Show Transcription >>

Nitesh B.
Hello, and welcome to another episode of The mindful initiative podcast. It’s not always that we get eminent folks to speak with during our podcast. But today is one such day, where we have a privilege to have Dr. R balasubramaniam, who’s with us to talk about his journey. Having embarked on his journey in the development sector by living and working for several years among remote forest based tribal communities in the southern Indian district of Mysuru, Dr. Balasubramaniam is a widely respected development activist, leadership trainer, thinker and a writer. After his MBBS he earned his M. Phil in Hospital Administration and Health Systems Management from BITS Pilani. He then went on to get his Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School. His living habits were greatly influenced by the teachings of Swami Vivekananda. And at the age of 19, he founded the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement based on the principles of Ahimsa, Satya Seva and Tyaga. This NGO has grown to be one of the finest NGOs in India. He has spent the last 36 years of his life in the service of rural and tribal forests of India. He’s also the Founder and Chairman of Grassroots Research and Advocacy Movement of Public Policy and Think Tank in India ( (GRAAM) ). He’s a Tata scholar, a Mason Fellow of Harvard Kennedy School, and a Fellow of Hauser Center of Civil Society at Harvard University. He is a Frank HD Rhodes professor at Cornell University. He is an adjunct faculty at University of Iowa, and a visiting faculty at IIT Delhi, is also the author of seven books in Kannada, and in English.

Dr. Balu
And I think COVID is a brilliant opportunity. Now, as a physician, it may sound very paradoxical that I fall into the brilliant opportunity, opportunity for science to discover vaccines opportunity for public health experts to learn how to better manage stuff, all that is fine. But I think deep down at the personal level, it’s an opportunity for us to ask as the very purpose of our existence. So I think what we need is opening our minds the way we learn, and deconstructing learning, not from the hierarchical teacher, student learning, mindset that we are all used to. But looking at environment, nature, animals, dogs, things around you, and learning from them. And the moment you start opening yourself like that, then you understand the power of the traditional knowledge.

Nitesh B.
Welcome, Dr. Bala Subramaniam.

Dr. Balu.
Thank you. Thank you for having me over this podcast Nitesh.

Nitesh B.
So first thing I wanted to ask, Can I call you Dr. Balu,

Dr. Balu.
Please do call me Dr. Bala subramaniam, because both of whom are so distant and somebody else?

Nitesh B.
That was my first question. You know, in these interviews, we get to know a little bit about the people that we’re interviewing, especially about their childhood, and most times our childhood shape, or at least, you know, began to shape who we are as individuals. Now, there’s a lot of information that I found out about you after the age of 19, when you founded the NGO, but if you could tell us a little bit about your upbringing, and if religion was part of your upbringing, or or any spirituality was part of your upbringing.

Dr. Balu.
Well, I come from a very typical middle class family, like most middle class families have secured Bengaluru aspirations or just limited to studies and the end outcome of studying well would be getting a degree in medicine or a degree in engineering. Now, we really had no much options. And once you got that, the next step was to write your GRE are those days they were called ECFMG. So medicine, now they call USMLE, and they are the exam UK, India was just a launchpad. And then you found your way out, my life was no different. So shaped exactly in these middle class values. But what are the values of middle color also shape you is you know, you take enormous pride in family and kinship. Or you grew up with friends who are very grounded. You, you are, you know, like Swami Vivekananda always says he says my faith is in the middle class, because you can relate to the people who you think are poor. At the same time, you could also travel the world or the rich if you want. So it gives you a unique advantage and I think my values are exactly similar and coming from parents who are also very typically middle class, but who came up with a very hard way. You understand values like, no respect for people respect for heritage culture, and you grow up. Without even knowing it, you grew up in a religious environment. So every festival is a celebration, to at a particular age of childhood, you know, you think festivals are opportunities to buy new clothes, and he tweet and post crackers. But subconsciously, it’s in the DNA of God, God along packaged with rituals, all gets thrown into it, it’s a very peculiar combination of several several things that gets packaged, and coming from the state of caste that I came from, and you carry your burden of caste also. And so you also embedded with all those caste values of Japa, Dhyaana, Gayatri Mantra and all that, at that point of time, you know, you present it, strangely is, to me personally, in my life Gayatri Mantras are the most powerful tools that I still cherish using. But at that age, when you’re 10, or 11, you think it’s a nuisance that your father is forcing you to do all that. So I think I just grew up in that environment. So very typical middle class aspirations, absolutely no idea, or intend to claim what I did in life.

Dr. Balu.
So it was just that so my career, my life has an opportunity to lead this country. And join my siblings are already abroad. And so that’s all it was. And you always imagine that the right at the end of the tunnel is leaving this country.

Nitesh B.
Thank you so much. I think you’re so right. And even till today, the middle class values are such we look at going outside. And there’s a lot of work that has been done in the last 30-40 years where, where we want people to just be here, the aspirations may not be as many as they were few years ago, because a lot more opportunities have come by, and especially because of the work that is being done by people like you who have gone grassroots, and we see certain things that are happening, the goal that our country has to offer, which is been hidden because of certain other elements. You talk about Swami Vivekananda, a lot, and he has been inspiration for you from a very young age. And one of the principles which he talks about is the Iccha, Jnana and Kriya, the desire as what to do. But the young generation, that desire is somehow transforming to be more materialistic to be more money oriented. And moving away from what I saw in my parents generation, it was about building the country, bringing our families and being connected. And now we are evolving as a society. So if Swami Vivekananda were to be here, I mean, people like you are his incarnations in many ways. What would his thought process be? Would he still be saying the same things? Or would he be coming up with new messages for us?

Dr. Balu.
You know, I actually think about this question a lot in my life, because every time I’m saying this, in the context of more than a decade ago, I wrote a book called Swami Vivekananda, As I see him, and I was reading my own book. And I said, Oh, my God, I seen this way. And then I asked myself is Swamiji, and this message changed, because I believe the message of Vedanta that he gives is eternal, or is my ability to interpret this message changing. So that I realize that my antennas are being fine tuned every day, the more more you get embedded in the discovery of the self, the more you enjoy diving inside, the more you try to withdraw your best, not that you’re successful from the outside distractions, you start seeing him differently. And I remember one sentence, he says, He says, life is a journey about traveling from one level of truth to the next level. And my understanding of Vivekananda is exactly that, because I am at a particular level, I see him in a particular way. And then as I have all I have the ability to understand and interpret him better. And I want to the next level of truth. So his message is not going to change. I think our abilities to interpret his message changes. That’s how I look at it. And to me, if I were to interpret, interpreting what would he say today, I would say how would I interpret him today? And I am reminded of a book by somebody who I had the chance of just having a conversation with when I was in Cambridge in the US. She’s written a book called because based on a PhD thesis, the book called The Gift Unopened. And she discovers in a research something happened in the United States in the late 1800s. At 1900’s, which actually altered the trajectory of the growth potential of the United States, and actually went deeper. She realized it was the cyclone that hit the United States called Swami Vivekananda. And then she says the Americans about the most fortunate that Swamiji came there and spend such time to speak. And then he says Americans have failed to open this gift It’s a gift given by God and we’ve not yet opened it. And one sentence she writes in that book, she says, If Columbus can be credited to the discovery of the land of America, it is Swami Vivekananda, who gave us our soul. And it’s a fascinating little book. And I keep telling myself even in India, we are not completely open the gift called Vivekananda. So we all is packaged so many layers, that every time I open one layer, I think how I discovered this man, and then we realize and the package to be opened, and as you keep an opening this package to discover him at different levels and different layers of truth. So to me, if we were here today, and I just what I articulate, whether it’s my talks, my lectures, my books, there are essentially Vivekananda’s Vedanta packaged in different ways. I tried to make them relevant and contextually relevant as well as culturally appropriate for the modern generation. So to me the message before the end people understanding the reality where they are, I would say, can you explore and discover private gains, they were engaged in public good, Swami Vivekananda life is all about life for others. In a letter to the Mysuru Maharaja, he says, the vanities of life are transient, but he alone lives who lives for others, the rest are more dead than alive. That’s an eternal message that is not going to alter. But the vanities of life need to be redefined. What are the vanities of life a decade ago, two decades ago is different what it is today. So I believe, if it’s repackaged and told people, you know what, great how private gains the means is as important as the end is what we Vivekananda says. So pay attention to the means have your private gains. But remember, it has to result in public good. So I call upon friends, when I talk to them and say there’s nothing wrong having private gains ethical and moral way, but you got to understand the impact has to be public good. So as they start framing your life this way, they start the journey of understanding what life is for others. I’ll give an example. Let’s take the example of Bill Gates himself. Right. His journey of private gains is Microsoft now that he did and the wonderful things he has done in his life, but now he understands its public good. Similarly, let’s take our one extraordinary person Azim Premji. Right. His whole journey has been private gains. But now at a particular point in life, you realize that that’s justice mean to the stepping stone, and now he’s living it for the public good. So we have such wonderful role models around the world in many in our own country. And if you can just understand that if it keeps telling the public good at 18, 19, 20. And in a world, which celebrates consumerism, and exhibitionism, that young man is going to be at most confused, at best may be inspired. So I would say find the middle ground and say, hey, it’s okay. Find your private games. But remember, public good has to be a measurable outcome of your private gains. And I think it works.

Nitesh B.
How beautiful is that? And if all of us start thinking in that direction, I think it will be a totally different generation, totally different country, totally different world. And when you talk about role models, one of the role models that came to my mind was lady in your book, who started a tent business, who was earning 1000 rupees, because at a young age, she had to go through so many difficulties, and she has overcome all that, to not just help herself, but help the other women in the community. So she’s a role model in her own respte and in her own way. And I love how she mentions that they employ men now, which is so beautiful, it’s the reverse thing. But that made me think about our education system that made me think about the way the society is functioning today. What I mean by that is, in the education system, we are talking about kids getting more grades coming, or topping, the classes are the best in the education system are rewarded, the lowest are being helped in many ways. And most people like me who are in the middle, they’re like, you know, you figured out your own way. It’s your own way of doing. Now you have set up schools, you’re part of the University of Mysore, with teaching messages and setting up I think, the first Master’s Program as well. How is that different? So that’s my first question. My second question is the youth that we are teaching in schools and colleges do we need to relook? I mean, that’s a big question, do we need to relook at our education system the way we are teaching the value system of who we are as Indians, as humans?

Dr. Balu.
I think the answer is embedded in the way you frame the question itself. Now, the first question to be relook at the education system. What do we do? You know, there was a time I would say, maybe 30-40 years ago when globally, attainment in a particular way, was simply boiled down to the qualifications that you could display and the better the place that to display the qualification from you’re automatically granted the status and it’s not too far off when I graduated from Harvard, it’s just another place as simple as that. And it is obviously it is it’s a fascinating place a lot of intellectual stimulation, the ecosystem there promotes you to acquire more and more knowledge, or my own personal experiences that I always felt that in the work that I did, that I felt inadequate throughout. And this hunger, this inadequacy of mine, because of the ecosystem pressure because of everybody around me, I thought the adequacy can be fulfilled by formal degrees. So when I realized that my clinical work was not answering problems of malnutrition, or scabies, or vitamin A deficiency, maybe public health degree will teach me how to do it. So I went to the National Institute of Health and Family Welfare acquired a program there, and then I thought, oh, I’ll figure it out now, and come back. Luckily, my own life was still provided me the space to experiment. I never recognized that I had learned how to experiment. I never recognized that I have my own my own self because of my gurus and my diksha guru who helped me reflect and my earlier book Voices at the Grassroots, I actually dedicated to him. And I never realized what he had embedded in me with the capacity to learn the capacity to reflect the capacity to process things on my own. And suddenly Vivekananda’s message of unleashing the inner potential, or finding or discovering the embedded learning within a person started uncovering doubt without my own understanding. But I was still a victim of system I’d come from and I thought, okay, public health doesn’t answer my questions. Maybe the problem is health systems. And that took me to BITS Pilani, and that will teach me how to do it. And well, I didn’t find an answer to the real challenges of tribals living the forest, they have been suffering because of laws, which they never understood. I thought, oh my god, I know how to find a solution for this. The mecca of human development is the Harvard Kennedy School. Luckily, I invited him I went there with the program, read a fellowship and all that and they came back. And then finally, after coming back, I realized he didn’t have the answers. Thankfully, they didn’t give me the answers, because they wouldn’t have been my answers at all. But what they gave me was a better way of framing questions, and the confidence that I could discover answers from within myself, which is any way they are in me. But society being what it is, Harvard might have wanted me there because of my 30 years of work in the grassroots. But today, people want me because I’m a Harvard product. That’s a very strange thing. So there is a cosmetic value that we all give to these institutions. So I think I wouldn’t discard it for now, because we’re the society in transition, they still need those cosmetic appendages from a call. But then those cosmetic appendages must realize and learn that education is not just for employment, the private gains part can come from employment, but they need to learn that if we can embed in our younger generations, the children of the country, and then the youth of the country, the ability to figure out for themselves, their own inner self, their potential, the true practice of Brahamchariya in the not just the continents kind of a way, in an academic kind of a way devoted to the growth of concentration and discipline, dispassion, determination, all these essential qualities that we celebrate in a country for generations. I think we, unfortunately lack a generation of teachers who can do that, because they were a generation of teachers who always believed that employment is the future employment for what is a question that if people ask, and they are asking, I can even talk about my own son, he went to the Indians of science, and then he said, this has not given me what I wanted, and is I’m going to discover it on my own. And today, there are opportunities currently, I only appreciate that real learning is a courage in saying, I’ve discovered myself, if we can embed a future generation with that courage, with the wisdom with the conviction that, you know, there’s a civilizational wisdom in this country, which I can unpack and rediscover in a way in which it appeals to me, things can gemuch better. So we’re going to try small experiments. And so even if you look at my own trajectory of life, and the schools and colleges, we run, it was no different from the other systems. Because I was also my vision was limited to the product of the system I came from. But once I started asking these questions, now, we are actually re looking at it. And we are now conceiving a center Call Center for Human Excellence, because that is the real education. And we are now saying, we’ll keep it embedded in what others can understand it us call it a school, call it a college, call it all those words, because society can relate to that. And I don’t want to keep waging a battle trying to change society. That’s not my intent. My intent is to create a new generation of young people who believe in themselves, have the confidence to renegotiate their own lives on their terms, and truly make this world a better place. So we are now putting it all together, and hopefully five years from today. We just started six months ago. COVID gave us a great opportunity because the resilience that COVID demanded in multiple levels, is what I realized we need embed people with And in conclusion, favorite Say what is it that I would like to engage you’re devoting the rest of my life is the message that we carry the development paradigm that we have no frame at the Swami Vivekananda movement and draws inspiration from several thinkers it could be, Vivekananda, Ramana Maharshi J Krishnamurti, Aurobindo, you know, they are all such extraordinary greatness. The simplicity was a great lesson if you can just pick their messages synthesize it together. So, we realize that what you need, what does human beings need is a capacity to build a human and social capital. And I define human capital in a simplistic way, not the way economist or World Bank would define it, but I define it is an expansion of capabilities in the domain of the physical. So learning Yoga is as critical eating the right food is as critical are at one makes meaning suddenly having good air to get good water to drink, the cognitive, right? external, we need those information matters in today’s world of STEM and information, you cannot discard it. The third is emotional. No Bhava, we don’t even know how to deal with power, the interpersonal intelligence or the interpersonal intelligence that we all need to have. And the last is spiritual, you cannot remove one out to the other. And what I don’t want to waste my time arguing is it saffronization it is not saffronization, I think meaningless waste of time, expanding the physical, cognitive, emotional and spiritual capabilities purpose, and making your to build a cohort of people to have influence and change at a larger level. That’s why the social capitalistic. Now your podcast is a great way of social capital to expand to so I’m going to talk on your podcast and maybe the 100 people listening to this later, in some way we get connected. And the connection is that your experience of connection doesn’t have to be, we don’t have to physically be there in a very deep way, if we can learn to listen in a co generative way, we find meaning in each of those words, and then express it in different ways. And this is what we hope to embed. And if a child wants to go into the regular way of life, they’re going to be powerful economic consequences, the tools of aquatic when he can do that. So we’re not private gains, But if he decides to say that, okay, well, this training is going to make me use this and redeploy for public good, the world is going to be better. So it may sound Utopian and Dreamy. But my conviction says, this is the way.

Nitesh B.
I think it may sound utopian, because it may seem grandiose in ways, but I think you lived an exemplary life or you’ve been living an exemplary life, because you have taken something which was which started from nothing, and you have built it right. So it is a possibility of doing that. But one of the things that you mentioned, really piqued my interest is about the intellectual thinkers our nation has has given and where you simply stated Ramana Aurobindo Vivekananda, but when you start to look at their body of work, and then synthesize it into one aspect, and I’ll bring Gandhiji in it as well, because he’s also one of the greatest intellectual thinkers, not just of a generation of, you know, of time immemorial, that he said that we need to develop our villages, we need to develop the grassroots, which is what you’ve been working with, which is extremely, extremely important. Now, the way things have gone is that people move from grassroots or villages to cities. So there is this migration that happens. And then when there is offseason, there is reverse migration, they go outside. Now, people who go back, they take back things that they have learned in the cities, and they try to change things in the villages. But in my own personal experience, my mother is from Haryana, from a place called Kunjpura, which was a very small village. And my uncles lived there, my mamas still live there. But they have so much wisdom to provide, the tribals that you have been working with the stories that you have mentioned that they have their own ways of doing things. And there is nothing wrong because they’ve been doing that for generations and they are perfectly okay. Now by bringing in the education system and money, we losing lot of it, we are losing what, what may help the larger society. How do you recommend that we stop that flow? Somehow I feel that we are losing touch with so many such things which can be so valuable for being a human explore being a human, I think,

Dr. Balu.
I think it’s a great way of putting exploring being a human is possibly the journey all of a sudden, we can call it by different names, call it spirituality call it mindful reflection. I think it’s a phase I always look at it as a phase and it’s a cycle, right? And then, in my own limited life, I’m already seeing change. I didn’t most of us go by what society celebrates. No society celebrates whom does society call an achiever. You set up a factory and you make your millions and then to little charity, and then you think, and we celebrate that little charity they do. Right? So we have tagged the wrong ideals as societal success. And that’s fair. And I think every generation moves at a different value culture value levels, right? If you look at you know, simplistically, look at the Mahabharata times, right? What we valued was valor and courage, we celebrated a Eklavyas and Arjunas, all these people, right, and that is natural, that generation of people, if you’re really courageous, and full of valor and bravery, and do tell him about his great, or Abhimanyu, and those were the role models of society at that time, and this historically, drawing, and in Ramayna we celebrate a truth and the way Rama lived, and being honest to oneself, and that that life of and then we celebrate it out, so during the time strangely wisdom, because Vishwamitra could throw away his kingdom and become a Rishi, the pursuit of knowledge. So in some sense, knowledge was also celebrated and the way you live the ethicality of life, etc.

Dr. Balu.
You keep coming down generations, maybe during our freedom, struggle, patriotism and nationalism and overthrowing the British, and these sentiments are celebrated. That’s why we still remember Bhagat Singh, and Chandra Shekher Azad and Rajguru and all these people, right. So we, we believe the great role models, and so we keep repeating the throwing a bomb at the British, so we ignore the violence. He might have caused that brief second, but then we celebrate his patriotism and it’s fair. But post independence, a nation suddenly believed imitating the West, absorbing consumerist values, economic growth in a very stifled way, whatever. As a developer expert, I have a different view on the way we chose those options. But we celebrated fighting poverty acquiring prosperity as values. That’s why today you would call Narayan Murthy or Kiran Mazumdar, Azim Premji as heroes. At the same time, we also celebrate how they make money is important. Let’s say you don’t celebrate Veerapan who made his millions. But he didn’t make it the right way. We don’t celebrate him, we actually, it’s a negative selling way of celebrating his wealth, right. So society still had some balance. But I didn’t know suddenly, we’re discovering that that alone is not sufficient. There’s something that’s still unfulfilled. So we had a time in the I would say, in between the 1860’s to 1920’s. And that so if you look at all the great names, I said that it’s and we are tagged to it, and all the wonderful people that led this country, they are all in one historical time set. It’s not the country’s ever produced leaders after that, it’s just that society has not celebrated them, because the value system in the ecosystem has not celebrated that kind of values. So when the time when Tagore’s and Vivekananda’s and Bhagat Singh’s and Gandhi’s all flourish, what was necessary was their nationalistic expression. And so we can remember them, today, I think what we need now is a rediscovery of the nationalistic expression, not from a very narrow, parochial view, it is not about loving India, and therefore the expression of loving India hating Pakistan, or any other country around this, but acquiring that extraordinary idea of seeing God in man. And understanding that India’s real status of Vishwaguru that Swami Vivekananda spoke about was giving this message of that inner potential, that inner divinity embedded in every one of us that message about the Advaitik experience that we can share the whole world. And I think it will catch up, because increasingly, people are now recognizing that they are not satisfied with the status quo. And I think COVID is a brilliant opportunity. Now, as a physician, it may sound very paradoxical that I’m calling it a brilliant opportunity, opportunity for science to discover vaccines opportunity for public health experts to learn how to better manage stuff, all that is fine. But I think deep down at the personal level, it’s an opportunity for us to ask as the very purpose of our existence. And this, I brought in Ramana there because I think the question, Who am I? Why do I exist? What am I doing here? How do I respond to this COVID crisis? What gives meaning to my life? What is my purpose of existence? This has been a fascinating time. And those of us who started going deeper into those questions, I think, are the ones who are going to find answers, not just for themselves. But for everybody. It is not celebrating this, so called Godman and ashrams and building your empires. But we’ve discovered that because we have an empire within ourselves, and opening the keys to the kingdom within us, is what this powerful opportunity gives us. So to me, I think, a nation and nations heroes are those people who have been doing this quietly. And what I’ve tried to do in my books, whether it’s either citizen in the context of policy in human development, in Voices from the Grassroot again, same construct, or the expression of leadership, in the leadership lessons for daily living that I write about, is to do two things is to demonstrate the extraordinary wisdom embedded in what we dismiss off as ordinary people.

Dr. Balu.
And this more More, more capturable in a rural setting. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist in urban settings. So the The ability to rediscover traditional wisdom and civilizational knowledge and learn lessons from my heritage is much more possible in a rural ecosystem. And that’s where all my examples are mostly rural. But it doesn’t mean they’re not urban, I’m not discarding it, it’s just that I haven’t had the opportunity to live long enough in urban areas to discover that. So I think what we need is opening our minds the way we learn, and deconstructing learning, not from the hierarchial, teacher, student learning mindset that we are all used to. But looking at environment, nature, animals, dogs, things around you, and learning from them. And the moment you start opening yourself like that, then you understand the power of the traditional knowledge. And to me, that is the true purpose of education and opening that is what our schools and colleges should do. To some extent, in some strange way, the national education policy has tried to package a few of this together, but there’s always going to be proof of the pudding is going to be in the heat. So when you deconstruct and translated into a transactable curriculum, in a situation in a system where the teachers are just not competent to be doing that, I’m not too sure what the result will be. But it’s a good thing.

Nitesh B.
I Think wonderful, he said, and I love the purpose of education, like the way you described it, is to see what we are not seeing. And I think seeing the others as equal is what the underlying message was that I’m not better than the other. We’re getting towards the end of our time, I do want to touch on the crucibles that you talk about the transformational points that you mentioned in your book, because that is one thing that really inspired me, reading more and more. And especially, I think it was the first story about the young 14 year old mother delivering the child, I would like you to reiterate the story for us for our listeners, because they may not have read your book. So that’s one thing that I would like you to narrate to us. And and my question is a little bit more than that, that instances keep happening in people’s lives. You mentioned COVID happening, Corona happening right now. But for many, nothing has changed. Nothing like you know, they’re still living the same life, same, they need not change, it’s not necessary for them to change. But if you have some sort of an awareness, right, you might be willing to make a few changes, or a few things that will go by now the question that I have is, what if I don’t have that awareness? How do I walk on that path of you know, this awareness is coming in, or this change needs to be made in my life?

Dr. Balu.
I’ll reveal the story or even easier part the second part, I’ll answer the second half of your question. First. I think the simplest way of seeking out awareness is coming to terms with not being aware itself. At least that’s what has been my life struggle every morning when I get up. And I discovered that there have been situations during the day when I have not been aware of what I should have been. It sort of reaffirms to meet the need to be aware. Awareness is just too difficult to describe, which is an extraordinary moment of here. And now. Now, as I’m talking to you, or as I’m listening to you if I don’t become one with you, and if I discover that I’m not one with you, that itself shows me that the struggle for awareness is bigger. So to me, it’s a strange way. I always tell my students when I teach them leadership, leadership is not about acquiring competence. But I would say leadership is about coming to terms with your incompetence. And when you learn to operate on zones of your incompetence, that sets you on the journey to acquire the competence to do good for somebody. And I think mindfulness and awareness to me is exactly that you cannot really take people through a formal mindfulness training, it will just be a workshop or a program, I do a lot of such workshops. I know all of them come because they pay quite a bit of money to for our programs, and that helps my tribal hospital or tribal school. But beyond that, many of them start on the journey of mindfulness, some of them don’t. And why is that? And that’s where I believe. And this might sound a very implausible or irrational explanation and I just where I believe karma matters, I believe we are in one lifelong journey. And the lifelong journey is not only broken by death of a body at a particular point of time and the rebirth of the body. But there are just events in this journey. And to what where you left off before is where you begin again. And that is the enormous preparation that you had over time is not visible to us in a limited way of our existence. We think, okay, I’m 50-55 years old, and that’s all I can remember. But maybe we don’t have the ability to go deep enough to remember all that but at least I think that is exactly why some of us can begin somewhere and some of us cannot begin somewhere and do suddenly a crucible experience makes meaning for somebody today the same way Students are another person the same time doesn’t make meaning to him, because his antennas have not been prepared by this journey long enough for him to make meaning. So whether my own experiences maybe if I was not ready, I would have just seen under in 14 year old pregnant and felt bad about it and gone on its life. But as you remember the title of the book, in the book, the title, the chapter, I say, is the voice that keeps me going. And I say that because at that point of time, the antenna was so receptive that it gave a powerful expression. But now, there have been different crucible moments. But I don’t want to forget that crucible moment, I go back to it and reflect on it and keep me going all the time. Because it just tells me how simple in life can be our own, sometimes unit dimensional and linear we are in our thinking, and we just sort of embed all the problems in our mind that we don’t recognize others having bigger issues to worry about. And then the child keeps me going. Just to repeat the story. What did it mean? You know, you should also look at the story beginning of with an egoistic aspiration. I’m here to serve, I’m going to go to the villages. I’m going to be the next Albert Schweitzer. The Noble Prize is just around the corner and people are waiting to give it to me. At 22 you actually are inspired by Vivekananda but you’re not understood. Vivekananda because what Vivekananda says is so powerful. He says, don’t stand on a pedestal and say here, my poor man take my five cents. This is considered to consider it a privilege that you’ve been chosen that good work is happening through you.

Dr. Balu.
I’d intellectualize the statement, but I never experienced it. So I was still in that phase where I thought oh, I am the doctor. I’m a university ranker a given a postgraduate degree gone into the forest, decided not to follow my siblings to the US or Canada. And here I am doing good. And this little girl is pregnant, and she better come to me, right? That’s the kind of attitude. So when I heard this girl, I didn’t even know she was a 14 year when I heard that chieftains daughter was pregnant, I thought, wow, this is an opportunity. I never have and I can be unashamedly open about this, I never thought there’s an opportunity to serve God in the I only thought of an opportunity that if I were to tell you about the baby, the jimana, who was the chieftain of the place, would now celebrate me as a hero. And because of which I’ll have an entry point into the community and everybody will celebrate me. So I saw it as an opportunity for the reaffirmation of made systems as a doctor, the role that is an assault is a role. I thought that’s myself. So I think to me leadership, again, I learned this from that lesson, the lesson I learned from there is ability to distinguish your role from self. To me, that is leadership in that moment, I become the role. And I thought, Oh, they have to recognize me. So that’s how I got inspired to go there. And I went there and I found when I looked at her, I realize she’s a 14 year old child, who was pregnant. And those days tribals never had structured marriage, they just live together and they got pregnant, so be it. And to me, I even then I felt wow, high risk pregnancy, great opportunity to revalidate what I am, and I loved obstetrics. So I don’t know I can show off my skills. Great time to get accepted. But I checked on her she was on her our first delivery and look like textbooks tell us it takes 24 hours, which was early labor. So I thought she’s going to deliver tomorrow morning. And it was quite late, and I didn’t want to be at dinner for some tiger. So I just came back next early morning, 6-6:30, I still remember very vividly in my mind, I was walking with the little leather bag those days and the typical kind of a doctor, so those things describe it and you go there, on the way put on my elderly tribal woman stopped me she was taking water from a borewell.

Dr. Balu.
She was the aunt of this child, she asked me where am I going so early. And they said I’m going to deliver the baby. She laughed and said you don’t have to go she’s all she already had the baby last night. Now I was so disappointed disappointed that the child was born not because of my skills, but because of nature. And I felt let down. I said why couldn’t the baby have waited like the textbook told me? What was the hurry, I have to again prove myself in some way. So let me go put some Gentian violet on the umbilical stump those day, we actually had Gentian violet to ensure violet that nowadays people don’t even know what it is an umbilical stump and some gentamicin eyedrops. So the eyes because the birth canal is not a clean place for the child to come out from and to put the eye drops. So when they’re standing at the hut, and I really that the father of the baby girl was not at home had gone to the forest to get firewood to boil water for the baby. And I heard the girl inside I knew something’s happening. I knew the baby was born, I could hear the crying and weeping. And I kept telling the please and in a tribal society and is very young, I will just go been there for six months and is hardly known and I will not I could be beaten up and thrown out in no time if I misbehave or if I didn’t follow the tribal rules. So I’m standing at the doorstep of this hut to 8 by 10 hut and telling her please bring the baby out to me. I need to at least do this. Five minutes. 10 minutes. Just try talking to a wall. No noise but you know people inside but no response. Finally in anger, sheer egoistic anger that I am a man I’m a doctor come here to serve and this woman doesn’t even respond to me that kind of an anger as well. If you’re not going to come out with a baby, I’m going to get into your hut and see the baby anyway. And a scream. Even today it’s very painful story to narrate, but all my strength of inner supplies of trying to communicate this, she burst out crying said please don’t come inside, I have nothing to cover myself with the same 14 year old, had one sari to wear. And while delivering her own baby had actually pulled her in the placenta after the baby she had soiled that sari, and washed it in the middle of the night, put it on top of the hut, waiting for the sun to dry that to cover herself again. And to me, it was 1987 I can still ruminating it is on to some of the 40 years of the so called political freedom. What kind of freedom we gave our people in our villages and its story may not be very different in many of the rural parts of India even today, we talk about a $5 trillion economy what meaning does it even have to people like Madhi, who could not even get a second sari to wear and that tells me the till, till India has got children like this Madhi, my life’s work is not. And so that gives me that voice keeps me going and to silver lining to the story is Madhi, that child was born that day, grew up to be a fine woman studied in school and when she got pregnant, my wife and obstetrician delivered in a hospital. And we realized that child was born to her in the hospital at an imperforate anus and could have died. It’s a pediatric surgeon and not operated. So we could rush the baby to a friend in Bangalore and he immediately says kind enough to do pro bono work for us and operate on the child and that baby is also now an in person who have studied in our school so when you see this and look back, there’s a tendency you can say I did it. But I believe these are opportunities which reiterate what Swamiji told. Now he says it so beautifully and I every time and I also made this mistake a long time I believe I did it. But then you wake up when Vivekananda writes his powerful statement. And I would like to end with that. He says all the hospital it looked as though he wrote for me, every time I read it, I think he wrote it for me. All the hospitals you construct, all the schools you build, can come into dust in one earthquake, or can get washed off in one Cyclone. All our work is in the bank to river Kabini. So one big site cyclone, or floods from Kabini, everything you go away. So he says the Cow which gave birth to a calf has already been programmed to give milk to it. Who are you to believe that you’re saving the calf? God has given birth to all of us is already programmed, all of us just feel privileged that you have been given the opportunity to be the instrument of change, be the instrument to actually enable this. That’s all you have to be to me. Mindfulness is a constant reminder that we are all privileged to be instruments of a powerful personality powerful force powerful, embedded message of Vedanta.

Nitesh B.
I have goosebumps as you are narrating the story you’re you’re talking about the impermanence of life, and Shanbhangurtha. So towards the end of our conversation, we asked a few questions, to get to know a little bit more about the person that we’re interviewing and our listeners know a little bit more about them. So the questions can be answered in one word, one sentence, one paragraph, whatever you feel like, and you can politely decline as well. I mean, you don’t have to politely you can do it rudely. So the first question is one memory from your childhood days, that brings a smile on your face.

Dr. Balu.
You know, it’s a very small, silly story. My mother used to give sometimes five piase to buy what I wanted and treasure five once in a while should give and those are difficult times for any middle class when I was walking back home. I used to love walking back. I started in St. Joseph’s Bengaluru, so sometimes the bus would not come to walk back home we never really bothered those days walking was not a challenge today. Now the way I don’t what I had 5 paise, and I what a cucumber, cucumber masala plate with no you’re waiting to eat it. And as just about to eat it. I found a young mother with a child and the child looking at me. You know, the eyes could communicate literally saying you know what I would like it to and spontaneously and I was I realized I didn’t give him the whole cucumber. without even thinking twice. I broke it into two and gave him one piece and ate one piece. And the child looked at the mother for permission and the mother said it’s okay. And that connect that moment of time where I was not being generous. I had that moment I just thought I just did what anybody would have done. Maybe I would also got it if I’d look like that at somebody, but later on in life, I said, reflect. And I never narrated written about the story and someone, I think there’s a magic you know what you ask? It just came out today. I remembered the my reflection would be the joy was not in giving the cucumber, half the cucumber. The joy was what the child gave me in return. And that is priceless. Because at the moment I can never forget.

Nitesh B.
Thank you for that story. I think I know the answer to this question. But since we asked it to everyone, I’m going to ask it one person that you would like to go meet in the history.

Dr. Balu.
Swami Vivekananda I would like to sit at his feet and just absorb what he can give me.

Nitesh B.
So I knew the answer to that question. So I’m going to go a little bit deeper, and probe a little bit more. So one favorite memory of Swami Vivekananda, that you would like to be next to him when, when he’s doing that? There’s so many things that he has done. So one,

Dr. Balu.
You know, he I recently visited. It’s a pilgrimage for me in the United States. When I teach at Cornell, I always wanted to go visit a place called Ridgely Manor, a place where Swami awakened they lived, possibly the longest 14 or 15 days continuously in any point of time, was that he was recovering from this bad health. And there was a huge, huge campus. Those are hundreds of acres now. It’s just Now thankfully that Ramakrishna Mission of Hollywood has taken all the property and trying to keep it as it was. So you go to the room where he slept, but more importantly, their spot very sat for meditation regularly. And that tree is gone. But the trees babies grown into big tree now. And just for me, I always when I went there, I felt now you can feel his presence who can’t explain it. But I wish I had seen his physical form them with him and sat there with him meditating. And this add on. When I visited 1000 Island Park, I felt I wish I was one of those disciples who was with him when he gave us inspired talks just there. And if God had a way of redesigning, reprogramming life and send back Vivekananda, I would add that to this request.

Nitesh B.
Thank you I was placed in in those places that you mentioned, one book, or one film on one song that you really love, it just comes to your mind without even thinking about it.

Dr. Balu.
I’m not very musical, so I can’t say song. For me. More importantly, when I talk about movie, a movie, which I also use in my teaching, etc. The tune was I cannot really say one the one I use for others to learn from is a movie called 12 Angry Men. It’s a old 1957 Henry Fonda movie, a black and white movie, which I use in my teaching. The other one is one I like to watch. And I think it’s a powerful way of capturing your message because two people I adore and I base all my work on is Vivekananda and Gandhi, that’s why it’s Ahimsa, Satya and Tyaga – Seva and Tyaga to Vivekananda and Ahimsa to Gandhi, to Attenborough’s Gandhi. I think the closest you could come to capturing his soul was he is another ocean. But putting an ocean together in four or five hours watchful time is what Attenborough did. And that’s a movie I would love to keep watching.

Nitesh B.
Thank you. And our last question is, I think our conversation has been full of them. But I think I would still like to ask this question. So it’s helpful for for the future generations? What message do you have that they can do better than what they’re doing now, and any words of wisdom that you would like to give them

Dr. Balu.
I must confess, I really don’t have words of wisdom, but I can only transmit the message of Vivekananda. in a beautiful way. He says Life is short, give it up to a great cause. Most of us travel this journey without even discovering the true purpose of life without even discovering what is a great cost. Some of us interpreted a very limited way as making millions making 1000s making whatever or setting up a factory setting this doing this. But I think just resonating or leaving with this message of life is short, give it up to a great cause. And I remember what I told my son if you deconstruct this in a very simplistic way Swamiji says Be and make. And he says Be good, do good. So I and many, many years ago and why my son asked me to keep talking about Vivekananda. I don’t understand Tell me what I can understand. I told him your life’s purpose should just be, you should be happy. You figure out what happiness is. But then that journey of self discovery that happens and keep everybody around you happy because if you can be self If I understood happiness, it’s not as for me, happier. So that’s all I’m saying. And that’s been my life’s journey. And I’m having fun with it.

Nitesh B.
And I think that’s a good way to end our journey of this conversation together to have fun in whatever you do to see joy in whatever is around and to see the human in the other person and find happiness. Well, thank you so much Dr. Balu for being here for being part of this podcast being part of this interview. And you say you don’t have words of wisdom, but I think this conversation is full of wisdom and, and our listeners and beyond. If they can take the essence out of all of it, and imbibe just even a small percentage. They’ll find the richness and happiness in their lives, through the words that you said through the message of Swami Vivekananda, and so many others that you mentioned. Thank you so much for being here. And it’s been a great, great honor to have spoken to you.

Dr. Balu.
Thank you such a pleasure. Glad that he could participate.

Nitesh B.
Thank you so much for tuning in for another podcast of the mindful initiative. If you like what we do if you like listening to our speakers, please share our podcast with your friends and family. Thank you so much.