra concept of uniting sexual energy with consciousness leading to all-encompassing love and compassion is a much higher paradigm. But that should not blind us to what happens in different levels of interactions and the social impact of what people think and do.
I think that this is a field for scholars to enquire research and debate, not for spiritual people to dabble.
India and Hinduism need a lot of sustained work in knowledge construction and institution building. Arrogance is good, but humility is better. Teaching is a privilege, but learning is a better privilege.
Swami Bodhananda
Wed, 4 Sep 2002 14:50:41 -0400

Source:  Swami Bodhananda
in an email response to SM Sent: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 14:50:41 -0400

Dharma, Colonisation & a Democratic Framework of Decision
Swami Bodhananda
... I returned from the retreat yesterday.
Let me try to state some definitions of Dharma:
1) that which sustains,
2) the natural/moral order that exists,
3) the individual and collective conduct that secures material and spiritual fulfillment,
4) duty dictated by one's innate nature and station in life,
5) non-injury/co-existence/multi-dimensionality,
6) God's Law/ dharmasya prabhu achyutah,
7) contemplative engagement,
8) moral choice,
9) personal responsibility,
10) the law of cause and consequence.

'Colonization' is not a law written on stone. 'Decolonization' should not become a cliché, a kind of obsessive compulsive reaction.
Remember the adage: 'once bitten twice shy'. It is true that the white race taking advantage of their superiority in rational thought (S&T) did expand their influence globally. But that wave is plateauing out.
It is time for us, the rest versus the west, to engage the Judo-Christian, Greco-Roman, Anglo-Saxon mind set and civilization constructively in our effort to create new modalities of thinking, being and living.
Colonization is a collective experience that the east and the west went through. It is our collective heritage. You can identify different layers and hierarchies in the colonial pyramid. It is not the 1000 civil servants that ruled 350 millions of Indians for 250 years. The rich Indians colonized the poor Indians, the upper caste the lower cast, the north the south, the white the black, the zamindar the tenant, the literate the illiterate, the bully the benign, the strong the weak, the city the village, man colonized women.. the list goes on and on.
We have to purge the colonial mind set from all of us. When you use the term 'western categories' and dump a whole lot of our collective experience in that box it reeks of an irrational value judgment and is denial of a part of our own unconscious. With that attitude we will never learn. The title, 'Heathen in his blindness' reminds me of a story of a Nambudiri Brahmin who scolded and cursed a crocodile which was dragging his wife into the depth of the waters.
As far as I can see the important task is to build institutions, frameworks, code of conduct, checks and balances to unleash the creative potential of individuals, groups and communities. A wide based democratic framework of decision making is the only mechanism for this task.
… we will continue this dialogue.
Swami Bodhananda

Source: Swami Bodhananda
Dharma, Colonisation & a Democratic Framework of Decision
in an email response to JK
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2003 9:59 AM

Values for Corporate Leadership
Swami Bodhananda
Prologue to the Seminar on Holistic Management held in New Delhi in 1995, organised by Sambodh Foundation and Bodhananda Research Foundation for Management and Leadership Studies.

There is a fear among many that we might be swept of our feet in the process of integrating our economy with the global economy. The challenge before us is how do we globalize and march into the forefront amongst the best in the world while retaining our Indian-ness and preserving our culture.
THE CHALLENGE is of competitiveness with roots.
THE MIND-SET is to have a shared philosophy that is energetically alive and continuously evolving.
THE REQUIREMENT is one of historical relatedness with contextual sensitivity.
THE ISSUE IS to retain Indian-ness, preserve our culture while we globalize, and to evolve a system of effective and collaborative advantage.
In this context, it would be appropriate to refer to the three fundamental principles of effective management:

1) Relationship between the individual and his/her work-world (the organisation) must be of the nature of progressive evolution. Beyond the immediate reasons (of physical sustenance) an individual has, for entering an organisation, and of the organisation's entertaining him/her, both should perceive strong sensibility.
Thus may the employer and the employee look at each other with the eye of friendliness: mitrasya chakshusha ekshamahe. This stays equally true for global alliances amongst organisations located in different parts of the world.

2) The employer-employee or the organisation-individual relationship should be more than a mere exchange, of getting something in return for the efforts made. Their relationship should involve collaboration, of creating a new value altogether. Their relationship is to be not only of expression but also of expansion for both the players.
This thought has been very beautifully expressed in Chapter 3 of the Bhagavad Gita:
devan bhavayetanena te deva bhavayantu vah
parasparam bhavayantah sreyah paramavapsyatha
Bhagavad Gita 3:11
"You cherish the organisation with your effort and the organisation will cherish you, and together you attain greater prosperity".

3) Though related to this is the principle that to effectively globalize, a narrow opportunistic view of relationships will not help us launch as international players. We need to step into the world of international business strengthened by strong internal infrastructure of cultural belongingness (Indian-ness) while exploring and experimenting with other systems the world over.
Thus the suggestion is 'to keep looking inwards and examine yourself while functioning in the outer world': avrtta chakshuh (Katopanishad 11:1.1). The suggestion is to stay related to your cultural roots.

With the discovery of difference among cultures or what many term as 'cultural diversity' the effort to evolve a set of values for corporate leadership becomes multiplex--a task which is both complex and has multiple issues interspersed. Let us attempt to identify some of these values:

a) The corporate leaders are no longer centers of excellence in themselves.
Instead they strive to build organisations that are centers of excellence. Thus, by 'multiplier effect' excellence nurtured and cherished promotes higher and higher order of excellence.
This cycle of excellence is set into motion only when the motives of CEOs are positive (to pursue future opportunities) and not negative (to mask weaknesses or escape a difficult situation).
The corporate leaders, therefore should exemplify the thought: panditah na anusocanti - 'leaders should not buckle under pressure, but happily invite challenges'. Enjoy uncertainties and remain undaunted by unknown situations [which are faced in today's transcultural environment].

b) There is the understanding that the sum is more than the parts.
There is a worldview of mutual relatedness and interdependence. The approach is to do yajna karma - team work and collective effort for the realization of higher goals. The Bhagavad Gita also reinforces: svadharme nidhanam sreyah paradharmo bhayavaha - the assertion is that no individual can work independently. Instead he should contribute his share to the collective effort and thus enhances his value.
Further, Vedanta says Tattvamasi: you are infinitely powerful; you have the power within you. Corporate leaders who choose to empower the employees within organisational framework thus provide them the means to use their energies for organisational advantage.

c) Both corporate leaders and their employees should enter into a pact of excellence by following the maxim of: yajnarthat karmanonyatra (Gita 3:9)-to do work as a yajna. When you change your attitude towards work and continue to do your work you will be able to unfold your inner potential. That is freedom. That is happiness.
Reinforced by such value system, the corporate leader of today could step into global business world of critical competitiveness and yet be able to lead a happy and fulfilled life.
yetra yogesvara krisna yetra partho dhanurdharah
tatra srirvijayobhutir dhruvanitir matir mama
Bhagavad Gita 18:77

Whenever you have your consciousness rooted in divinity and whenever you act in this world from that consciousness as a self-giving worker, not for any gross benefit, but just to express, just to be yourself, such work brings prosperity, peace and well-being.

If we can modify our thinking to bear a parallel to the work values discussed here, we could evolve work systems and work places to become centers of creative togetherness.

The Pseudo-Debate over the Enron Power Project
Swami Bodhananda
(This paper was written in 1995)

What is it that lies at the heart of the ongoing debate on the cancellation of the Enron Dabhol Power Project by the Maharashtra government headed by the BJP-Shivsena combine?

Is it a concern for endangered national security and cultural ethos, or is it an awareness of the need for an alternative global model based on environmentalism and human welfare or is it a perception of the possible plight of 70 per cent of the Indians who will presumably continue to remain poor bypassed by the forces of competitive market economy?

The Enron debate has revealed the thinking of three major national parties who are vying for power at the center in the coming general election scheduled to take place sometime in the first half of 1996. Of the three major aspects of the economic policy, that is: liberalization, privatization and globalization, BJP is opposed to globalization; JD and Left combine id deadly against both globalization and privatization, while the Congress supports all the three. All parties agree in that liberalization is the right policy, that the license permit raj must end and that internal competition should be encouraged. Whether there is liberalization or not, JD is more interested in securing seventy to eighty per cent job reservation for ST, SC, OBC and minorities. BJP is more concerned with the interests of Svadesi traders and businessmen who are afraid of Videsi competition.

There are the environmentalists and NGO activists who are against fast tract power projects, super highways, communication networks, and consumer products like 'Coco Cola', 'Pepsi', 'Mac Donalds' and 'Kentucky Fried Chicken', in the name of environmental protection and anti-consumerism. All of these self-appointed champions of public interest fail to ask one question before they launch their propaganda war and mass action plans: 'what will be the impact of their programs and activities on the people, especially the poor, fifty years down the road, say in 2050 AD, when one third of Indians living today are expected to be around?'.

a) Will the 70 crore Indians living below the poverty line, whose number is expected to go unto 100 crores by 2050AD, get clean drinking water, nutritious food, health care and vocational training?
b) Will the Svadesis be able to put in place an infrastructure-power, roads, communication networks-which can foster an economy of world-class competitiveness and productivity?
c) Will the Svadesis be able to raise the standard of living of Indians to that of an average Singaporean, and ensure productive employment to all?

If these three objectives are not achieved by 2050 AD we will not be able to preserve the political unity of our country. Nor will the people invest much value in our cultural ethos and secular democratic polity. Democracy and co-existence will be then the greatest casualties. The country may break up into a dozen or more warring republics run by elite ruling classes, by demagogues or by right wing fundamentalists. And that will be the end of India as a nation. The poor will get a raw deal. War and regional conflicts will then become the order of the day-a repeat of the fratricidal Balkan wars or the South American mass purges or the African tribal holocausts.

The experience of the four tiger nations of South East Asia teach us that the only dynamics which can lift 70 crores of poor Indians above the poverty line is a capitalist market economy which plays by the rules of international trade, judiciously pursuing national and corporate interests, so that productivity and wealth of individual citizens increases, and the nation will have a net flow of wealth. It is only a capitalist economy that could be interested in upgrading the knowledge and skill base of the people, in increasing the purchasing power of the consumers, in diversifying job opportunities and in relentlessly pursuing the goals of producing quality products for more and more people for lesser and lesser prices.

Politicians, businessmen, bureaucrats and even the academicians are not interested in uplifting the poor in India. They are more interested in sharing wealth than creating wealth. There is no passion for excellence in industry and academics.

Capitalist market economy could change all this and could give a run for their money to all prophets of status quo. It is the capitalist economy that can ensure better distribution of wealth and equality of opportunity by universalizing ownership capital. Capitalist market economy alone can ensure a democratic, secular polity and eventual unification of the subcontinent into single economic space and divert wasteful expenditure from defense, subsidies and non-productive governmental spending for infrastructure and social capital.

It is only a free play of market forces that can pull the economy from the stranglehold of black marketers, criminals, smugglers, corrupt officials, politicians and put the nation firmly on the rails of prosperity by unleashing the productive potential of the people.

Unfortunately the Enron controversy is not handled from this perspective. The pseudo-debate has taken away the nation's attention from the basic problems and issues. Where as the myopic political leaders, weakened businessmen, incompetent bureaucrats, tunnel visioned environmentalists and professional NGOs have all become a phalanx of monsoon frogs ricocheting the same tune which find its strange echo in the fossilized policies of left parties and their self-destruct trade union friends. The trade unionist instead of helping the worker to acquire new skills and attitudes compatible with the work culture of a competitive economy urges him to strike work and there by erodes his skill base and self-dignity. We have to understand that the worker cannot live on empty slogans.

No system can remove the poverty of 70 crores of Indians except the free market capitalist economy which is directed by a democratic, secular and pluralistic system of government. And removing poverty would mean producing more and consuming more. I would like to emphasize that removing poverty would mean that we have to produce and consume, perhaps a hundred times, more than the present level of production and consumption in India.

Can we start a rational, national debate on this vital assumption and review the Enron project in the light of that debate?
Pseudo-environmentalists, anti-consumerists, saffron-nationalists, careerists, activists and privatization paranoiacs, ARE YOU LISTENING?

Ethical Values in Management Practise
Swami Bodhananda
(This note was send in one of the correspondences with PNS, in 1995)

Subjective value has a meaning beyond the ego and Prakrti, beyond the Freudian Eros, beyond personal desire fulfillment. When Yajnavalkya says "all are dear for one's own sake' he seeks to point out the spiritual fulfillment. The words 'relative' or 'contextual' do not imply that there are no universally perceived and agreed upon values which are intrinsic-beyond the immediate, and which are pursued for their own sake. Atmanastu mokshartham jagat hitaya cha-Individual freedom and fulfillment is not opposed to, lokasamgraha, the welfare of the world. According to modern management customer satisfaction is the highest profit. The harmony between individual fulfillment and social well-being is implied in the Karma Yoga ideal, of serving the world as Lord's manifestation.

Dynamics of Action: [diagram not inserted here]

A B A-Macrocosmic-Isvaranugraha by following the law
Dharma 
Yajna 
B-Microcosmic- conditioning factors
(subjective and genetic)-Prarabdha turned into an asset by yajna karma
Karma 
C-Self-effort-education, knowledge, will, ambition . . .as present personal effort
In this dynamics variables and uncertainties are many. The projection of the result of an action is difficult.

Here individual choice and group decisions are made based on the following:

a) Scriptures-the law of the land, custom, culture and religious teachings-
tasmat sastram pramanam te (Bhagavad Gita 16:24)

b) Advice of Experienced and Wise men, who are catholic in vision and are devoid of pettiness and jealousy- adha te karma vijikitsa vrtta vijikitsa va syat
ye tatra brahmana samadarsinah yukta 
ayuktah aluksha dharmakama syat

(Taittiriya Upanishad)

c) One's own conscience-etat vimrsya yedhecchasi tata kuru 
(Bhagavad Gita 18:63)

d) Total surrender to the leader-nimitta matram bhava savyasachin 
(Bhagavad Gita 10:34)

e) To keep the end beneficiary of your action in mind-Gandhiji's ideal

Goals:

An organization has 6 goals:
1) Profit
2) Customer satisfaction
3) Continued growth
4) Quality
5) Worker satisfaction
6) Market Share

These goals are composite and cannot stand apart. Profit is a quantifiable and tangible goal. No organization can pursue any other goals on the face of mounting losses.

PROFIT [diagram not inserted here--please contact info@sambodh.org]
CUSTOMER 
SATISFACTION QUALITY
MARKET SHARE

This is also a dynamic concept and the variables are changing and not static.

But Profit will always be at the apex or in the center of business goals. Transparency in dealings, quality production, speed, innovation, service to the customer, enrichment of the worker, social responsiveness etc. will enhance the competitiveness and profitability of the organization.

Reasons for unethical practices:

1) Lack of competition and market mechanisms.
2) Unimaginative impractical laws and restrictions in pursuance of uneconomic and non-productive goals: e.g.: socialism, svadesi, reservation of jobs without social investment in education and health.
3) Emphasis on wealth sharing than wealth creation.
4) Democratic and egalitarian ambitions of people in the context of economic and social/caste backwardness.

Therefore, apart from building individual character and organizational culture, an open, transparent, competitive, wealth generating society is to be created. To the extent we move towards it to that extent corruption and unethical practices will decrease. At least the oppressive character of corruption will be lessened. The highly corrupt economies of the world-Japan, Italy-are fast growing economies too.

Conflict between Manager as a Person and Executive:

In a highly corrupt and backward economy like India, with innumerable legal and bureaucratic bottlenecks, economic wisdom and moral sensitivity could come into direct conflict. In such occasions managers will have to take a practical though morally and ethically sensitive decisions.

Rama killed Vali hiding behind a tree. Krishna could be accused of unethical practices in the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Managers should have a dharmika lakshmana rekha, a tripwire, beyond which they would not go. The welding of practical considerations and ethical sensitivity is done in the heart of the managers. And it is an ongoing process.

The reasons that you have identified for corruption, tax evasion, avoiding PF etc. are exhaustive provided we read them in the proper context. A third world government promulgating first world social security laws for business and industry cannot expect full compliance-hence tax evasion, avoiding PF, pollution etc. I don't think government departments avoid taxes or PSUs avoid PF. Because they fall back on tax payer's money.

I would say corruption is good economics and bad morality. It is the economic grease for the engine of a dysfunctional economy.

Analyze the phenomenon of corruption in this background. Let us concentrate on understanding the phenomenon than condemning it.

The solution to the problem lies in leadership, organizational culture and a growth oriented, wealth generating, open, competitive market economy, with democracy and spiritual values.

The New Principles of Training should Include:

1) The Law of Brahma: Individual is the field of infinite potentialities.

2) The Law of Dharma: Every individual by action interacts with the society and environment, and vice versa, and creates unending ripples and consequences-the interdependence of independent units.

3) The Law of Karma: Every individual action creates subtle impressions in the individual psyche backward and forward-reprogramming his destiny and background-choice maker-responsibility

4) The Law of Maya: There is constant flux. There is need for innovation and change, renunciation, detachment and continuous improvement.

5) The Law of Yajna: There is the need for teamwork, sharing, giving, synergy etc. what we give come back to us in thousand fold. There is need for circulation.

6) The Law of Yoga: There is a balance of forces and factors-rootedness in the core/center-flexible regarding periphery.

7) The Law of Janma: There is recreation, reinvention, evolution, devolution, degradation, going back and forth on the ladder of Karma.

If you don't grow and evolve, you will decay and perish.
So, keep growing!

 

The Folly of Exclusive Claims on Truth
Swami Bodhananda
(in an email response to a query from M
Sent: Friday, October 29, 2004 3:40 PM)

...
I fully appreciate your thoughts on monotheism and idolatry. You also mentioned Islam, Christianity and Judaism in that context. According to you all these three Abrahamic religionists are monotheists and are willing to slit the throat of anyone who believes otherwise.

The consequences of this kind of irrationality and intolerance are palpably evident in what is happening these days in Iraq. Innocent people's throats are slit in the name of Allah. Jews were instrumental in killing the pious Jesus because he spoke of God differently than the Jewish leaders could tolerate. Christians killed fellow Christians who spoke differently than the official papaI line about Jesus' relationship with God. It is estimated that more than six million Christians, (forget the Muslims and other so called heathens who were killed), perished in the hands of zealot Christians.

I don't think, ..., a good and honest Christian like you, who follow Christ whose overarching teaching was to ' Love your neighbor as you love God" would accept such horrible consequences of intolerance and fanaticism involved in monotheism. 

The dispute here is not about the oneness of God, the dispute is about the the 'Idol', that is means, through which God is revealed and worshipped in turn. Hindus believe that God reveals in many ways and can be worshipped in many modes, through many channels. That belief is what you, erroneously, condemn as 'idolatry'. Be a little more reasonable and try to understand what others have to say about their experience of God.

Abrahamic religionists are only 3 billion in the world, other three and half billion of the world choose to worship God differently. You don't have to act as the wholesale agent of God. God is more encompassing for you to smother Him/Her in your little box, come on, Mark! Mark my words!

You say my 'hodge podge' is confusing, I feel your certitude is alarming and dangerous to humanity's peaceful co-existence.You say that I am guilty of idolatry, I say you are guilty of genocide. You say that the Abrahamic religions that I endorse condemn idolatry, but I say that all religions including the Abrahamic are idolatrous. The cross, the kabba, the tabernacle, the person of Jesus, Moses and Mohammed, the books - are all idols which signify meaning and transcendence. The idol signifies the ideal.

The first amendment to the American Constitution gives me the right to profess and peacefully practice any mode of belief and worship that I choose. I hope you will respect my constitutional right. I come from a religious tradition in which we are taught to respect all modes of worship and all conceptions about God. To see oneness that holds maniness. That is the only way to ensure peace on earth and survival of humanity. Not to slit each other's throat in the name of my God versus your God.

I wish you meditate on this vedic dictum: "One God - Many paths."
Thank you once again M...
You said you love me, let me assure you, I too love you.

Good Wishes!
Swami Bodhananda

Renunciation and Call of Duty
Swami Bodhananda
(in an email response to RG, the author of a write-up on 'renunciation and Indian politics' which appeared in an Indian daily)
Sent by email: Monday, June 07, 2004 10:51 AM

Dear R...,
I just read your article on ' Non-renunciation'.

It was not clear what was your position, but I presume that you are appreciative of Sonia Gandhi's renunciation of the PM's post that was rightfully hers.

Nehru considered PM"s post a duty that he was called upon to perform, while Indira Gandhi and Rajiv took it as their privilege. Sonia Gandhi, according to you, knew well that she was not Congress nor was she synonymous with India. Everybody appreciated Sonia's dispassionate gesture.

But analyzing it from the paradigm of Varnasrama Dharma is stretching imagination too much. Since when have scholars started benchmarking social and political events against the much despised Varnashrama Dharma. Neither Sonia Gandhi, nor the Congress party nor the Indian society follow the Varnashrama model of social organization or praxis. Ours is a Parliamentary Democracy practicing competitive market economy pursuing the goal of equality and justice for all regardless of their religion, language or gender.

You can always find earthly reasons for the renunciation of Buddha, Gandhi or the death of Jesus on the cross. But we have created myths around them and they have become icons. The same thing is being done to Sonia's sensible action and instead of seeing it as such the myth making has started. The result will be to put her permanently on the cross or compel her to be a permanent renunciant. I hope you scholars will not succeed in that objective. I am sure that she will stake claim to the Prime Ministership if her party gets absolute majority in the parliament or a comfortable number of seats, say 230, in a coalition.

I see Sonia Gandhi an intelligent woman with a strategic eye on power. I will consider her act as really renunciation if she like Bhishma forswears power for ever publicly or like Siddhartha leaves family and the palace of pleasure totally in search of higher spiritual values. Rama did not renounce power; he only went to the forest temporarily to fulfill father's promise and came back to assume power.

I would like to know how you classify Sonia's renunciation, like that of Rama's, Buddha's or Bhishma's. In the first case power was not given up, in the second case power was totally given up and in the third case he remained a kingmaker.
Hope you will find time to respond.

Incidentally, I liked your presentation given in the Nehru Memorial Museum on Nehru's death anniversary.

Regards,
Swami Bodhananda.

Psychology of the Bhagavad Gita
Swami Bodhananda
In an email response to SM
Sent: Saturday, 14 May 2005 07:28:04 +0000
From Los Angeles

If psychology is a value free objective study of mind then the Bhagavad Gita may not be qualified as a psychological treatise. Bhagavad Gita studies mind in the context of the Immutable consciousness/atman-brahman and the objective interpersonal world.

One is an ontological assumption and the other an experiential fact. Bhagavad Gita's interest in the mind, the mediating entity, is because it is the instrument of transcendence/self knowledge. Mind with senses is the instrument of knowing the world and when detached and reflective it becomes capable of knowing the self/truth/God.

Psychology started with the study of neurosis, the various disfunctions of the mind. Discovery of the unconscious was a major turning point. The objective was to understand the hidden inner drives and organise them for a well-adjusted life. The stimulus-response model, the will to power model, sexual suppression model, drive to transcendence model, the rational choice maker model -- all these ideas contributed to the understanding of mind and human behaviour. We find all these ideas explored in the Bhagavad Gita in understanding human mind and human motives and action.

Bhagavad Gita begins with a description of the break down of a healthy, competent human being in a very stressful and conflicting situation. Stress was due to the stake involved and the immediacy of the crisis and conflict because of lack of acceptable choices. So Bhagavad Gita's focus is a healthy mind in temporary crisis, which if not solved may deteriorate into mental, physical and social illness. Arjuna's problem is not due to sexual suppressions, past traumas, hormonal imbalance or due to brain damage. It is a thinking man's problem - dharma sammoodha cheta.

Bhagavad Gita begins with the exposition of the immortality of the Self and an exhortation not to grieve. Krishna also appeals to Arjuna's pride: "give up this unbecoming, heaven denying, inglorious weakness"; reminds Arjuna of his vocation/duty: "get up and fight fight this righteous battle"; tickles Arjuna's ambition: "win the battle, gain glory and enjoy the kingdom". 

Krishna also tries a pessimistic and materialistic piece of advice: "life is short and uncertain, so as well enjoy it". But the main line that Krishna follows is that of the transcendental. We all are the immortal Self. The purpose of life is to discover that and abide in that. That is bliss. A pure mind is the instrument of knowing the self.

Purity of mind is gained by practicing the twenty (BG-Ch.13)/ twenty seven (BG-Ch.16) values while engaged in the worldly activities ie. practice of karma yoga. For the self abiding work becomes a means of serving the world - lokasamgraha. Bhagavad Gita gives a picture of the enlightened person - sthitaprajna - which is the ultimate possibility of human life-a mind abiding happily in the happy self while engaged in the world with altruistic intentions, calm and free from emotional fluctuations. Self ignorance projects desire to possess and indulge leading to frustrations which leads to further desire prompted activities and the cycle repeats endlessly. 'Get off this cycle -- nistraigunyo bhava', is the clarion call of Bhagavad Gita.

Bhagavad Gita is more prescriptive than descriptive, normative than narrative. Its focus never deviates from the goal while dealing with the various means to reach the goal. Kama, krodha, lobha, moha, ahamkara, raga, dvesha, phalecha - all broods of ignorance are the root cause of human misery. These are mental impurities.

These impurities can be removed by practicing all the above values while engaged in the worldly duties. According to the Bhagavad Gita mind is a combination of manas, buddhi, and ahamkara. The faculties of five sense organs and five motor organs are also added to the mind. The activity of the mind is determined by prakriti/svabhava. This value can be equated with the unconscious of modern psychology. 'Prakriti tvam niyogshyati' --prakriti will impel you, - 'svabhavastu pravartate' - it is aquired nature that propels, 'sadrisam chestate svasya prakrite jnanavanapi' -- even a wise man functions according to his nature. Prakriti is a carry forward from previous life.

Bhagavad Gita advocates a vocation in tune with ones prakriti. A vocation in tune with ones prakriti is called svadharma. Prakriti is a dynamic of three gunas - SRT - sattva, rajas and tamas . The prakriti of an individual is determined by the predominant guna in his mental make up. 

Accordingly he is inclined to different pursuits/vocations. His ego, knowledge, work, inclinations, goals, happiness experience all are determined by this guna mix.
In the area of mind and work Bhagavad Gita is deterministic. There is no way a tamasic mind can become rajasic and then satvic as far as choice of vocation is concerned. That is why different disciplines are prescribed for brahmana, kshatriya, vaisya and sudra/ "brahmana kshatriya vaisyam sudranam cha parantapa karmani pravibhaktani svabhava prabhavai gunai". Ones vocation is predetermined, depending on the prakriti which is a carry forward from the past. But this has nothing to do with ones birth in a particular social strata, but purely by inborn guna and the consequent karma.

How to determine ones guna/prakriti/svabhava? The Gita is silent here. In the Mahabharata there are stories where prakriti is determined by the fact of birth in the particular social group. But it has no Bhagavad Gita sanction. Bhagavad Gita doesn't seem to recommend market competition either. May be the individual is the best authority to determine his guna/ prakriti. By this deterministic approach Bhagavad Gita skirts the issue of competition, evolution, material progress, conflicts, neurosis, violence, dialogue and decision making.
So what to do is question that is determined for us by our prakriti/"sahajam karma kaunteya sadosamapi ne tyajet". Peace is attained by accepting ones prakriti, and choosing ones vocation accordingly.

Man-woman relationship also is subject to this law of prakriti. Woman has a defined place and she has to accept that. 'What is my dharma' this agonizing question is finally answered by submitting to ones predetermined place and vocation. By putting individuals into these predetermined procrustian boxes Bhagavad Gita ensures social harmony, mental peace and detached reflectivity. All this mutilation of human psyche is done with the objective of obtaining transcendence. Do your work as an offering to Me/bhakti yoga; detach from the fruits of work/karma yoga; meditate on the immortal self/jnana yoga, became the clarion call of Bhagavad Gita.

It is not change of vocation or climbing the social or evolutionary ladder that is advocated. It is alignment with ones prakriti, avoiding inner conflicts of misalignment, and transcending the entire infrastructure of prakriti including the mind. In this process buddhi plays an important role -- "evam budhe param budhva samsthabhyatmanamatmna jahi satrum mahabaho". 

Buddhi is the faculty for understanding. Buddhi understands by study. Manas is purified by practice of values. Bhagavad Gita also advocates detachment -- from sense objects by knowing them to be impermanent.

The Bhagavad Gita is for the healthy to become healthier, not for ones like Duryodhana who is a maniac nor Karna who suffers from severe complexes, but for the likes of Arjuna, Dharmaputra and Bhishma. The Bhagavad Gita approach is preventive than curative, its goal is not to fix a broken mind but to inspire a stalled mind to come out of boxes. This approach is very relevant today as more people are suffering not from any diagnosable problems, but from existential crisis of purposelessness, boredom and lack of wholesome interests.

Swami Bodhananda 

A Response to “Without God” – by Steven Weinberg,  The New York Review of Books, September 25, 2008
Swami Bodhananda
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2008 21:10:39 -0800
Subject: Re: The Article "Without God"

Dear Sri Shah,
Thank you for sending me this article on 'Religion Versus Science'. I think it is an impartial assessment of the present state of the ageold controversy between these two disciples. One thing we all agree, whether people of faith or science, is that human being with his limited mind will never fathom fully the mystery of existence. At the same time we have this insatiable urge to know and expand the area of our knowledge. We know that there is a cognitive limit, yet we want to break out of it. 

The science -religion conflict is due to a fussy categorization of domains. Religion is old science and science is new religion which will become old in turn. The Vedas answer this question with a puzzled poser: ' Does any body know'? 'Those who claim they know don't know', says the Kena Upanishad. Truth is beyond the 'known and the unknown', say all Upanishads. We have to go through all truth claims with a fine tooth comb. Personally I prefer to challenge all truth claims -- be it scientific or religious. But I choose to live by certain values like truth, non-violence, and sharing, pray for inner purity and continue to ask questions. Humility and openmindedness are the hall amrk of a spiritual seeker. I find problems with both science and religious claims.

What I find distasteful in the article is his settling for a drab mediocre life. This Nobel laureate may get his fulfillment from scientific pursuits. But what about those who are not interested in science? There are other ways of seeking fulfillment and defining experiences. I don't want to convert a scientist, but I am willing to listen to him, just to know what he knows. If he is curious he will listen to me to know what I know. In the process not only we understand each other but also we understand better what we thought we understood before. For a pure scientist, religion may be of little value, but for a religious person science is of immense value. A religious person is more responsible than a scientist. Scientist may say the brute fact as he knows it, religious person knows that facts may lie and he asks his soul or conscience for guidance. A responsible scientist and a spiritual person think alike. Both will be nonviolent. They will not be interested in converting each other, but will be ready to converse with one another. I think the final test of spirituality is not the certainty about Truth or God, but our willingness to talk with each other respectfully. Ahimsa Paramo Dharma- nonviolence is supreme spirituality.

I thoroughly enjoyed your response and understand your anguish about a respected scientist propagating crap consumerism, atheism and moral relativism. But as an Advaita spiritualist I think he has a point. Truth is one, but pundits speak differently.

I leave for India on the 10th of November.
Please give my regards to Vibha Shah,
Love,
Swami Bodhananda.

A Discussion Between A Politician, An Environmentalist, An Industrialist, A Farmer, A Scientist, A Labour Leader, An Economist,  And BRF-ML*
Swami Bodhananda
This discussion was conceived and textualised by Swami Bodhananda in 1997
* BRF-ML is Bodhananda Research Foundation for Management and Leadership Studies

POLITICIAN: I want to remove poverty, illiteracy, disease and protect the poor, the scheduled castes, backward classes and minorities from exploitation and discrimination.

ENVIRONMENTALIST: I am against huge dams, power stations, more vehicles on the road; I want to protect our environment, our air, water, soil, trees and the tribals.

INDUSTRIALIST: How can you remove poverty without generating more power, putting up more factories, manufacturing more vehicles and consumer goods? Is not poverty, disease and illness due to industrial backwardness?

FARMER: I constitute seventy five percent of this country. It is really sad that government cares only for the city and the middle class. I want control over resources - electricity, fertilisers, water, land, forests and seeds. And I am not in a position to pay for any of them.Paying taxes will only relocate resources from village to city; so I dont pay taxes. I want to travel free of charge in trains and in other public transport. Subsidy for fertilisers, electricity and petroleum products are my birth right. Government must by my grain (I admit that inefficient methods of production has made my productivity the lowest in the world) at my price, or at a politically manipulated price. I will not allow market forces to function. Markets are no answer to poverty.

SCIENTIST: I am fed up with our science institutions which have become dens of nepotism, bureaucratic bungling and corruption. I have been in this institute my whole life; but nobody allowed me to do anything. Now they are delaying my promotion. What do the IAS people know about science? Had I been in the US I would have done something creative and been considered even for a nobel prize.

ECONOMIST: What we need is macroeconomic adjustment, holding the prices, attract foreign investments, blah...blah... blah!

BRF-ML: Can we agree upon a common goal?

POLITICIAN: Removal of poverty.

ENVIRONMENTALIST: Protection of environment.

INDUSTRIALIST: More production.

FARMER: Higher prices for farm products.

SCIENTIST: More R&D.

ECONOMIST: GDP of a middle income economy.

LABOUR LEADER: More wages.

BRF-ML: Are they irreconcilable or are they complementary goals?

POLITICIAN: What do you mean? The poor is becoming poorer, and the rich getting richer!

ENVIRONMENTALIST: Development at the cost of environment is suicidal. Let the tribals live in the forest. Let us not uproot them from their habitat. Recently I presented a paper on "Tribal roots of environmentalism" in a New York think tank seminar, and also held lectures at Washington, London, Paris, Tokyo and Sydney on the topic "Tribals in India" which were highly appreciated.

INDUSTRIALIST: If we are not allowed to put up more factories, and their is no peace in the labour front, production will not pick up, jobs will suffer, income will fall and as a result the rich may or may not become richer, but the poor will certainly become poorer.

POLITICIAN: We will nationalize all Industries, create more jobs, and overnight remove poverty by distributing national wealth equitably.

ECONOMIST: But what will you distribute? Unless wealth is created what is there to be distributed?

LABOUR LEADER: That is a capitalist argument - 'first create wealth and then distribute'! But we want first distribution of wealth; creation can be thought of later. After all wealth is accumulated surplus labour. Even 'capital' is 'surplus labour' according to Marx.

FARMER: We are the primary producers, the rest are living on us. Make the farmers rich, the whole country will become rich. 

ECONOMIST: But in rich countries agriculture contributes only three per cent to the GDP. Ninety seven per cent of GDP comes from manufacturing, services and entertainment industries! But three per cent of world population consumes twenty five per cent of world resources and causes twenty per cent of world pollution. I am not at all happy with the state of affairs in advanced countries.

POLITICIAN: We don't want economic neocolonialism of USA and Europe. We dont want our industry to be controlled by foreign equity. We want foreigners to invest in India on our terms. Mind you 'no potato chips but only micro chips'. I threw out Coca-Cola in 1976, and then booted out Enrohn in 1996.

LABOUR LEADER: We don't want foreign competition which will make our inefficient industries totally sick. Our consumers will start demanding, corrupted by foreign advertisements, quality goods at competitive prices. More workers will be thrown out of jobs as companies downsize and restructure, which will cause more unemployment. I say it will be development without a human face. I will be constrained to call for a nation wide strike, and will be forced to paralyse the economy. I repeat: No privitisation, no foreign competition.

BRF-ML: Wait a minute! Let us not be carried away by our respective rhetorics. Is there any correlation between removal of poverty and production?

THE REST: Yes, but ...

BRF-ML: Is there any correlation between production and productivity?

THE REST: Yes indeed! Without productivity income will not increase , and poverty will not be removed.

BRF-ML: Without higher absolute and average income can there be higher wages for labour and higher income for farmers?

FARMER: But seventy five per cent of nation's income should go to the farmers because they constitute seventy five per cent of the population who can make or unmake governments.

ECONOMIST: On what criteria is this claim made? Is it on the basis of the number of heads or on their average productivity?

FARMER &
POLITICIAN: On the basis of number of heads. In a democracy heads count. We may even pass a legislation, by our majority, for equitable and universal distribution of wealth!

ECONOMIST: If income is shared on the basis of numbers, will it not discourage hardwork and thrift, and become a disincentive for productivity? A situation in which a few work hard, and others share the fruit will lead to a culture of grabbing without contributing to the national kitty.

SCIENTIST: What should be the basis of sharing - productivity or procreativity?

POLITICIAN,
FARMER & LABOUR LEADER: That is a bourgeoisie capitalist question! The capitalists and the landlords in collusion with colonialists and the world bank amass wealth by exploiting the labour, the farmer and the backward classes of the community. It is a blatant brahminical conspiracy.

BRF-ML: Hold your breath! Don't raise your blood pressure by obsolete sloganeering. Let us suppose, that in a group of ten, two members contribute eighty per cent to the production and the other eight only twenty per cent. How would you persuade the two to share the produce equally?

LABOUR LEADER &
FARMER: Is not that a hypothetical question? You are arbitrarily evaluating the contribution of each sector to the GDP, or each factor to the produce, from your standpoint.

ECONOMIST: If the two leave production will fall by eighty per cent; where as the absence of the eight can cause only twenty per cent fall in production.

LABOUR LEADER: Do you mean that labour contributes only to twenty per cent of the value of the production though it constitutes eighty per cent of the work force? If so why is management not able to run the factory when labour strikes work?

ECONOMIST: It is not a comparison between labour and capital in one country alone. It is a comparison between labour in different countries, and also between performance of capital.Comparatively productivity of Indian labour and capital is only twenty per cent of developed countries, though it goes up phenomenally once they go abroad.

BRF-ML: Does it have something to do with our work culture?

LABOUR LEADER: There is nothing wrong with our work culture. Our labour works hard, sweats out in extremely harsh work conditions, but still gets only laughably low wages.

FARMER: So too our farmers! They also work like beasts of burden, from morning till evening, through out the year. And what do they get? The city people take away all their grain, vegetables, milk and cotton, and give them matches, tooth paste, soap and cinema in return at unfavourable exchange rates.

ECONOMIST: What does that mean? Though Indian labour and farmer work hard, their productivity is abysmally low.

LABOUR LEADER: It is not that productivity is low. The capitalist manipulates the accounts and show low production and profits. They generate black money and put it away in foreign banks. It is a case of capitalist greed and dishonesty. It is also due to political corruption, with huge deposits of kick back money tucked away in the vaults of Swiss banks. All loot from the tax payers' money. If we bring back all that money not only all our debts - national and foreign - could be liquidated but also our people will have enough to live in comfort.

POLITICIAN: It is the previous ruling party which has amassed wealth and stalked in foreign banks.

ENVIRONMENTALIST: But, now you are in power, why don't you expose them and bring back the stolen wealth?

POLITICIAN: Sorry! My parliamentary arithmetic does not allow that.Nor do the foreign banks cooperate. Frankly speaking I don't think that there is so much Indian loot there in Swiss banks.

ENVIRONMENTALIST: Then why didn't you say that before? During the election rallies you were categorical about kick backs kicking away in foreign banks!

POLITICIAN: Because people wanted to hear salacious stories! More over I had no access to secret papers! And to tell you the truth I knew nothing about international banking practices.

ECONOMIST: Why dont you tell that truth to the labour and people of this country at large.

POLITICIAN: Labour knows it. In fact some labour leaders themselves have foreign bank deposits and some are my colleagues in the present cabinet.

BRF-ML: If we cannot remove poverty by bringing back loot from Swiss banks , what else can we do to remove poverty?

POLITICIAN: By raiding the premises of the rich - their puja rooms and farm houses; by increasing supply of money; by borrowing; by massive poverty alleviation programs; and by reserving eighty five per cent of the government jobs for the backward classes!

ECONOMIST: How much do you think will raids yield?

POLITICIAN: I guess, about fifty to sixty crores of rupees.

ECONOMIST: By way of printing notes?

POLITICIAN: About two thousand to three thousand crores of rupees.

ECONOMIST: And, how much will borrowing bring?

POLITICIAN: May be to the tune of eight thousand to ten thousand crores of rupees.

ECONOMIST: How many jobs can be provided to the poor by reservation?

POLITICIAN: Four thousand to five thousand jobs per annum.

LABOUR LEADER: But we have four hundred crores unemployed in our country!

ECONOMIST: Does currency note create wealth?

THE REST: Not at all! But ...

ECONOMIST: Do raids bring enough money?

POLITICIAN: Only a paltry sum!

ECONOMIST: Will not spending on poverty alleviation by borrowing indebt the future generation,and drain away productive resources to nonproductive populist schemes? I remember a saying " Dont give them fish, but teach them to catch fish."

POLITICIAN: Poverty alleviation is an HRD investment, an investment for the future.

ECONOMIST: But do we have the infrastructure for the effective implementation of poverty alleviation programs?

POLITICIAN: At least a few poor people are benefited by the antipoverty programs! A few of them have even become rich.

BRF-ML: Friends, do we have any other option than increasing the efficiency of capital and labour for poverty alleviation?

THE REST: For that we all should work together, sharing a common vision.

BRF-ML: Then what is it that holds us from working together with a set of values and shared vision?

INDUSTRIALIST: Labour doesn't want to work.

LABOUR LEADER: Capital exploits - In fact labour and capital are natural enemies.

POLITICIAN: We don't get stable governments. People throw out governments like they wipe out sweat from their foreheads.

SCIENTIST: India is too other worldly and lacks the scientific temper.

BRF-ML: Let us come back to the basic question - can we all agree on a single vision, a clear goal?

THE REST: Yes, removal of poverty!

BRF-ML: Can you put it positively?

ECONOMIST: Creation of wealth!

THE REST: Yes, but who will create wealth?

ENVIRONMENTALIST: Is not wealth the cause of all evil?

INDUSTRIALIST: If wealth is evil, why do we all enjoy it? - a fat salary, house, car, colour television, washing machine, cooking range, micro-oven, garments, jewelry, annual vacation etc. etc.

POLITICIAN: But majority of our people live in poverty. They cannot even dream of those gadgets.

ECONOMIST (To the politician): Are you poor?

POLITICIAN: By God's grace I removed my poverty long back. I have been a five time MP, you know!

ENVIRONMENTALIST: But we will not be able to ensure all those comforts to all our people without endangering the environment irretrievably.

BRF-ML: So a few will have to abstain from material comforts and take to vow of voluntary poverty!

LABOUR LEADER: That is spiritual nonsense. Religion is the opium of the masses. We believe in material prosperity - removing poverty and enjoying affluence through socialism, and the efficient harnessing of the powers of science and technology.

BRF-ML: Will any one of us abstain from material comforts and voluntarily live in a self sufficient rural community without the comforts of science and technology, and the trappings of consumer culture?

(THE REST -- long silence ... sighs ... grunts ... swallowing lumps of saliva ...)

ENVIRONMENTALIST: But then the tribals, animals, trees, insects, reptiles, ... biodiversity ... soil ... water ... air ... ...blah blah blah ...

BRF-ML: Does that mean prosperity is nothing but an increase in the per capita consumption of goods and services?

ENVIRONMENTALIST: That is a vulgar way of putting it , though in effect that is the truth!

BRF-ML: Is it clear to the politician, to the labour leader and to the farmer that prosperity means increasing consumption?

ENVIRONMENTALIST: But the quantity consumed does not increase the quality of life!

ECONOMIST: But without a certain quantity does quality have any meaning?

FARMER: Even Swami Vivekananda had said that God appears to a hungry man in the form of food.

LABOUR LEADER: Marx had also said that quality is substrated on quantity - economic relations determine all other relations, beliefs and thought systems.

INDUSTRIALIST: Our own 'Panchatantra' says that all qualities are based on wealth - sarve gunah kanchanamasrayanti.

SCIENTIST: It is the wonders of science and technology which uplifted humankind from millennia long drudgery, and unleashed his creative potential. All creative achievements - quantum leaps - came along the industrial revolution.

ENVIRONMENTALIST: But what about environment?

BRF-ML: Should the poor countries take upon themselves the entire burden of the environment?

THE REST: That is unfair. Environment calls for global action.

ENVIRONMENTALIST: Does that mean till such global consensus emerges we continue polluting our life system - the biosphere?Should we not learn from past mistakes of others?

ECONOMIST: There are technologies which are non-polluting and eco-friendly.

INDUSTRIALIST: But they are costly technologies, and Indian industry will not be able to afford them.

BRF-ML: It is in such areas that our collective bargaining power vis a vis the developed countries should be exercised. Biodiversity, rain forests and the sun are our assets. Technology and capital are theirs'. Just as they factor non-economic issues like human rights and child labour into trade negotiations, we should ask for eco-friendly technology for our contribution to the environmental wealth of the world. They must be able to finance eco-friendly technology transfer with the money they save from cutting down on wasteful and environmentally hazardous military spending.

ENVIRONMENTALIST: I agree hundred per cent with that idea.

POLITICIAN,
FARMER &
LABOUR LEADER: We should pass a resolution in the UN, organise dharnas, sittings, and a host of such protest marches to teach the imperialists and western capitalists a bitter lesson.

BRF-ML: It is not a question of 'we' teaching 'them' a lesson. Instead it is a question of 'all of us' sitting together and learning bitter lessons collectively. We have to forge global decision making mechanisms and institutions to ensure our collective survival.

ECONOMIST: What does that mean? We all should come together, work hard, to produce quality and eco-friendly goods at lower prices , creating collective wealth.

POLITICIAN: But that was precisely what we were doing the last fifty years -- IIT-s, IIM-s, Universities, R&D centers, PSU-s with a whopping investment of two lakhs sixty thousand crores of rupees. Still why do people remain poor?

LABOUR LEADER: That was because you chose a chameleon kind of path, neither capitalist nor socialist, and you fell between the two stools. Look at USSR - the world communist giant, a super power!

FARMER: But they are Godless!

ECONOMIST: Which world are you living in? USSR is history, a dinosaur! It is no more on the map of the world, or in the UN.

LABOUR LEADER: You are echoing a capitalist lie. Then why are they courting China? At least People's Republic of China is a paragon of communist values.

BRF-ML: Friends, that means we are all living in our own private worlds! There is no communist country worth the name on the face of the globe. Today we are living in a world of free market democracies, global alliances and transnationals.

ECONOMIST: Do you all agree with the proposition that wealth creation should have precedence over wealth distribution? And that job creation should precede job distribution and reservation? And that all these are possible when the productivity of the Indian economy, of its R&D, capital, infrastructure and labour leapfrog?

THE REST: You said it! Yes, yes, but ... no, no, yes ...

BRF-ML: And that the wealth creation activity is most efficiently organised in a free market economy!

(THE REST: long pause ...)

LABOUR LEADER: Marx vs Market!

FARMER: God vs Market!

POLITICIAN: Election vs Market!

ENVIRONMENTALIST: Pollution vs Market!

SCIENTIST: Research vs Market!

ECONOMIST: Scarce resource vs Market!

THE REST: But market does not produce wealth!

BRF-ML: Market is the space where decisions are taken and choices are made regarding wealth creating activities.

POLITICIAN ( in surprise): Not by the parliament? Not by the cabinet? Not by the planning commission? Not by the majority? Not by the poor people of this long suffering country?

ECONOMIST: Economic decisions are best left to individuals themselves. Market organises nth number of individual decisions by the so called invisible hand into the most productive utilisation of scarce resources.

POLITICIAN: But the ignorant villager is least equipped to take decisions. What does he know? Has he studied the constitution of India?

LABOUR LEADER: True, what does the illiterate worker know? Has he studied the labour laws?

FARMER: God knows everything! Why should we know? Everything is written in our Karma. Things happen to us accordingly. After all, is not the world a grand illusion? What do you and I know about the mysterious ways of God?

INDUSTRIALIST: If the market decides, then we need a level playing field. You cannot put lion and lamb together and say that let them decide among themselves. At least we need protection from foreign wolves of competition.

ECONOMIST: But how will you learn the ropes of global market unless you compete?

BRF-ML: It is like saying that you will not jump into water until you know swimming!

ENVIRONMENTALIST: Beware farmers! Foreign companies will patent seeds, neem, tamarind products and you will not be able to use any of them without paying hefty royalties to them. You will, as a result, lose your hard earned freedom.

ECONOMIST: But patency is for a particular product or process developed by them and not for raw materials found in nature.

SCIENTIST: But the foreigners are so clever and fast that they will soon exploit all product possibilities, and we in India will be left with nothing to discover and to patent.

BRF-ML: But how will you motivate your scientists and entrepreneurs to design new products if there are no laws protecting intellectual property rights ?

SCIENTIST: Without any WTO agreement on IPR, we will be free to cheat and copy, at which we are lesser than none in the world! After all China is doing it; Japan came all the way via that route.

BRF-ML: But aren't we the third largest scientific community in the world? Aren't our scientists, technologists, and software engineers making waves in the West? Why are we afraid of western competition?

ECONOMIST: Patenting products and processes, and right over intellectual assets are part of the market package to prosperity.

SCIENTIST: If we are challenged, we will be able to rise to the occasion. Indians are second to none as far as intellectual asset creation is concerned.

BRF-ML: Can we summarise, that the challenge before us is creation of wealth through the market mechanism which is global in character and is highly volatile and susceptible to international forces?

POLITICIAN: Better we tell all these to our people!

FARMER: I work hard and I am not worried!

LABOUR LEADER: Capital is definitely our friend!

INDUSTRIALIST: Competition weeds out only the inefficient!

ENVIRONMENTALIST: I dont mind progress, markets and globalisation; but I personally would like to be a watch dog for the environment.

BRF-ML: Friends, TRUST, INDUSTRIOUSNESS & CARE alone can forge efficient individuals and effective teams working purposefully for CREATING WEALTH.

Issues for Discussion at the BRf-ML Round Table Meetings
Swami Bodhananda, 1998

A. INDIAN STYLE OF MANAGEMENT:
· What is the Indian style (definition)?
· Does it exist?
· Is such a style desirable?
· What are the characteristics of Indian culture?

—Dharma  
—The good in every action in contrast to mere smartness
—Respect for elders/leaders
—Co-operation
—People orientedness
—Business as worship
—Influence of Satvik personalities
—The culture of 'Yajna'

B. ETHICS AND VALUES IN BUSINESS:
· Relevance and necessity in today's social environment
· Harmonizing profit and ethical values
· Corruption and business
· Tradition and culture-holistic approach
· Ecological balance and industrial activities

C. CHALLENGES OF GLOBALIZATION:
· Need
· Advantages and disadvantages
· Indian response
· Worship through excellence
· Is Indian management style conducive to globalization?

D. ENTREPRENEURIAL AWARENESS:
· Present socio-economic condition of Kerala and its historical background
· How to motivate the public in general?
· Dignity of labour
· Need to improve awareness
· Opportunities
· Need for an Entrepreneurial Development Institute

Agenda for Self-Renewal
(Kerala's Awakening)
Swami Bodhananda , 1996
Source: written in a correspondence to PNS on 26th June 1996

1. God and Human together create wealth, wellbeing and a just society.

2. A focussed way to create wealth is the only way to self-renewal and the awakening of Kerala.

3. Wealth is the quantity of quality goods and services available for human consumption, and is reflected in the satisfaction that people gain from such consumption. Wealth is not mere money, land and factories.

4. Satisfaction is a holistic experience which includes health, family, environment, values, attitudes and freedom.

5. Wealth is created as a result of interaction between labour and capital mediated by market forces operating in a free democratic polity.

6. Since capital's behaviour is governed by global demand and supply what makes the difference in a given economy, after the restructuring process, is a productivity of labour and competitiveness of its work culture.

7. Need for a concerted social action to enhance trust and cooperation between labour and capital based on shared vision and values.

8. Need for three respects and three affections: between teachers and pupils in academies, between super-ordinates and sub-ordinates in work places, between leaders and citizens in civil society. The former gives respect and latter enjoy affection so that teaching institutions fulfil the objective of creating and disseminating knowledge, skills and attitudes; work places create wealth and organize distribution of wealth; and leaders create vision for the society and inspire people to work and live for a better future.

9. Culture of 'global thinking and local action'-like in Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia. Networking of households and production units in the whole of Kerala into one giant cooperation, using the latest communication techniques, production processes and shareholding principles. Every Malayali would then become a stakeholder in our leap froging into a middle income economy.

10. Teach people to accept profit as a scientific yardstick for efficient organization of production.

11. Launch an 'Entrepreneurial Awareness Movement' in Kerala to create three thousand leaders (.01 per cent of the population) of vision, courage and commitment - Gunatita - who will lead a new kind of self-employment culture which is 'don't ask for job, but create jobs'.

12. An 'Apex Body' of leaders and opinion makers belonging to all walks of life, religions and sections of society, to formulate and propagate these values:

i) sustained hard work and - yoga karmasu kausalam - productivity
ii) team work and trus t -samatvam yoga uchyate
iii) inspired leadership and - samadau achala buddhi - motivation

13. A world class 'Research Institution' to organize research study based on this movement, to conduct seminars, workshops, symposia, conventions, awareness camps, popular talks etc; to bring out research literature and a Digest of the nature of global information made available to every household and entrepreneur.

This RTC [Round Table Conference] may critically discuss the above formulations, build consensus and suggest follow up programs.

Source: Syllabus for a Certificate Course on 'Value-based Management'
Swami Bodhananda, 1996

1. God, world and you.
2. Ethics, law and business management
3. Consumption, discipline and work
4. Four Purusharthas and hierarchy of human needs
5. Guna analysis and personality types - as a guide to tracing placement and peer building
6. Four stages of life, and living in total freedom and with detached activity
7. 'You are That' - creating self-confidence and helping to discover self-worth
8. Techniques of self-development
9. Moral dilemmas, eternal values and contextual decision making skills
10. Concentration, contemplation, meditation-efficiency and effectiveness
11. Creativity, relaxation and Yoga
12. Wealth, health and happiness
13. Organization, work culture and total vision - concept of 'Visvarupa'.
14. Secret of success - quality of living and structure of living
15. Leader, Entrepreneur and Manager
16. Tradition and spirituality as a source of management insight and wisdom - interpretational skills
17. Communicational and motivational techniques in Indian tradition-Ramayana, Mahabharata, Panchatantra, Hitopadesa and Jataka tales
18. Success and failure
19. Attitudes and vision
20. Need for value based management in the emerging global order-productivityand organizational competitiveness
21. The Sthitaprajna concept of the Bhagavad Gita and the concept of the 'ideal person'
22. Bureaucratic control, corruption and problems of development
23. Societal obligations of business
24. Need for inter-religious, transcultural values-consensus building skills.
25. Duty towards the nation and organisation

 

As the red disc of the winter sun plunged into the abyss over the gloomy Western sky, a dark silky curtain fell on another eventful year, 2011. It was a restless moment of despair and hope, of disappointments and promises, of faded blossoms and fresh blooms. Time dies to be born anew, and existence plays hide and seek on the magical stage of experience. 

The dry dreary landscape of Chernobyl ravaged by the melting down of atomic reactors smiles again and Fukushima Daichi raises her humbled head and flashes a grin after the raging waters receded along with the much feared apocalypse. Time roars and cries, slaps and consoles, soars and retreats: her crazy creative hands shaping and reshaping destinies of hapless creatures.

The bottom 99 percent raised their red banner of revolt, in Gandhian fervor, across the globe, in the Wall Street, in the Tahrir Square, in London, in Chengdu, in Delhi and Mumbai, in Myanmar, in Libya, against the 1 percent,  crying for economic and political justice and freedom.  

The Corporate wizards smiled indulgently beneath their tight upper lips, granting the freedom and right  to protest only to protect their freedom to produce and profit.

Devils and angels danced in duets as the invisible hand waved a magic wand imposing an order of inequality.

Steve Jobs left his mortal coil and ascended to the world of virtual immortality whispering under his last breath, ' wow, wow, wow'.

When winning strategies become death traps and the rich, the famous and the mighty dissolve like clay dolls in the swirling fury of flood waters, time like an innocent child frolics on the sands of eternity.

And the wise muse whispers: everything changes,but nothing is lost. The sun will rise again in the east, in fact the sun has never set, only a few have turned their back on the sun.

The year 2012 has come on stage, fresh and agile, youthful,  confident and competent, waving and cheering, and the crowd has already forgotten the weary face of the past year and has begun singing and dancing for the new would be hero.

To forget and forgive is a blessing and to start on a clean slate is a boon. The sun that sets in the west is the sun that inevitably rises in the east.

The curtain that fell will lift and will reveal a new landscape and new sky and a new hope. The old that died is the child that is newly born. The oldest is the newest. To see that truth is wisdom. Grieve not for the fallen and the falling, whispers the wrinkled voice of the grand mother. 

2012 has arrived. This is not the moment to harbor dark thoughts about the economy, about politics, about falling values in private and public life, about our collective health or the future of the planet, or fate of the world.

There is a time for everything, for love and war, for mourning and celebration, for rest and work, for dreaming and doing. The discerning one knows it.

2012 is a baby, full of promises, hopes and dreams. The tireless Time gives us one more chance to shuffle things again, to wipe out  the old patterns on the sands and redraw our destiny. And become the master of life and its denouement.

If you fail again don't worry, try again and the year 2013 wouldn't be far away. 

The sun will rise again in the East, but first it has to set in the West. 

Or does the sun ever rise and set?
Swami Bodhananda

Bodhananda Kendram, Tiruvananthapuram, Kerala, 30th December, 2011

 

Time is a flowing river, so is life. In the flood of time, thoughts and emotions flower and fade and experiences frost into memories. We may defrost memories in reflection and integrate them into the flow of life as wisdom. But it rarely happens. Often memories remain a frosted unbearable load in our mind. And as we age we increasingly become prisoners of our past. Thus though time brings new opportunities we fail to recognize them and waste precious moments lamenting our fate. But the truth is that there is no fate other than what we make of our past and future in the present.

The year 2011 will bring its own set of bouquets and brick bats, successes and failures, pleasures and pains. Some will win and some will lose; but as the year rolls on some winners will find they are actual losers and some losers will find they are real winners.

Time is a great magician. Like the interconnected principle of Yin and Yang, everything has a little of everything else. Time humbles all, the whole finds itself part of another whole and the process goes ad infinitum. The thistle protects roses and roses give meaning and purpose to thistles. The pointedness of the thorn and the waviness of the flower, like the quanta and the wave function in physics, make up the core of reality.

If you stretch a straight line beyond a point it curves on itself and comes back to the starting point. That is the central theme of life. All enterprises end in the beginning point. The creator is the ultimate destroyer. To the greedy life is frustrating. For the generous life is a play. Winning and losing are part of the game.

All solutions are part of the problem and all problems are part of the solution. The 2008 financial crisis was the result of the unprecedented economic boom of the previous decade. When China prospers America perspires. When America consumes, China conserves. Such is the irony of life.

Spiritual wisdom alone can save us in times of utter confusion and uncertainty. And the situation worsens year by year. The speed of change accelerates and the tangle of complexity gets snarled. The cost of material solutions are becoming more and more unsustainable. Statistical reasoning comes to a dead end. Scientists put up their hands in exasperation. Technology muffles the blossom of freshness and spontaneity. And the human soul weeps in silent agony.

Returning to the SOURCE is the only solution. Reducing needs and sharing resources are the royal path. We no more can afford to wait for a scientific miracle solution. For before science works its magic, the humankind would have long been history. 
Let this be the message for 2011.

Is anybody listening?
SWAMI BODHANANDA
Sambodh Sadanalayam, Palakkad, Kerala, 26th December, 2010

A few days back I spent couple of hours in my Ashram on the outskirts of Bangalore. Before that I was in New Delhi for a month. Delhi was a foggy dust bowl, though leafy and beautiful. The airport in Delhi was crowded and crammed, in contrast Bangalore airport fresh and airy. The drive from the new sparkling airport to the verdant countryside was exhilarating. The swanky airport built with private-government partnership is the perfect symbol of the rising economic might of India. I felt proud.

In the Ashram I went round looking at the trees and plants. It is always a matter of great joy to watch growing plants. Afterwards as I was settling down in my chair, a group of school children from nearby villages came to see me. They sang and danced in great abandon. Though coming from poor families, they were intelligent, healthy and were wreathed in smiles. 

These three experiences - of the new airport, the chirpy children and the lush greenery buoyed up my spirits. I saw a new India on its march to prosperity, equal opportunity and freedom. Such images of a resurgent India inspire my thoughts as I contemplate on the New Year-2009.

Human affairs are not always a bouquet of roses. It is a mixed bag of blooms and thorns. The past year 2008 arrived under the dark clouds of the dastardly murder of Benazir Bhutto, the popular leader of Pakistan, and ended with a promise of hope and change with the historic election of Barack Obama as the president of the United States. But fate wouldn't allow hope to shine long. The terrorist carnage in Mumbai came as a dagger thrust into the heart of Indian democracy. Then there was the successful launch of the Chandrayan Mission by India. With that, notwithstanding the pervasive poverty and terrorist violence, India launched itself into the 21st century and its limitless possibilities.

As the old yields place to the new, the human spirit invokes fresh hope for itself. Regardless of the withered hopes of the past, the New Year brings new blossoms in the human consciousness. We live in hope. It is not important that all our hopes are fulfilled. What does matter is that we should never give up hope nor hesitate to dream big. Every New Year brings its own promises. 

As a globally integrated community we live precariously on this tiny planet, which is cruising around the sun which itself is sailing amidst galaxies in a sea of empty space. To contemplate on such aloneness is scary.

The year 2008 brought upon us an unexpected economic downfall, perhaps the severest after the Great Depression of 1930s. Millions of jobs lost, inventories piled up, sales down, credit vanished - the world almost looked into the abyss. But with effective government intervention and people's ingenuity, I am sure that the global economy can be brought back to its original health and vitality. The melt down of Wall Street should not be hastily interpreted as a verdict against market economy, private business, competition or global trade. When we embark upon un-chartered territories such mishaps are to be expected. As a matter of fact, it is the universally accepted ideal of distributing prosperity to one and all that made otherwise conservative Banks, under political pressure and corporate and individual greed, to abandon caution and prudence in their lending practices, which triggered the present financial crisis. Emerging from this crisis the future will see a healthy partnership between government, private industry and NGOs in creating new ideas, policies and practices for optimal utilization of resources in the pursuit of the greatest common good.

Yet there are some concerns that we as human beings should keep alive in our mind as we enter into the year 2009. They are, health of the environment, global poverty, religiously inspired terrorism, and massive expenditure on armaments. I am sure that the New Year will see effective actions on all these four fronts so that we can secure the health of our planet for our children and grandchildren. And that is possible by bringing ethical and spiritual values into politics, business and into all other aspects of human interaction. The basis of ethics is respect for the other who is different and differ from our views, beliefs and values. The heart of spirituality is self-discipline and inspiration for good work. What is needed is global conversation between religions, cultures, communities, and countries, and between disciplines and the knowledge systems in a framework of non-violence.

Non-violence alone can save humanity in an age of nuclear weapons, scarce resources and increasing populations.

Let this be the message for the New Year - to exist is to coexist. Humans, nature and communities coexisting alone can ensure our survival as individuals and as a species.

Swami Bodhananda
10.30 AM, Friday, 12th December 2008 , Bodhananda Ashram, Kozhikode, Kerala

Everything Changes, But nothing is Lost
Swami Bodhananda

December 31, 2007, 6.30 pm.
It was dusk.
As I stood gazing into the dark river flowing by, I saw the weary wrinkled year 2007 fading into the background, shaking unbelievingly its domed baldhead. Its flowing white beard swayed in the humid evening breeze.
I felt sad. So too would you, I am sure.
The river didn't care. It has seen many such departures - for it, just a routine change of guard.
Nor did the ancient snarling banyan tree, with wildly spread branches, and aerial roots growing down like in a cavernous cave. This tree has been through it all - births and deaths, arrivals and departures.
I noticed a giant granite rock brooding by the river, lashed by the swirling frothing currents. In spite of being in the middle of such turbulence, the rock was cool. Nothing seemed to matter.
Bats ominously hung on tree branches. The crickets began their nightlong symphony. A couple of crows cowed their harsh message: 'take anything that comes your way and make the best of it'.
My silence morphed into the thought: I will never see the year 2007 again - never.
I felt forlorn - lost opportunities, withered hopes, and stillborn promises.

January 1, 2008, 6.30 am.
Mist hung on to the sleepy morning.
At the end of a long walk I came to the same river again. The river takes a sharp turn towards the Western direction where I stood. It was high tide time. Water touched my feet. I felt a surge of energy - the ebb and flow of life. My eyes widened, hair stood on their end. I looked far into the distant future over the glistening flowing river. The river was a sheet of black gold. It pierced through the coconut groves embraced by sturdy, grassy banks.
The dawn painted crimson on the Western horizon as birds flew across. Temperature rose and dew on the grass sizzled. 
Under the banyan tree a priest waved a lighted lamp to an open-air deity. Silvery droplets, residue from an early morning drizzle, showered on my head as a white eagle descended on the tree branch.
I saw the cherubic face of the year 2008 taking quick steps and reaching forward to me. The New Year was full of promise and hope, mirth and joy, youth and play. A koel cooed merrily. Breeze wafted, leaves rustled, ripples formed on the velvety river, orange sun shot up from the blue, silently but brilliantly.
A forgotten memory awakened in my mind: "Everything changes, but nothing is lost".
Happy New Year! A very happy New Year! A very eventful happy New Year!

SWAMI BODHANANDA
Bodhananda Kendram 
2 January 2008, Tiruvananthapuram, Kerala

Time is a flow, like a river or a flame - seamless like liquid space. There is no division in time. But identifying with the spin of the earth and its rotation round the sun, we divide time into seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, centuries, millenia, eons and so on and so forth.

This division of time is a creation of mind - a product of thought. Thought is a response of memories to sensations. Thought creates the illusion of past and future, desire and hatred, guilt and fear, hope and frustration, pleasure and pain and thus the entire infrastructure of the ego. Ego is time. To experience time is to miss consciousness and the joy of aliveness. Time is living in boredom. Time creates the mirage of eternity. Eternity is the outcome of striving after goals and ideals that are yet to be realised. Striving is an ego project and it further fuels the flames of suffering.

The very celebration of the New Year is an egoistic extravaganza - a futile pursuit to forget the unpleasant and nurse hope for the pleasant. Ironically the hope of the New Year is another idle illusion. And it goes on endlessly.

To break out of this monotonous cycle of boredom and meaningless chores is true celebration of the New Year. For this, one must shift attention from thought to consciousness, from movement to silence, from reaction to response. Thought movement and reaction are broods of hope. Ending hope is the dawn of thought-free, spontaneous joy.

SWAMI BODHANANDA
Bodhananda Kendram 17 January 2007
Tiruvananthapuram, Kerala

 

The year 2005, that just left us, rained unimaginable miseries on the hapless humankind - to name a few, the Tsunami, the Katrina, the Rina, the floods in India and the earthquake in Pakistan, apart from other natural disasters. On top of that, manmade miseries like the war and violence in Iraq, Sudan, and terrorist outrages in Kashmir, England and Bali added to the brimming cup of human miseries. These tragedies brought up both the good and bad sides of human nature. But overall it was a pleasing sight of peoples and governments coming to the help of each other. The partial success of WTO deliberations in Hong Kong toward the end of the year also was a silver lining in international cooperation.

The G-8 nations under the leadership of British Prime Minister Tony Blair had earlier agreed to help the poorest nations of Africa to the tune of 50 Billion dollars. What I see from these gestures is the willingness on the part of the rich nations to help the poor to redeem them from abject poverty. It is time for us to examine whether the millennium promises and pledges that we have collectively made in the areas of poverty eradication, environmental protection and world peace on the eve of the 21st century are being fulfilled or whether determined strides are being made towards those lofty goals. The sharp divide of interest and approaches that we see between the rich and poor nations in the United Nations and WTO concerning global issues is not a healthy sign. This tiny planet that we call our common home is very fragile and will not tolerate resource exploitation and environmental pollution beyond a certain limit. Beyond the limit the loss and damage will be irreparable. And then humanity as a whole whether they live in South Africa, North America or East Asia, whether rich or poor, Christian, Moslem or Hindu will suffer irretrievably.

There are certain issues like pollution, poverty, diseases and inequality that the world has to face united and solve within a given time frame. The UN, the WTO and the ubiquitous think-tanks, the NGOs and religious organisations have to work together to create a global consciousness and passion and commitment among peoples and governments to take decisive steps towards the solutions of those problems. At this point it is the USA and the rich nations of Europe who set the agenda for the world, and, they are generally interested in pursuing their national, corporate and sectarian interests. The world economy depends upon the health of the US economy that in turn is highly indebted to the world for maintaining its standard of living. This intolerable imbalance and inequity in resource utilisation and consumption cannot go on forever.

It is time for us to reinvent John Maynard Keynes and devise policies and institutions and action plans to create more jobs across the world and ensure that resources are distributed more equitably and that consumption doesn't confine to few classes and countries. The very logic of market capitalism which is driven by global demands, optimal utilisation of scarce resources, complementing core competencies of nations, and increasing common wealth through global trade will necessitate such egalitarian interventions from a neutral world body. In an increasingly flattening world, eradication of world poverty, equitable distribution of income and free mobility of labour across nations will become acceptable rational economic policies of nations.

I see that in a networked world, nations will be busy exploiting their core competencies for mutual advantages where America, India, Europe and ASEAN engage in a collaborative dance of wealth creation. Soon African and South American nations will also be sucked into this global process. A new global awareness is emerging where self-interest of nations will force them to collaborate and eradicate world poverty and make the world one single market of rational choice makers.

I see the meaning of what CK Prahlad says that there is profit in the bottom of the pyramid.

The creation of this global awareness where corporations are conscious of environment, make vision statement based on social commitment and poverty eradication, governments cooperate in the creation of wealth than waging war, and people have access to education and decent jobs - is the millennium that I dream of.

I think the world is making slow but steady strides towards that Elysium. Human intelligence is flowering into that dream. I see all auspicious signs for 2006. I wish you all a happy new year.
SWAMI BODHANANDA

10.00 a.m. , 20 December 2005, Tiruvananthapuram, Kerala

 

The world is passing through a severe crisis - a crisis of leadership. The world leadership has unfortunately become hegemonic and unilateral. The great ideals like truth, goodness and beauty that used to motivate human action have been forgotten and the humanistic objectives like freedom, justice and equality by which social action was judged are being misused by the powers that be to suit their narrow objective of world domination. Opinion polls, advertisements and ruthless lobbying by vested interests move the levers of power. All these happen when two-thirds of the world is still groaning in abject poverty, illnesses, ignorance and lack of opportunities. Not that we lack resources and ideas to bring justice and solace to the suffering world. But we lack the collective political and moral will to allocate resources to where they are needed most.

It is true that the ideal of equality and justice may not go hand in hand with the pragmatic objective of optimal and productive allocation of resources. But that problem has been staring at humanity since time immemorial. With efficient use of technology and committed political management we must be able to bring justice to the suffering humanity.

What saddens an average individual is the death of inspiring humanistic ideologies and the wanton misuse of ideas to further sectarian objectives of powerful groups and nations. Leadership is purposeful action to lift human beings from the state of nature to a state of culture. In the state of nature inequality and the rule of might prevails. But in a state of culture the equilibrium favourable to equality and individual freedom are promoted. To inspire human beings to think on those lines and initiate social action based on those principles require imaginative leadership, a leadership based on spiritual and ethical commitment and concerns. The gradual extinction of such leadership from world stage and the sneaky emergence of shameless leaders who pursue power, money and pleasures for themselves and their legions are the causes of alarm. The utopia of material prosperity that they sell acts like an opium on the masses.

A vast network of hierarchical control and the disproportional and often undeserved boons that they receive keep the machinery of exploitation efficient and well-greased. The unexpected collapse of an inefficient socialist system, along with those egalitarian ideals and the resultant intellectual confusion and anarchy, has put the world in a downward spin. The ideal of a new world order and human rights and principle of self-determination have become just smoke screens for the ruling class to pursue their agenda silently and systematically. It looks as though a heartless robot have taken over the destinies of nations and human beings. Added on to that are the spectres of oil crisis, aids menace, and, terrorist violence. The cumulative effect will not only be unimaginable suffering to humanity but also increased confusion and opportunities for global exploitation.

I find that the year just passed by has brought more problems than solutions and the idealism of the 1950-s and 1960-s and the optimism of the 1970-s and 1980-s have all come to a natural death and the puny leaders of the world- the Bushes and the Blairs, the Jintaos and the Putins - are all groping in darkness and are forced to take irrationally fundamental positions in search for elusive clarity and certitude.

From this bleakness I can project only a bleaker 2005. There will be more of everything foreboding -more terrorist attacks, more aids related deaths, more corporate greed, more superpower arrogance, more religious and ethnic intolerance, more leadership gaffes, more fruitless and costly research in the field of science and more unemployment and mass discontent and general drift, both in the developed and developing world. We are on the eve of a terrible world crisis. And the end of the socialist world will not end without the end of the western hegemony and the politics of top-down social engineering.

My hope is that out of the womb of this darkening crisis will emerge a new dawn of hope and human possibilities. Thinking people all over the world must turn their attention on this impending crisis and its vast potentialities, rather than harping on old mantras and slogans.

As the Katha Upanishad exhorts: Arise, Awake, stop not till the goal is reached.
May that be the message for the New Year 2005. It is high time for us to change track and think bold, feel deep, dream big and act daringly.
SWAMI BODHANANDA
10.00 a.m. 23 December 2004, Palakkad, Kerala

Yet another new year! 
As we become old, birthdays and new years cease to be of any significance to us. They remind us only of our advancing age, physical ailments and other frailities.

As we walk down the busy streets or scan the daily newspapers we see exciting things happening. We see young people, hand in hand, with dreams in their eyes, dancing away -- completely oblivious of the harsh realities of life. That reminds us of our own youth and dreams and hopes that we entertained once upon a time.

As years pass by I become more and more realistic and pessimistic of life and human possibilities. Long back man reached the moon.  But we are yet to reach the hearts of suffering humanity.  Some parts of the world have proved that human beings  do not have to live in abject poverty and hopelessness.  But we still have not brought that message to many  other parts of our tiny planet.

When the cold war ended we hoped that huge resources that used to be misspent in armaments  would be diverted to peaceful activities in  reducing hunger, erradicating diseases and  bringing light of knowledge to the dark  continents of the world. But that hope also remain dashed in the warfields of Chechnya,  Bosnia, Afghanisatan, Iraq and Palestine.

Religions have been our oldest institution preaching the message of peace and happiness and the kingdom of heaven under one God. The same religions are in the forefront calling upon their fanatic followers to draw the sword in defence of their faiths. Countries which have  been championing democracy and human rights are in the forefront of nations in supporting dictatorships and in turning a blind eye to the  inhuman treatment of hapless people in third world countries.

Thus when we survey the world one sees only darkness.  But what is the source of this darkness? Is it fundamental to human nature?  Is it the will of God? Or is it just the dark night before a new dawn?  I am not sure. 
But I still want to believe that this darkness is only temporary.  A new dawn will definitely break from behind the distant hills and the morning birds will sing the message of peace and happiness,  and our children and grandchildren, irrespectiveof their race, their religion  and language will be able to eat, play, study, work and celebrate together.

I know that that will not happen this year or even for decades to come. 
But something in me says that a day will come when all our dreams will find fulfillment and humanity will reach its final destination.

That is my prayer for the new year. May that be your prayer too.

SWAMI BODHANANDA
10.46 a.m. 2 December 2003, New Delhi

As I move across time zones and get lost in incessant work without much 
worry about the fruits of my labor the fault lines between today, yesterday and tomorrow disappear.  And time becomes a seamless continuum.

Just a week ago I was in Kalamazoo, Michigan and today I am sitting in my hut in New Delhi.  My plan was to fly to Australia day after tomorrow. 
But that plan got scuttled by a dark planet that  jumped from nowhere into my planetary constellation.

As I ponder on these complex and borderless  events I lose touch with the concepts of day,  week, month, year, decade, century etc. 
They say that time is the distance between two events. And events are recorded in consciousness as experiences. Therefore  time is the gap between experiences. 
Time is a projection of thought, which is situated in those gaps. Those who are 
conditioned by thoughts of the past and of the future experience the phenomenon of time. 
So conventionally we say that a year has  ended and a new year has begun. But  experientially it doesn't make any  difference -- time is just thought. At the  same time we have to have time to pause and take stock of the past so that we can prepare ourselves mentally to face the future.  For that purpose we escape  into thought and set arbitrary time frames.

They say that one year is the time that  the planet earth takes to go around the sun.  But who can say the beginning and end points  of the circumference of a circle. We set arbitrary  beginnings and ends. The Christian era that divides  time before and after the birth of Christ is arbitrary. 
So too is the Islamic calendar arbitrary that follows the  lunar movement around the earth. The financial world  has its own calendar. Their year begins either in March or in June.

For me every morning is a new day, a new year. As I see the bright sun  that lifts itself from the blue ocean, my heart jumps in joy.  The sun, the earth and me together create the miracle of a new dawn every day. 
For me every day is a new year, every year a new day -- a new beginning.

Let us look at time in that perspective and 
let us make everyday a day of celebration.

SWAMI BODHANANDA
5.21pm, 16 Nov 2002, New Delhi

I wait in the darkness of the cold winter 
for the sun of the dawn to break, 
to see the golden hue of the new year
to shake lose from the dead weight of the past
to gallop into the distant horizon - I wait! 

The old receeds and the new arrives inconspicously - 
the pendululm of time swings between the old 
and the new creating waves of thoughts. 

Riding on those thoughts I pursue my dreams into
the unchartered future - the new year is one more 
step into that destination and 
I whisper to myself "keep moving".

From Palakkad, Kerala, on 20th December 2001

Every new year comes with fresh blossoms of hope, and departs with some hopes fructified and some unfructified. Thus life is destined to swing between the uncertainties of hope  and despair.

This pendulum-like movement of life creates the flow of time:seconds, minutes, hours, weeks, months, years. . . and finally death.

Hope is life. Life is time. Time is fear. Fear is death. 
Death is birth. Birth is life. Life is hope. 
Hope is despair. 

The wise clearly sees this circle--the wheel of life. 
And for him new and old, birth and death, 
hope and despair, are all the same.

This sameness of mind is timelessness--the yoga of Gita.

Let that be the message for the new year.
Learn Gita; Know the Timeless!

Swami Bodhananda

Published in 'Bodhodayam', 
the Quarterly Newsletter published by Bodhananda Seva Society, Thiruvananthapuram , Vol1.No.6, 1992

 

Navaratra
Swami Bodhananda

Source: Message written for the occasion of the celebration of Navaratra
by His students and devotees of Sambodh Foundation Bangalore Chapter, India, in 1998

The other day we celebrated Navaratra – the memory of the epic fight that the DIVINE MOTHER fought against Mahishasura, the buffalo demon, and the final victory of the good over evil.

On the tenth day – dasami – the  Divine Mother having accomplished the mission of HER advent, disappeared into the surging waters of the ocean.
Her entire creation heaved a sigh f relief as the world was finally free from the scourge of Mahishasura, the epitome of ignorance and arrogance.

Sakti is the power of the Lord by which HE deludes creatures as well as delivers them. In fact delusion and deliverance are two aspects of the same process. Both are His play. Only the deluded will know the value of deliverance. It is only when you lose the diamond that you know the value of the diamond.
As the Mahisha of ignorance overpowers our faculties, the intellect get deluded, emotions are muddied, senses run riot, perception become warped, the spring of love in the heart dries up, words become bitter and acerbic, thoughts turn split, deeds become violently destructive, and the quality of life is totally and irreparably degraded.

Mahisha also stands for death and disintegration. Mahisha wallows in filthy water. It is a beast of burden, oblivious of the hideous weight over its back. It is a symbol of voiceless suffering.

Mahisha represents he unacceptable levels of suffering, suppression and disruption caused by kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya, damba, ahamkara, asuya and irsya –all due to a fall from spiritual values and holistic vision.

The ordinary human being is so steeped into this mire of psychological filth that all his attempts to pull himself out have come to naught. Like the Tusker–King Gajendra of Bhagavatam, he is carried deeper and deeper into the whirlpool of Samsara by the crocodile of his insatiable greed. It is at such dreadful moments of pitch darkness in midday, as all our struggles are frustrated by an enemy from within, that good people start fervently fasting and praying for the DIVINE intervention, for a fresh transfusion of life giving energy.

When the Mahisha, that huge hulk of all devouring darkness straddle the length and breadth of the individual and social life, swaying menacingly its powerfully crooked horns, stamping its hoofed feet irreverently on anything holy, beautiful and vulnerable, its puffed nostrils shooting shafts of fury, its eyes bulging into venomous rage, it is then good people helplessly look heavenward with upraised open arms and cry their heart out for DIVINE intervention.

It is then Lord Vishnu, Brahma, Siva, Indra, Varuna, the sun and the Moon, and all the other Gods, along with the Rishis and Munis pool together any pray to the most compassionate DIVINE MOTHER of the universe to intervene and take action. They all, in unison, beseech Her to put on Her terrible form, to jump on to the back of her snarling mount, the roaring lion, put out her eighteen hands and pull out the armory of eighteen missiles, to join battle with the Mahishasura, and vanquish him once for ever.

Granting their collective prayer, the Universal Mother came down on the Mahishasura like bouts of thunderbolts, slicing and incinerating the dark monster into extinction. Darkness ended and there was sunshine again.
Navaratra is a message of hope, of faith, in the ultimate victory of good over evil. Faith is an inbuilt mechanism of good asserting decisively when the balance of forces shifts in favour of evil. Navaratra heralds the regenerative, creative powers in the midst of entropy and death.

Navaratra is the celebration of hope, and the reaffirmation of Faith.

satyameva jayate na anrtam
satyena pandha vitatah devayanah

Truth alone triumphs, never untruth;
The paths to Gods are made of Truth.
OM TAT SAT
JAI MATA DI

 

JAI MATA DI

On Deepavali
Swami Bodhananda

Chinmaya Jyoti, Editorial, Vol.2, No.5, November 1980, pg.3

As the earth spins on its imaginary axis as ususal, ushering in the month of aswini, the people inhabiting the region between the Hindukush and the Arakhan, from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, prepares themselves to celebrate Diwali, the festival of lights. 

Light has a special meaning and significance in human life. A devout traditional Hindu tends a permanent fire in his house. A modern Hindu keeps a lamp or a zero watt bulb burning in his pooja room. The Lord, the Self of all beings is of the nature of light - jyotisvaroopah. 

The early Vedic Rishis chanted: lead from darkness to light,  from death to deathlessness. The ultimate reality,  the consciousness, the Brahman is pure light.  It is in the light of that consciousness everything that falls in the field of experience, including the sun and the moon, is illumined. He alone shines in 
his resplendent glory, and everything else shines after him.

Chinmaya Jyoti, Vol.2, No.5, November 1980, pg.3

Swami Bodhananda 
in an email response to Naveen Budhraj
Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2003 10:01 PM

... Please use this message for the Spring News Bulletin.

We, Ganesha devotees, have been chanting the mantra and offering charity in the Siddhi Vinayaka Kalasha for the last two years. Last year we reaffirmed our commitment to this sadhana program. Large number of new devotees came forward enthusiastically to join the Kalasha Sadhana. Some from the old batch left too. That has been always the case. 

But Ganesha blesses all of us unconditionally. With His curved trunk He removes all obstacles from our path. His small piercing eyes keep constant vigil on our deeds and misdeeds.

His large, oversized years listen to all that we consciously and  unconsciously say. With His single tusk He writes the script of our destinies. 

Shri Ganapati Bapa is a symbol of joy, contentment and mirth, of affluence and wealth, peace and health. His two consorts, Siddhi and Buddhi, constantly serve  Him in His world redeeming work. Devotees of Ganesha are blessed with sharp intellect and fulsome success.

In April,2003 we visited Sattal. Jasjit Mansingh, Marion (from Netherlands), Naveen, Alka and me spent three days in the gorgeous setting of the Himalayas, walking along the narrow footpaths visiting homes and chatting up with the villagers. Our purpose was to develop friendship with them, to assess their immediate needs unobtrusively and see what we can do for them on your behalf. 

Their urgent universal requirement was clean, running, drinking water. Later they may need schools, health clinics, roads, electricity, and the list goes on and on. Our team committed two lakhs for the water project. I am sure you will approve of that.

Later, an utterly dejected and lost villager came to us and talked about his ailing wife, who required immediate medical treatment. We decided to grant him monetary help of Rs. 5000 on the spot. The fact there was somebody to listen to his tale of woe and bring some succor to his dark world of hopelessness brought a suspicion of a smile on the weather beaten wrinkled face of that man. For the first time I saw the face of God.

Friends, this project that we have collectively undertaken is something we have to do on a priority basis. So many of our brethren are suffering. We have to do our bit for them. This is the way to do it, not with arrogance, but with humility - that Lord ganesha is giving us an opportunity to serve the world and purify ourselves.

Sambodh Foundation and Sambodh Seva Trust are organising many programs for the spring. Naveen Budhraja will be detailing all of them in his report.

Wishing to see you in all those functions.
Jai Ganesha! Maha Ganesha!

Love and regards,
Swami Bodhananda

Swami Bodhananda
Sent on August15th, 2002, 12.11am, from Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA

Onam is many things to many people - a harvest festival, beginning of the new year, nostalgia for a long lost kingdom of equality and justice, yearly reunion with their most beloved expatriate king-Mahabali, victory of divine piety over earthly might, conquest of ego by the spirit and above all an occasion for fun and celebration. 

We take off ten days from our busy schedule, decorate the forefront of our homes with floral designs and worship God (in clay statues) as the ideal king who visits each and every one of his citizens in their homes. For the masses God is a benevolent king, who protects the weak and promotes the good. But goodness alone is not enough. Goodness with out humility is arrogant display of power, a mindless standardization of human values. Who ever has tried that system has failed miserably. 

You may make every body equal, but humanity loses individuality in a mass of homogeneity. That is what happened to the ideal of Mahabali. Like the communists and socialists, he forcibly imposed equality, and people lost their quality and creativity and the zest for life. The young brahmachari Vamana by a creative intervention demolished the whole structure of inertia and somber statusquo in which mahabali ruled as the sole decision maker. Vamana came as a humble mendicant wanting only three square feet of land to spread his contemplation- cushion. The mighty Mahabali, secure in his power and glory, condescendingly, but thoughtlessly, granted, even against his teacher's advise, the request. Apparently a good act, but with out circumspection. And the structure which Mahabali constructed over years on the principle of equality and inertia collapsed like a pack of cards, like the erstwhile Soviet Union. What is the message of this ambivalent story? A good king was sent packing to the nether world by a just God for no apparent reason or justification! 

There are two messages: 
1) that power with out humility will not be lasting and 
2) that equality without freedom for individual enterprise will not be sustainable.

The spiritual message is surrender to God and  do your best for the good of others.
Love and hearty Onam Greetings
Swami Bodhananda