A short personal reflection by Siddharth Rajsekar about lessons learned from his grandfather. He emphasizes core principles — service, prioritizing true education over formal schooling, maintaining and not burning bridges in relationships, forgiveness, accepting events as purposeful, and how these shaped his internal operating system (‘samskaras’).
Chapters
When I was 7, 8, 9 years old, I used to spend a lot of time with my grandfather. As I mentioned about him before, he comes from a large family of seven brothers, three sisters, and I grew up in a joint family till my seventh standard. And some of the principles that I got from my grandfather were these core elements of service. For example, he would say, never let schooling interfere with your education. So that was one of the core principles that I've shared before. Another thing that he would say is, all for one, one for all. He would never want to burn bridges with anybody because he believed in deep relationships. Even if somebody did not treat him well. Or even if some person did not do anything that is pleasing to him, he would not burn the bridges. He would let them be where they are, but he would quickly forgive them and move on and not carry any emotional grudge. Because he always believed that whatever happens, happens for a reason. And he was always in that mode of service. He gave me some principles, but by observing him and by learning more about him from my parents and my uncles, of how he would live his life, how he built a successful business. All of those elements went into me, into my operating system, or what I call as samskaras.