Lessons from Adi Shankara’s life for modern day entrepreneurs and youth by Ravishankar Gundlapalli

Foreign.

Namaste viewers welcome to this third global Festival of Oneness for celebrating the life and works of Adi Shankaracharya. I will chant a couple of verses and then formally start this session.

Sadashiva samara.

Brahma guru.

Siade.

Jakshustas.

Namaste viewers today we are privileged to have Dr. Ravishankar Munla balling to talk to us on the Adi Shankaracharya's life lessons for modern day entrepreneurs and youths. Dr. Ravi Shankar Mumblapalle Ji deeply values his roots in Sanatana Dharma. He considers Jagat Guru Adi Shankaracharya as his mentor. He works very closely with Ramashri Sahib Samavedam Shanmukh Sharmaguru. Ravishankarji Mullapalli is a technology entrepreneur, founder of Mentor Cloud, author of Global keynote author and global keynote speaker on the very on various topics of mentoring, entrepreneurship and Bhagavad Girta Ravi Shankarji helped to create the global Festival of Oneness as a month long conference starting on Adi Shankaracharya Jayanti to spread the life and works of Adi Shankaracharya. Ravi Shankarji also founded Know your Roots foundation with his wife Vani to rejuvenate and spread the essence of Sanatana Dharma amongst the modern generation. Ravi Shankarji is an Alumni of IIT Madras with a PhD from University of Michigan. He is from Vijayawada and currently resides in Silicon Valley. Ravi Shankarji has kindly agreed to take a few questions after after his talk viewers are requested to type the questions in the question box. He will take it. Post the talk over to you Ravi Shankarji.

Namaste everyone. Thank you Indika Moksha for this wonderful opportunity to share a few thoughts from those incidents in Adi Shankara's life and his works that have personally inspired me and that I believe there are lots of lessons to learn. Sorry Ravi Garam for interrupting Kotir.

Yeah, no, it's okay. Yeah.

This country.

Once again.

Namaste everyone and thank you to Indica Moksha for introducing this Adi Shankara festival to the world and year after year presenting this amazing conference. When we started in 2020 I just wanted to quickly recap the goals with which we started this. It was to celebrate the life and works of Shankara to catalyze global awareness and to create curiosity among seekers to learn more. Because today not many young people know exactly who Adi Shankara is. They may have heard about some of his works, they may be chanting some of his stotras but knowing Adi Shankara in his entirety is something that is yet to reach billions of people around the world. So I just want to start by thanking Indica Moksha team for making this festival happen and inviting me to share my thoughts today. So what is my inspiration for Adi Shankara? Thank you Sanjeev Ji for the kind introduction. I describe Adi Shankara as my role model and my mentor.

A couple of years ago when I introduced this festival I said I see Adi Shankar as an entrepreneur and a founder. He's visionary, he's passionate and very persistent towards his mission. I saw him as a brilliant inventor. He re energized the idea of Advaita and that brought unity with words and will, not weapons. Today we see lot of potential unity efforts but with weapons. And Adi Shankara did it with just words and will. And we'll talk more about it. I saw him as a knowledge contributor. So many commentaries and bashim and treatises and original words. I saw him as a tireless leader 2500 years ago. Walking across India six times is not a joke at all. It is humanly impossible. At the same time he was a humanist. Love for others, servant leader, reverence for his mother, very disciplined. Because you cannot accomplish so much in a lifespan of 32 years if you don't live a very disciplined life. And finally I saw him as a mentor. He inspired millions of scholars over these 2,500 plus years and leaders across multiple centuries. Which is why I said I saw him as my mentor. But today I'm saying okay, seeing Adi Shankara in this light is one thing but what can I learn from his life? So today I'm going to talk about 10 incidents from his life and what did I learn and what is it that I want all the modern day entrepreneurs and youth to learn? And many of these incidents are fairly well known. For example, at a very young age, you know, Adi Shankara took this.

To launch his mission. Everybody knows that and we'll talk more exactly what can we learn from from that incident. He walked 1500 kilometers, you know, to almost, you know, close to a thousand miles to search his Guru. He gave an incredibly creative response when someone, a voice from inside the cave said who are you?

He won debates across the country.

He had this monumental debate with Vandana Mishra. Now throughout this festival you heard different aspects of this particular life. Incidents and works of Adi Shankara. So I won't go into the details of exactly what happened that day. And those of you who don't know anything about this monumental debate with Mandalay Mishra. This is what I mean by create curiosity. Go learn Find out exactly what the debate was all about. Everything is so incredibly recorded in history. And there have been talks on this festival expanding on this particular debate. He produced so many works. We are celebrating this month long festival because there's so much to expand on and reflect on and learn. He walked across the expanse of Bharat, the India country six times up and down to achieve his mission. Everybody knows about that. It's called the Shankar Digvijay Yatra. And also the episode with Chandala, the so called untouchable that Adi Shankara got to face one day. And what happened in that incident? All these incidents are well recorded. There are talks, thousands of them on YouTube. So if there is one thing, become curious young people, entrepreneurs, anyone. This is the life to be celebrated all over the world. And the more you become curious, the more you will become even more curious to learn. Then we have the extemporaneous Kalkadara Stotram. When he went to an old lady's house for his morning bhiksha and saw the utter poverty that she was in. And what did he do out of compassion? And lastly he established four Matams in the four corners of India. Everybody knows about these 10 different aspects. What I'm going to do today is take each one of them and why I was inspired by that incident. And what is the lesson from that particular incident? Which is why the name of Adi Shankara is Stotram that I chant, that he has written always brings the so called tearful, sorry, joyful tears. Because he has personally touched me in every aspect of my life. And this is what I want to share today. So let's start with this very first incident. When he took Sannyasa at a very young age. Now we all know he was taking a bath in the river and.

An alligator or crocodile caught his leg. And he was going to die. And his mother, he was asking his mother, allow me to take Sannyasa at this young age, otherwise I'm going to die. His mother said yes, I accept. And then the crocodile supposedly has left his leg. And then Adi Shankara took the Sannyasa on on his mission. So what can we learn from that? We have to have a determination to achieve your life's mission. We will all have alligators to stop us from doing it. Now who is your alligator? Now I speak to young people all over the world. And sometimes the delegator is this very comfortable 9 to 5 job. Everything is nice. You can come home at 5 o', clock, watch TV and then go back to work the next day. This Is very convenient. Sometimes that becomes your hurdle to take on something bigger than your job itself. Sometimes it's the fear of losing, it's the fear of being ridiculed. Or it could be the society or the family or friends, people saying, no, you should not do this. This is not for you. You should think about your family and your children and should not take all these risks. Or there may be other reasons. So very, very important lesson that I have learned that I would like all of you to sort of walk away with is having the determination, pick a cause and go after it. You know, get rid of all the alligators in your life. Now I've written an article about what entrepreneur really means. To me, it's not a French word, it is a Sanskrit word. It has roots in Sanskrit. I call it Antarctic prena, the inner fire. So every one of you listening today find that inner fire and let that fire guide you for the rest of your life. We are here on this planet not to just study, eat, sleep and then disappear. We are here to do something positive, something impactful in our life and that fire is inside. And sometimes we hide that fire behind the fear or external pressures and so on. In fact, Steve Jobs said, don't live the life of others.

And Mark Twain said, everybody else is taken. Just be yourself. So there are all these modern ways to tell each one of us to pick a cause and go after it.

Incident number two, he walked 15, 14 kilometers, that's close to 1,000 miles across the country to find his guru. Now imagine 2500 years ago, no cars, no airplanes, no nothing. Just walking across through forests to make this happen, to find this guru. Now the actual incident is he found the guru. He was inside a cave. His guru was actually meditating in the cave. And.

That cave still exists. You see the picture here in near Omkar Ashwar. So what did I learn? Having a mentor is so important that the company I founded is Mentor cloud. The book I wrote is the art of mentoring. So every one of you today find your mentor or mentors, surround yourself with what I call your personal board of mentors who can, who clearly cares for you and your success, who guides you in the right direction. That's exactly what Govindapada did. Told Adi Shankara, his young disciple what he should do next. You know, accepted him as his mentees disciple who can open new doors. That's what Govinda Pada did. He said, shankara, the next job for you is to go to the city of Varanasi and start sharing your wisdom. And those of you that are interested. My book is available. I'm happy to send you a free copy so you can go to our website. But you know, learn the art of mentoring and find and engage with suitable mentors from today. Because when you find the right mentors you can accelerate towards your goals. You can accelerate your learning versus you sitting in a room and just reading books and watching videos. You can accelerate it when you have a human who cares for you and opens your thinking and possibilities.

When Adi Shankara reached the cave, I told you the Guru was inside. And Guru from inside asked who are you? And that led Adi Shankara's fantastic response.

What a thoughtful response to this. You know most people would say sir, I'm Adi Shankara. Adi Shankara who? I am coming from so and so place, why did you come? All these questions would have come. It's an unnecessary conversation. But Adi Shankara gives this brilliant response. I am neither the mind, nor the intellect, nor the ego, nor the mind nor I am existence absolute. Now this is called Nirvana Shatakam. There are six verses and I've given a link here. So every one of you go and read this now. What did I learn from it? Build the right message for yourself and your company and your career. Today at Mentor Cloud we have, we work regularly to figure out what is it? Are we the mentoring platform? Are we the technology platform? Who are we? Because just saying I am Ravi and this is not as powerful as making your message about the cause. And that's what I learned from this. When somebody asks next time who are you? Don't just give your name and your degrees and your skills. Because your message and your story is more important than who you are. Let the world be intrigued by your mission. Let them find out who is this person who has such a crazy mission. Today when somebody comes to me and said I am on a mission to impact 100 million people with mentoring, they don't need to know my name, they will ask me eventually. So remember, let your audience be intrigued by what you are after and then the details can follow. So this is what I learned from this fantastic Nirvana Shatakam incident. When his Guru asked him who are you? And when he heard such a beautiful response, what did Govindapada do? Came out of the cave and said shankara, I accept you as my disciple. And that changed history forever.

Number four, everybody knows he has won multiple debates across India. Now Adi Shankara took the route of a non violent approach to unity. He went to every town and said okay. At that time there were 70 plus different ways of life. Some people call it religion. Some people call it spirituality. But there were 70 different ways people were fighting. They were saying, this God is better than the other. Somebody said you don't have to even pray to a God at all. You just have to meditate. And somebody said, you have to be in the forest so many different ways. India was in a chaos. He came and said, okay, there is only one way. Oneness. Advaita. Advaita. And did he use weapons? No. He just said, okay, let's have a debate, a conversation. And if you win, I will convert to your way of living. If I win, you should follow me and my way of living. What a simple principle. Simple, simple principle. Now today, when you want to captivate the world, I call it entrepreneurs. We have this thing called the go to market strategy. Now whether you are a working professional working for an organization you should consider yourself as an entrepreneur. Because you are the entrepreneur of your own life. Okay. Entrepreneur does not mean you start your own company. You have your own business. It is definitely the case. But you can take your life and consider it as your entrepreneurial venture. So what's your go to market strategy? Adi Shankara was debating, okay, how do I bring this concept of Advaita to unify the world? Now you will get lots of no's. Now in Adi Shankara's case, he won all the debates. That's just brilliant. If only I could get a yes from every customer I talked to that would be amazing. But that's not the case. In the real world you will get lots of no's. How will you react? Now? Stay on facts. No need to get emotional. You have to be willing to learn and pivot along the way.

So?

So when you are going on your journey when you get a no, you should say what does. Okay, what can I learn from it? Because it's not about you. Again, if you study Adi Shankara's works he expands this concept of the so called oneness. Or.

The mistake we all do called Adhyasa. Thinking that you and your body are the same. The driver and the car being the same. But they are not the same. And you can learn more about it. So no in my mind is next one or knowledge. Now I put Sadhguru's picture here. Because he changed my mindset. Everybody talks about capture the market. Capture the market. Capture is such a violent word. He introduced to me the word captivate. Today it's all about captivating the world. With your mission, with your objectives, with your authenticity, with your purity, with Your determination, what capture? We are seeing the perils of capturing one country, capturing the other. Our Sanatana Dharma, the heritage of India. We have never captured anyone. There's no need to. We have captivated the world. People came from all over the world to study in India. No need to capture anyone. So captivate the world with a fantastic message. Now.

It'S very, very important to turn every interaction and incident into, into something positive. Because you know, one of my good friends and my mentors, Rajesh tells me this. Every incident there are two outcomes. Either you get the outcome that you are expecting or you learn something from it. So there is there really no other outcome. Either you get what you want or, or you learn something from it. So that's what you should look at every incident in our life. Now the monumental debate with Mandala Mishra. Again Adi Shankara was told there is this Pandit.

In this town, Maheshmati and you have to go and win over him. And again you can learn more about the debate. And we have actually a talk by Sri Venkatraman about the debating principles he uses from Adi Shankara's life in Supreme Court today.

There is so much written about the debating philosophy.

So when this debate was going on, the two sort of debaters were given two fresh garlands of flowers. Both had the garlands and Obhaya Bharati, the woman who, she was the judge, he was one of the debater's wife. Now the reason she actually had those two garlands were that whichever garland becomes weaker or less fragrant is the loser. I mean it was just amazing. Now what happens is when you are in a debate or any conversation, when you get emotional, when you get angry, your body's temperature increases. You know, this is one way to look at it. And because of that your, you know, the flowers can become, you know, less fragrant over time. So I encourage all of you and I try to practice that myself to be a calm, assertive and a confident leader. Because when you are calm, your brain works better. This is exactly what Adi Shankara did. The history says Mandalamishra was getting very anxious because he was not winning it. His arguments were not going through. Now.

We can also communicate better when we are calm.

Adi Shankara was very confident, very calm, very assertive and we also listened better. Now two weeks ago I was in Vancouver at the TED 2022 and I saw this picture on the wall. The quieter you become, the more you can hear. That's exactly what I'm sure Adi Shankara did today. When you're running organizations or when you're running teams, be a great listener, be that calm listener and learn what is being said. Because when you're speaking, you're not hearing. It's just impossible. Our brain doesn't work that way. And interestingly the word listen, if you shift all the letters it actually spells silent too. So be that silent listener and be that calm, assertive and confident leader. That's what we can learn from this. When you're calm, your body temperature is also normal and your reaction is is much more mature and balanced.

Producing so many original works. You know, Bhagavad Gita, Bhashyam Sivananda Lahri, Soundarya Lahri. Now those of you who are not from the Indian heritage, the number of works that Adi Shankara created in a matter of 32 years is just mind boggling. So I encourage every one of you to write, to speak, to tweet or to coup. I recently got introduced to coup. Share your thoughts, get your thoughts out. It doesn't have to be perfect. Perfection happens over time. And I believe wisdom, when you share gets amplified, it gets purified in your own mind. Here is one of those things that there are only few things in life that when you share it still stays with you and grows on you. That's wisdom and love. And of course a joke. Every time you say a joke again you laugh and other people laugh too. Wisdom is like that. When you teach and share it and share it and share it, it gets clearer and clearer in your head and you still keep it.

So my recommendation to all of you is be a mentor for at least one human being. Share what you know with them. And even if one human gets inspired by a wise insight from you or from your life experience, that's real impact. We are here to make impact. We're not here to just have a party and then disappear, right? So it's amazing that Adi Shankara has created so many original works in a lifespan of 32 years.

Number seven, walking across the country of Bharat six times. Now this is walking guys. 2500 years ago it is frequently referred to as the Shankara Digvijay Yatra and this was the Bharat. In those days.

The entire region of Afghanistan and Pakistan and parts of Turkey and Asia was all considered the land of Bharat. And Adi Shankara walked across to pursue his life's mission of oneness. And so as entrepreneurs, as young people, we have to be persistent and stay the course, cannot give up in the middle, right? That's what Adi Shankara Did. It's not humanly possible to walk across this massive land six times, meeting people, winning debates and you know, and then continuing to write treatises, original works, showing compassion. That, that shows that his persistence is something that we can learn from. And staying the course is very important. And of course you cannot do it alone. You have to continuously build a great team around you. Whether it is indica moksha, whether it is mentor cloud, or whether it is any massive mission that you have taken up. You need a team around you. And again, another role model of mine, Swami Vivekananda's favorite quote or famous quote is arise, awake and stop. Not till the goal is reached. Same thing. Be persistent, stay the course. It won't be easy. And if it's easy, everybody will do it.

Remember this, if it's easy, everybody will do it. But you want to do some things that everybody is not willing to take that risk. Work hard and do it. Such people will live on for a long, long time and their work will continue to inspire for generations. Which is essentially what Adi Shankara's life tells us.

Number eight. The story is this, the episodic interaction. Adi Shankara was once going on his morning bhiksha and the tour and he comes across a untouchable with dogs and he asks him to move away. He says, hey, I am the learned person and you know, please make way for me. And this person asks who should move me, this body or the soul inside me. And then this conversation is just brilliant conversation. Now some, some of you who may not have taken the time to understand the Indian scriptures, 90% of them are conversations. Whether it is yoga, va system, whether it is Bhagavad Gita, whether it is Uddhavada or these are all conversations. Wisdom is shared and revealed during conversations. Every one of you should have good conversations week after week. Not only about politics, not about movies. Find someone that you don't work with every day and have a conversation. They had a great conversation. Go find out. What you see in the movies is sort of a, you know, cinematic version of this. But in reality they actually had a conversation. The Chandala asked, you know, Adi Shankara, who should move me? This body or the person? The atma inside me? The soul inside me? Right? Should the car move or the driver move or the car with the driver in it? Right. That's the analogy. So he was very humble. He said, my God, this is amazing. Who should move? They had a conversation. So it's a lesson that I have learned that I would like all of you to take away is be humble.

And always be ready to correct ourselves. Nothing wrong to be wrong. At times I have been wrong, you know, launching the Menta Cloud Company. I have been wrong in so many different ways in the life. But that's how the life is. It's okay. Learn and grow, learn and grow and keep going.

And again, the Indian scriptures talk about how we all can be a learner. Just like the honeybee. The honeybee goes around whether the flower is on the floor, on the ground or where the flower is part of a beautiful garden. It picks up the honey and walks away. Doesn't care about the thorns around the flower. So be willing to learn from anyone. Adi Shankara did exactly that. He learned so much from that interaction. And you can read up and learn more about it. Now today we talk about dei, diversity, equity and inclusion. Now skin color doesn't matter. Martin Luther King said, judge a human not by the color of the skin but by the strength of the character. These are all things that came from Adi Shankara's way of looking at life. Skin color doesn't matter. Looks don't matter. What matters is the soul within us, the human within us and the message or the wisdom that we carry with us. That's what matters. Today, when organizations are struggling to make their workplaces diverse, have equity and include everybody, that's what it is.

We have to get beyond the color of the skin, beyond the looks of people. But look at the humanness. Look at the wisdom that each of us, every person in the workplace or in society brings to create a more harmonious place. It's extremely important to understand this aspect of the Indian heritage. It is respecting everybody for who they are because that is how a society operates, that everybody has a role to play. They may not look the same, they may not act the same, they may not speak the same. But everybody has a role to play to make the society thrive. Even if you take a simple temple for example, there are people who do the daily rituals inside the sanctum sanctorum. There are people who keep the temple functioning from a financial perspective. There are people who to make, to make the temple look clean. It's nothing different than a company has a chief executive officer, a chief marketing officer, a chief product officer, a chief financial officer. Everybody has a role to play to keep an organization going. And everybody has a role to play to keep this world going. So we have to be humble and be willing to correct ourselves in case we come across a concept that is really not right.

And we all know at a very Young age Adi Shankara went on his daily morning, Bhiksha went to this old lady's house and said Bhavati Bhiksam dehi, please give me some food. And the old lady was extremely poor. She didn't have anything. She only had.

What is called a gooseberry. And that's what she offered him. And Shankara was moved by that, right? And recently Dr. Sri Venkatraman who is a fantastic judge in this, in the Indian Supreme Court in a brilliant man who a year ago talked about debating because that's what he said, how he uses Adi Shankara's lessons in his everyday debates in the court, right? He said I cannot get angry, I cannot afford to get angry because then I lose. So he talked about the lessons he learned from Adi Shankara's debating philosophy. And a couple of weeks ago he talked about compassion and he defined compassion as not pity, pity is somebody somewhere is hurting. I'll just feel bad and move on. Somebody even closer, you feel sympathetic, somebody even closer, you understand? But he said compassion is beyond all of that. And that's exactly how he described the whole talk is on Adi Shankara as an epitome of compassion, right? What is compassion? He said compassion is not just feel but take action. You know as human beings we can take action too. It can be a small thing, you know, give maybe a 1 rupee or just lend a helping hand. But just feeling pity alone is not enough. My spiritual mentor today, Dr. Shanmukhmagaru told me once, Ravi, it's a combination of Daya and Dakshinyam. Now those of you who may not know Samskritam or not from Indian heritage Daya means having the feeling for other individual. But that's not enough. That's not enough. Dakshinya means actually helping and that's what compassion is. In samskritam it's called avyajakarunamurti means having the ability to feel and take action. Today when I come across someone that I really feel for them I do something. Either give my time, give my knowledge, open a door for them, send them a donation, do something, you know it is extremely important not to start because there's enough people who say oh I feel so sorry that that's not good enough. If you want to be really the good human, the compassionate human. Now compassion and Avijaj Karunamurti are not the same again Venkatraman talks about it at length. So it is the ability to feel and the ability to take action to help that individual in whatever capacity you have. That's what I've learned from this. Having true compassion for fellow human beings and helping in whatever way I can. And I hope all of you will do the same as well next time. When you see someone in need, feel and do.

And lastly, he established four Mutams. I call them Coes, the Centers of Excellence.

And the Joshi Mat in the north to Dwarka Mat on in the in the west, the Puri Matam. So Matam is an institution. Think of it as a university, as a place for knowledge to be collected and disseminated. And the Sringeri Matam in the south. Look at the thinking. Thousands of years ago, four corners of the country, North, West, south, east.

That shows a vision. That shows that he had a plan or a vision to let his mission outlast his own life. That's what companies should do today. Build a leadership team, mentor them and make sure that the mission, the company that you are running outlasts you. There are companies like Merck Group and Marriott International, Infosys and Tatas and Birlas. All these great companies. Why do they survive generation after generation? It's because of being able to build that leadership team. And sometimes people refer to as succession planning. You should plan your succession. You know most families do it within their family but doing it at an organizational level, doing it at a national level is just incredibly inspiring to me. And you can learn more about how he took the people from the north and made them the heads of the Mutt in the south, how he took people from Dwaraka and made them the heads of the Muttam in Puri. He knew that you had to cross pollinate to bring people from across the country to create the diversity and inclusive leadership. It's just brilliant. Brilliant.

And the establishing of the four Mutams. And I'm sure there is a talk on this particular topic. On the east it was called the Govardhanapitam and the vision or the so called Mahavakya. Now every company has vision has a vision statement. In the east it was consciousness is Brahman Prajnanam Brahma. In the south, in Sringeri it was I am Brahman Aham Brahmasmi Tatvamasi. I am Atma Brahma. Look at this. Every Matam had a leader and all the four leaders again there are talks about his disciples. Padmapada, Sureshwaracharya, Hasta, Malakacharya and Totakacharya. Four mentees, four disciples. He gave them each a mission statement, gave them each one Veda now there are four Vedas that Indian heritage is proud to offer to the world. The Rig Veda, the Ejurveda, the Sama Veda and Atharva Veda. So he gave a mission statement to all of them. He told the which Veda, which Sampradaya means which tradition to follow for that particular Matam. And then today, thousands of years later, these institutions are standing strong, standing so strong, continuing to continuing the work of this Adhvaitha, the oneness. And there is a lot more to do. But.

The idea of doing this so many thousands of years ago is something that we can learn from. Build a leadership team, mentor them and let your mission outlast you because we are not permanent. Adi Shankara also ended his avatar. Everybody has to go one day but let your work continue. So let me quickly recap and we'll take some questions.

So the story of the alligator taught me and I hope you walk away with the same insight and lesson to have determination. Don't let the alligators hold you back. There are lots of alligators, my friends that will hold you back. Whether you are going to college today, whether you have just graduated and about to start your job, whether you are an entrepreneur, social entrepreneur, retired, doesn't matter. Live your life with a specific purpose and don't let anyone stop you.

Number two, his journey to find his guru. Find your mentor, find out who can accelerate your mission, accelerate your own career goals and life goals and have a clear messaging. And there are so many books, so many coaches teaching how to message. I go through refining my message regularly. When people ask me what do I do? When people ask what does mentor cloud do? Very important to message it. And I shared a short verse from the Nirvana Shatakam that Shankara replied. And when his guru asked from the inside, who are you? The mentor has to walk towards you. There's a beautiful video by Indra Nooyi, the former chairman and CEO of Pepsi. She said be the best mentee that mentors go after you. There's a whole YouTube video where she talks about how mentors executives across Pepsi came looking for her, to mentor her, to really develop her into the chairman and the CEO that she is today. That's all because of how you attract them. That's what Govinda Pada did. He walked out from the cave. I found my mentee, I found my disciple. Now captivate the world, not capture. Capture is not part of a Sanatana Dharma. It should not be part of any Dharma. This is a completely alien concept to where we all come from and that's the true Sanatana Dharma is to captivate the world. Let the world get attracted, be that magnetic, not capture, you know, that's very, you know, violent word. Thanks to Sadhguru for introducing this new word into my vocabulary. And we talked about debating how to be that calm, assertive and confident leader so that when we are calm, we can listen better, communicate better, and also lead better. And regularly sharing our thoughts through whatever means, being a mentor, writing blogs or books or tweeting. Share your wisdom. Because you don't want to take it with you when you leave. It's going to go underground or into ashes. That's what I tell in my talks here. So wisdom is. Might as well share it, right? And be persistent. Stay the course. I talked about Adi Shankara's sixth six times. Walking across the country, you know, three round trips, as they say, staying the course, overcoming obstacles, overcoming hurdles, being disciplined and being persistent. Because persistence is what creates great moments, great organizations and great lives that become the role models for others.

And of course, the importance of being humble. I talked about the Chandala incident that where Adi Shankara, being the scholar of the day, also took the opportunity to learn and change his way of thinking and having compassion. The Kanakadhara Stotram that I talked about, don't stop at the stotram. Yes, chant it. Definitely chant it. So that may you know, the God in the universe bless you with a lot of wealth and prosperity. But don't stop there. Give it away. Have compassion. Don't stop at Daya or pt. Take action. That's what the Samsktradam word is. Dakshinyam. And finally, let your mission outlast you by having a succession plan. Whether you are running an organization or running a team, you're not going to be permanent. And we can learn from Adi Shankara how he has established these four institutions with a clear mission statement, with a clear leader, a methodology and a process that has survived thousands of years. And these institutions, my friends, they still exist even today. You can go to India and go to the Joshi Matt or the Puri Matt or the Dwarka Mat or Sringeri Mat. It's unbelievable how these institutions have, you know, stood over time. India has been conquered, occupied wars, temples have been burned, libraries have been burnt. The Naranda library is supposed to have burned for years. Still, the wisdom remains. The institutions have remained. The essence of Sanatara Dharma has remained. The soul has remained. It's because Adi Shankara has established this very powerful Guru Sishya Parampara human to human, which is the essence of what I do today. Because anything can be destroyed, but not what's in our mind. And that's what keeps our Indian heritage, Sanatara Dharma, alive and thriving.

Shivoham Tanya Vadaha, thank you very much for this opportunity to share what I have learned from my role model and my mentor's life, which I hope you will at least take one or two that inspired me and I hope they inspire you and guide you for the rest of your life. Thank you so much.

I'm ready for questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Raviji. I don't know about the other viewers but I was definitely captivated. No question about it. It was fantastic.

It's a Modern Day 10 Commandments for the purpose of entrepreneurs who will be entrepreneurs.

I didn't think of the 10. I just came up with that.

I actually registered that quote of ten Commandments because we are on a different plane. But then for the purpose of understand better is okay. Those are ten commandments for the purpose of an effective not only entrepreneurial life, but life as a whole.

Leave this space better than what you found. It is underlying underlying message. Yes. If you find something objectionable. Okay. Cure it there and then. Cure it there and then.

Fantastic. Fantastic. I will take this.

Thank you so much. Sanjeev Ji, the fact that you said ten commandments, I. I will make it eleven. You know, I'll make it eleven. I'll find out one more incident in his life.

It's a very western concept. And yes. Which is okay. Which, which serves the purpose that for.

Which it was written only for the purpose of communication. Nothing.

Exactly. Exactly. So I'm going to make it 11. I'm going to make it 11. And I will make sure I add add in the comments but.

There are a few questions. The name, the name of my book is the art of Mentoring. You can go to mentorcloud.com and download it or I can have the teams send it to you.

And yeah, one question is here in question box. I will take the question box question first and thereafter I will go to the chat questions. One first question in question box is please share your practical professional experience with respect to Adi Shankara principles as motivating to youngsters. Of course your speech itself was. Was covering everything of it but if you want to deal with quickly in couple of sentences that would be better.

Absolutely. So my entire talk is that.

But really you know the discipline in which I try to emulate. I don't call myself a very disciplined from my daily in A management perspective. But I'm trying so.

Being disciplined, being mindful that one day we're going to go away very, very quickly and we saw this over the last two years. The fact that time is not our biggest friend right now. Health is not guaranteed, your existence is not guaranteed. So I live by why am I here? I missed death twice. You can read some of these stories online. So I'm here for a purpose. So every, every day I wake up in the morning, I try to be very, very effective, efficient and make sure that my work is impactful when I am, when I'm interacting with my team members, my mentors. Every aspect of this is a lesson I've derived from Adi Shankara and you know, I'm happy to anything extra beyond that.

Sriva Sao Garu talked about. Yes. I wouldn't call it commandments, it was never a commandment. Indian heritage is not about commandment. Nobody tells us what to do. That's the only reason why in spite of attacks and wars and India remains because we decide what we do. It is a heritage completely out of introspection. You know, we have 300 million gods. What a beautiful concept that is. Everybody is a God. A tiger is a God, a stone is a God. So you can destroy temples when we don't want to. I have a whole project on, you know, preserving and rejuvenating our temples. But the reason the heritage survived 10,000 years is because it's in the soul and the heart and the minds of people. So we'll find a new word. Srinivas Ravgaru.

I'll find something.

Srinivas Garu's question is on what is the role of Vedantic literature in the process of those 11 sutras? See as he has given some alternative names. 11 sutras, if those are 11 sutras or 10 sutras, what role has Vedantic literature to play in formulation and execution of. That's his question.

Absolutely. In fact the sutras is a very good word. One of the bashims that Adi Shankara wrote is called is a Basham on Brahma sutras and Brahma sutras are just unbelievable, you know, whoever, whoever, you know, those of you who publish articles, there's something called abstract. You know, when Einstein produced his paper, his abstract was E equal to MC squared. That's it. And everybody thought oh my God, the shortest abstract everybody ever written. But Adi Shankar has written or Indian the Vedic literature has written this, you know, abstracts called Brahma Sutras. You know, the first one is, you know, Tato Brahma jignyasa, that's all seven or eight letters. You know, Tato means then Brahma jignyasa means the search for the ultimate truth begins. Okay, then means what? After what? There's a whole process of, you know, going beyond our senses, beyond ourselves, beyond this world. Tato means then Brahma jignasa means begins. So Vedic literature is filled with the sutras for us to draw from, for us to reflect. And the pity of today's world, which is what the Indica moksha and myself and all of us are trying to do, is to bring this thinking back into our, into a regular education.

This is not about God, this is about living your life to the full potential. So Vedic literature is riddled with stories and sutras. You know.

One of our oldest social reformers and authors, Veda Vyasa has given us so much treasures because it was not documented. So he documented the Vedas. Then he said, you know what, nobody may take time to read the vedas. He created 18 Puranas, then he created the Bhagavatam. So there are many, many aspects of Indian scriptures. You just have to pick one and you can live the entire life drawing from it and never feel short of sutras and sort of, you know, guiding lessons.

One technical question, I think everybody knows, but maybe could you please clarify the timeline of Shankara? Is it 2500 years before or it is something different than that?

Yes, honestly this is something I need to resolve in the world. There's no reason to fight over it. But there are two schools of thought. Who was asking the question? There are certain scholars who say he walked on the planet about 1234 years ago. In fact, this Shankar Jayanti, when we started this particular third global festival of oneness is 1234th birthday, 1234. It's a very interesting number. But there are other scholars that attribute 2532 as his life. But you know what, it's really not. Yeah, who cares, right? Recently.

I was giving a talk. Did Krishna really talk to Arjuna? Did that really happen? I mean, in the middle of a war, can Lord Krishna give the mentor give a message of 770 verses to Arjuna? I told this person, why do you care?

That is a debate for another day. Go figure out what he said and learn from it and enhance your life. Don't get stuck in this ideological debates. It's fun. Spend five minutes and move on now. So.

There is a debate. I hope in my life I can try and resolve it. It's been one of those things that. But it does not matter learn. But the documentation of his life is accepted. There is something called Madhavi Shankara Vijayam. And there are many, many Shankar VGMs. So nobody argues about the life and works of Adi Shankara. So let's focus on that.

Yes. So tech home is most important rather than the timing. Yeah.

It doesn't matter.

And you described Tacom in a fantastic way. Taking. Taking the incidents in the life of Anishan. Thank you. Thank you, Ravishankarji. Thank you. And God bless you in your future care. Thanks a lot. I think we are done with the questions.

Absolutely. Thank you all for the opportunity. There will be a recording of this. But thank you Indica Moksha for this wonderful opportunity. Namaste.

Namaste.

Viewers. Please join us tomorrow morning on we are going to have talk by Nima Majimodar on Prashnuktar Namaliki. Thank you.