At a recent Indian Merchants' Chamber event in Mumbai, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Founder, The Art of Living, was in conversation with Anant Goenka, Executive Director, Indian Express Group. In this talk, they discuss the polarities of aggression and depression, the need to write our own history, and encouraging the spirit of inquiry. Edited excerpts: You have an incredible presence — you could have been five hours late today, and no one in the audience would have had a problem. This is because I’m in constant dialogue with anant (infinite). I keep telling people to close their eyes and look inwards, they’ll discover the beauty of the anant energy that sits inside each one of us. You’re an ambassador of India. Ideas like looking inwards to find happiness are very Indian. You’ve exported that around the world. Talk a little bit about the export of such ideas? No doubt this knowledge has sprouted here. But it is relevant to every part of the world. It’s universal. Electricity was discovered in America but it’s relevant everywhere in the world. Things that are required spread on their own. Post-pandemic, social scientists say that the three old gods — religion, nationalism and patriotism — have returned. As someone who has professed humanity, how do you deal with situations when humanity comes at odds with these ‘gods’? The Russia-Ukraine war, for instance, is not a war for humanity. It’s a war for control of territory. Is humanity at odds with national identity? War is defined as the Worst Act of Reason — W-A-R. When you speak to any party, you’d be so convinced what they’re doing is right. If you speak to the Russians, you will say they are right. If you speak to the Ukrainians, you will find they are right. We need to go beyond this narrow, regional perceived insecurity. These are all perceived insecurities. Doordrishti, antardrishti and vishaldrishti. We need a wider angle, deeper wisdom and long-time vision. If these three things are combined, you can stop these wars from taking place. If these three things are missing, we cannot overcome conflicts, whether it is at the international level or even in the family. You see, even age-old saas-bahu conflicts end the moment the bahu becomes a saas herself. It’s just a matter of perspective. Do you think these conflicts, in the family or in the country, have led to arguments becoming louder, especially around issues of identity? Post-COVID, you can see two extremes that have come up. One is, people get very aggressive; at the drop of the hat, people lose their temper. On the other side, there’s depression. We are living through the polarities of aggression and depression. In between, we are concerned with religious or caste or national identities because they are very convenient ways to channel your energy. When there is a vacuum to channelise that energy, naturally it goes to identity. And, there is also a perceived threat from others. That also makes you hold on to your identity much more than anything else. At Davos, you were sharing the stage with the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of Pakistan (Hina Rabbani Khar), where you had to defend India. I have never known you to get into these situations. What made you put yourself in that position in the first place? Someone from the audience did say to me, ‘Gurudev, you can’t be nationalistic because there are people in Pakistan who love you and you belong to everybody. You don’t belong to only India.’ I said yes, I agree. But it’s also the job of the guru to correct someone if they say anything wrong. A guru shouldn’t turn a blind eye to ignorance when it is being propagated. A guru’s job is to bring to light a person’s wrong understanding. I was doing that. Many people didn’t know that what was being said (by the Pakistani MoS) was incorrect. I don’t think that national identity is in any way at odds with a global identity. There are responsibilities of a citizen of the world. When conflicts lead to war, and we have very difficult neighbours, will we have to go through this creation-preservation-destruction cycle? Yes, this is nature’s rule which can’t be avoided. In society, you need 12 people — four good, four half-baked and four bad (chaar acche, chaar kachche, chaar luchche hote hain). When the good people are on top and the half-baked people are with them, no problem is big. If the bad people are on top, there are problems, even in neighbouring countries. Sattva (purity and knowledge), raja (action and passion) and tama (ignorance and inertia) guna are always found in society. When sattva guna meets with raja guna, then creative things happen. When tama guna meets with raja guna, there are (vidya sami) problems. Tama guna by itself cannot function. It is nature’s law: everything works with the permutations and combinations of these three gunas. Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita calls for recognising these gunas, as they play out. Do you think that we’re doing enough to get this into the education system? How does this kind of content become as important as math or trigonometry? The New Education Policy (NEP) has done quite a bit in this direction. It is gearing up to bring up creativity in an individual, not just make them an information box. We have been actively contributing to that and telling what is best for young people. There’s a lot of debate over writing and rewriting history. Should we be writing our own history? It is important to do so. You cannot discard everything of the past historians. At the same time, you can’t take them as gospel truth and that’s what has been happening in the past. We are more enamoured by what foreign historians write. Some scholar from Germany writes about the Vedas and people keep talking about that. Vedas are of this land, why are you looking at what Max Mueller wrote? Do we have a dearth of scholars in India? That colonial mindset or mentality has to change. For example, names of the month, do you know it is all in Sanskrit? December means dasha ambar, the tenth sky. November — navvi aakash. Astambar became October. September — satvi aakash. Phalgun became February. March was the new year. Astronomically, that is what is right — the New Year. The whole world was celebrating New Year in March till 500 years ago when the king of England decided he wanted to have the year beginning in January and not in March. People didn't listen to the king and they still continued to celebrate the New Year at the end of March and April. That is how Fool's Day came on April 1. Just to humiliate them and to stop them from celebrating New Year in the last week of March and first of April, he said whoever does it, is a fool. The names of the months are all in Sanskrit, but we have not claimed this. Similarly, zero is a gift from India to the world. People think Indian history means the caste system. They never teach that astronomy and alchemy was found in India. The first iron was made in India. The first boat was manufactured in India. Almost 70 per cent of the English language is in Sanskrit. Hriday is the heart. Hast is hand. Aksh is eyes. Nasika is the nose. Our children don’t know this because even we don’t claim that all of these come from Sanskrit. This mindset needs to be reversed so that there’s self confidence in our people. Philosopher Rabbi Jonathan Sacks had said that people on the Left dream of a future which is utopian and people on the Right reminisce about a past that never was. I want to ask you, which time in India’s past was its best? Now. Now is always the best. And when now is connected with happiness, it’s even better. The Leftist say nothing of the past is good. They are wrong. And the Right says only the past was good and that the current time is nothing and everything is in bad shape. That is also wrong, but there’s partial truth in both views. You can’t keep glorifying the past. People keep complaining about kalyug. What is wrong with kalyug? Kalyug is, in fact, better. Was there a dearth of rakshas in the Treta Yuga? Was there a dearth of injustice in the Dvapara Yuga? Mahabharat mein kitne log mare gaye (How many died in the Mahabharata)? We should not blame time and age. Every time has its own flavour. Since you spoke about “now” let me come to the problems I am facing now. My child’s school admissions are going on. I want your advice on how to answer questions in school interviews. These are real questions that have actually been asked. Here goes: Would you like a school to cherish and protect a child’s innocence and naivete or rather expose the child to the harsh realities of the world? The middle path. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. How would you explain love jihad to a four-year-old? It’s too early and is out of the syllabus. How do you explain to your child why the nanny has to sit on a different table and eat? She can have peace of mind to eat what she wants to eat and not take care of the child when she is eating. Would you like your school to have male, female and other bathrooms? Definitely. That’s been happening for a long time. Is that an easy answer for you to say? Have you thought about it already? Children by nature are very inquisitive. They ask so many questions. You only need to encourage the spirit of inquiry in them. Usually, we discourage them from asking questions. When they ask questions, you need to allow them to do so. Ours is the only culture in the whole world which has been encouraged in the past to ask questions. There is an Upanishad on it, the Prashna Upanishad. The freedom to question is in our culture. Hindutva or Hinduism, which word do you like more? Hinduism. In fact, I would say sanathan dharma because these two words have already been picked by different political parties. Now for the rapid fire: If not India, which country in the world would you like to live in? I live everywhere in the world and nowhere. The last time you disagreed with Prime Minister Modi. I’m like a mirror; when things are in front of me, I reflect. The moment an event or people move away, I am clean again. I don’t keep all those memories. A guru is like a mirror. If they hold on to misgivings, then they cannot be a guru. What short advice will you give to each of these individuals: Vladimir Putin Relax and stop what you’re doing. Volodymyr Zelenskyy Don’t hype your victimhood. Xi Jinping The world has moved away from communism long ago. Gautam Adani He’s a very nice person. Business goes up and down and he has big responsibility towards the whole country. I’m sure he’ll come back and do what he has to do. Uddhav Thackeray If they ask for my advice, then I will give them. I don’t want my advice to be orphans and nobody owning them. Rahul Gandhi I think the same answer applies there.
