Dear all,
Kindly bear with my musings and thank you for your audience.
I am visiting Ujjain, India for Ayurveda detoxification and wanted to share a few thoughts on India.
I want to help people around me and India in particular. As I walk the streets of Mumbai, I think what can I do to make their lives better. What help do they need and how can I serve them? I see lots of poverty and messy traffic and pollution all around me. As I walk out of my business meeting, I can smell the garbage from the adjacent creek that dumps the garbage into the sea. Doing my little and humble part to bring order and uplift people in India would be nice.
I counselled a guy with depression and other problems on the railway platform today. My driver does the hard labour of carrying the perambulator when, instead, he can just open it and put all other things in it and push it. The list goes on. If people connect to their inner self more, their lives will be more successful. I feel that people are struggling very hard to satisfy the demands of their six senses --- taste, touch, vision, hearing and smell and the MIND. Is MIND our best friend or our worst enemy? Sometimes, the MIND get agitated at the slightest provocation.
I seek your efforts to research how the mind works.
The mind is so strong and obstinate that it sometimes overcomes the intelligence, although the mind is supposed to be subservient to the intelligence. For a man in the practical world who has to fight so many opposing elements, it is certainly very difficult to control the mind. Artificially, one may establish a mental equilibrium toward both friend and enemy, but ultimately no worldly man can do so, for this is more difficult than controlling the raging wind.
The individual is the passenger in the car of the material body, and intelligence is the driver. Mind is the driving instrument, and the senses are the horses. The self is thus the enjoyer or sufferer in the association of the mind and senses. So it is understood by great thinkers. Intelligence is supposed to direct the mind, but the mind is so strong and obstinate that it often overcomes even one’s own intelligence, as an acute infection may surpass the efficacy of medicine. Such a strong mind is supposed to be controlled by the practice of yoga, but such practice is never practical for a worldly person like Arjuna. And what can we say of modern man? The simile used here is appropriate: one cannot capture the blowing wind. And it is even more difficult to capture the turbulent mind.
I need to help people in India. But what help can I do especially when I don't live in India? I could fund a school to send some children to school. I have had good teachers who pushed me to RIMC, IIT, Princeton, Wall Street, etc. India and the world is facing a leadership crisis. The most fundamental need in the world is not software and oil, but good leadership. I respectfully believe that typical favourite institutions such as Stanford, United Nations, Goldman Sachs and Indian/British parliament have failed to recognize this or provide a solution. The definition of success in these places is to have a party and loose our intellect to intoxication so we can take a break from the problems of the world. In contrast, I believe that the underlying transcendental knowledge of India can provide leaders.
The elite of India is working too hard --- something like 80hrs a week to satisfy their senses which can be easily satisfied at 40hrs a week. The extra 40 hrs of elite of India can be used to give guidance to the distressed middle class and lower class. By helping them to connect with their inner self, their efforts towards economic advancement and otherwise will be more streamlined. As a side effect, Indian GDP would increase like an effervescent soft drink.
So, if a successful person like you gets involved in charity, in addition to charity, we should get, in addition, leaders out of them. The biggest charity anyone can do to anyone is motivate the other person to connect with their inner self --- which is full of bliss and knowledge to guide us.
sincerely,
sudhakar
--
Dr. Sudhakar Krsna Govindavajhala
President,
Yoga Foundation
Kindly bear with my musings and thank you for your audience.
I am visiting Ujjain, India for Ayurveda detoxification and wanted to share a few thoughts on India.
I want to help people around me and India in particular. As I walk the streets of Mumbai, I think what can I do to make their lives better. What help do they need and how can I serve them? I see lots of poverty and messy traffic and pollution all around me. As I walk out of my business meeting, I can smell the garbage from the adjacent creek that dumps the garbage into the sea. Doing my little and humble part to bring order and uplift people in India would be nice.
I counselled a guy with depression and other problems on the railway platform today. My driver does the hard labour of carrying the perambulator when, instead, he can just open it and put all other things in it and push it. The list goes on. If people connect to their inner self more, their lives will be more successful. I feel that people are struggling very hard to satisfy the demands of their six senses --- taste, touch, vision, hearing and smell and the MIND. Is MIND our best friend or our worst enemy? Sometimes, the MIND get agitated at the slightest provocation.
I seek your efforts to research how the mind works.
The mind is so strong and obstinate that it sometimes overcomes the intelligence, although the mind is supposed to be subservient to the intelligence. For a man in the practical world who has to fight so many opposing elements, it is certainly very difficult to control the mind. Artificially, one may establish a mental equilibrium toward both friend and enemy, but ultimately no worldly man can do so, for this is more difficult than controlling the raging wind.
The individual is the passenger in the car of the material body, and intelligence is the driver. Mind is the driving instrument, and the senses are the horses. The self is thus the enjoyer or sufferer in the association of the mind and senses. So it is understood by great thinkers. Intelligence is supposed to direct the mind, but the mind is so strong and obstinate that it often overcomes even one’s own intelligence, as an acute infection may surpass the efficacy of medicine. Such a strong mind is supposed to be controlled by the practice of yoga, but such practice is never practical for a worldly person like Arjuna. And what can we say of modern man? The simile used here is appropriate: one cannot capture the blowing wind. And it is even more difficult to capture the turbulent mind.
I need to help people in India. But what help can I do especially when I don't live in India? I could fund a school to send some children to school. I have had good teachers who pushed me to RIMC, IIT, Princeton, Wall Street, etc. India and the world is facing a leadership crisis. The most fundamental need in the world is not software and oil, but good leadership. I respectfully believe that typical favourite institutions such as Stanford, United Nations, Goldman Sachs and Indian/British parliament have failed to recognize this or provide a solution. The definition of success in these places is to have a party and loose our intellect to intoxication so we can take a break from the problems of the world. In contrast, I believe that the underlying transcendental knowledge of India can provide leaders.
The elite of India is working too hard --- something like 80hrs a week to satisfy their senses which can be easily satisfied at 40hrs a week. The extra 40 hrs of elite of India can be used to give guidance to the distressed middle class and lower class. By helping them to connect with their inner self, their efforts towards economic advancement and otherwise will be more streamlined. As a side effect, Indian GDP would increase like an effervescent soft drink.
So, if a successful person like you gets involved in charity, in addition to charity, we should get, in addition, leaders out of them. The biggest charity anyone can do to anyone is motivate the other person to connect with their inner self --- which is full of bliss and knowledge to guide us.
sincerely,
sudhakar
--
Dr. Sudhakar Krsna Govindavajhala
President,
Yoga Foundation
