You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Part 1 – A world out of balance and the Gītā[1]
In my classes for managers I often ask them to give some examples of truly authentic leaders. The first to be named were most often historical figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King. Never did I hear these managers spontaneously nominate their own CEOs or other species of dignitaries like politicians. Mandela and King were both inspired by Gandhi, who became an icon of what I call deep leadership.
Ten years ago, I wrote a book about it (in Dutch). This article is an adaption of a chapter from that book.1 The starting point of the book is still timely today. In short, the globalization combined with superficial – in essence, egocentric – leadership and an hedonistic lifestyle have led to a worldwide systemic crisis, which like a smoldering fire can regularly burst into flames – think of the Internet Dot-Com bubble around the year 2000, the financial crisis around 2010 and now the threatening 2020 ‘corona-recession’. In a world out of balance, people demand effective leadership to confront the crisis. But without genuine introspection and personal reflection over what is really important in life, the solutions put forward are like fighting the blazing fire with a bucket of water instead of attacking the flames at their smoldering source.
Śrī Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950), one of the greatest and most widely-respected gurus that India has ever produced, would often receive politicians, managers and others coming to ask what they could do to make the world a better place and bring it into balance. After a long and meaningful silence, he would answer something like this: ‘First know yourself and leave the world alone. Then you can go about reforming the world, if you still feel the inclination’.2 Another seeker of truth who, in the process, set his own Self-realization as a priority, was Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), a contemporary of Ramana Maharshi, although they never met in person. Gandhi allegedly said: ‘You must be the change you wish to see in the world.’ And, with his ascetic lifestyle he tried to set the right example.
It is known that Gandhi explored a range of esoteric trees of knowledge, yet according to his own words, eventually found comfort and refuge in the Bhagavadgītā.3 His general secret was that he found his spiritual home in the Gītā. But what specifically was that secret? In his early years he had often heard the Gītā being read out loud, but usually found the reader not very inspirational. During his days in London, however, when two theosophist brothers were reading the Gītā and recommended it to him, he felt somewhat ashamed that he had never read it and decided to join them in their endeavor. In his autobiography, Gandhi says that the book immediately struck him as one of ‘priceless worth’ and eventually became for him ‘the book par excellence for the knowledge of Truth’.4
In South Africa in 1903, together with some theosophical friends, they formed a sort of Seekers’ Club where they met for regular readings of the Gītā. As said, in London he had developed a ‘fascination’ for the Gītā, but now as a Hindu amongst his theosophist friends he realized the necessity of diving deeper into it. The Gītā became an infallible guide of conduct. It became my dictionary of daily reference. ‘Just as I turned to the English dictionary for the meanings of English words that I did not understand, I turned to this dictionary of conduct for a ready solution for all my troubles and trials’.5
In 2006 Business Week magazine, always eager to announce the latest management fads, pointed to the Gītā as the newest management text and potential successor to Sun Tzu’s, The Art of War which was already popular in management circles. If competitive managers are naturally interested in the ‘art’ of waging war, then the Gītā should also be of much interest to them. The Gītā begins as two huge armies stand facing each other, ready to begin a bloody civil war. All this within a context of a world greatly out of balance that is elaborately described in the epic story of the Mahābhārata, of which the Gītā is basically an autonomous part.
The Bhagavad-Gītā, the Song of the Lord (Sanskrit: bhagavat = the venerable, the adorable or the Lord; gītā = song; often lovingly called the Gītā) is ‘The Beloved Lord’s Secret Love Song,’ as somewhat romantically undertitled by Graham Schweig in his 2007 translation.6 In this timeless story, certainly 2500 years old and still tremendously popular Song of the Lord, Kṛṣṇa is ‘the Lord’. He appears first as friend and charioteer for Arjuna, the commander-in-chief of the army. As the story unfolds Kṛṣṇa reveals himself as Arjuna’s spiritual teacher and finally, in all his shining glory, as a cosmic reincarnation of the God Viṣṇu. He is one of the manifestations of brahman, a concept from the Vedic tradition that stands for the Absolute, the Universal Self or, because of its unknowableness, simply as ‘That’. Viṣṇu is part of the triad: Brahma, the creator, Viṣṇu, the sustainer, and Śiva the destroyer of the universe.
Gandhi felt at home with the Gītā because the God Viṣṇu is worshipped by the Vaṣṇavas. This was the trusted form of Hinduism that Gandhi grew up with in his parents’ home. His mother was a ‘deeply devout woman’ who intensely followed the rituals of this religious branch. She would go to the temple daily and regularly fast. Thus, fasting, often a part of Gandhi’s life as an act of nonviolent protest, was not strange to him.
In the Gītā, according to Schweig, it is Kṛṣṇa’s mission and, at the same time, it is the ‘ultimate secret of yoga’ (BG 4.3: hi etat [yogaḥ] uttamam rahasyam) to reconnect the sacred unity between the human and Divine within each of us and to realize and love Him as our own true Self.7 Or, as Gandhi himself in 1929 succinctly summarized it in his introduction to his Bhagavad-gītā according to Gandhi: ‘The subject of the Gītā is Self-Realization.’ In saying this, Gandhi provides a crystal clear, but admittedly radical pointer as to how to restore balance in the world.
References
1. Broekstra, Gerrit (2009) Deep Leadership: The secret of right action in uncertain times (In Dutch; The Hague: Ten Have).
2. Mudaliar, A. Devaraja (2020) Day by Day with Bhagavan (Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanasramam), p. 236.
3. Tidrik, Kathryn (2006) Gandhi: A political and spiritual life (London: Tauris).
4. Gandhi, Mohandas K. (1957) An Autobiography: The story of my experiments with truth (Boston: Beacon), p. 67.
5. Gandhi, Ibid., p. 265.
6. Schweig, Graham M. (2007) Bhagavad-Gītā: The beloved Lord’s secret love song (New York: HarperCollins).
7. Schweig, Ibid., p. 272 ev.
[1] This article will appear in three parts, in this issue we present the first part
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