Quotes from Gurcharan Das

The Upanishads trace these problems of the self to our sense of 'Iness' or ahamkara (literally 'I-maker') which is our subjective sense of identity and which has its origin in our consciousness (aham). In classical Sankhya philosophy, the empirical world of the senses and the mind emerges from the evolution of the aham, and liberation from this empirical existence requires the negation of ahamkara.

people do, in fact, act against their moral convictions and this is an unhappy fact about ourselves'.

This explains why the characters in the Mahabharata and in other texts of the classical Indian tradition prefer to depend on reason rather than on blind faith. 56

Dharma, the word at the heart of the epic, is in fact untranslatable. Duty, goodness, justice, law and custom all have something to do with it, but they all fall short.

The principle of competition is, as Hesiod pointed out long ago, built in the very roots of the world; there is something in the nature of things that calls for a real victory and real defeat. —IRVING BABBITT

India is not a tiger, and change will always be slower than in East Asia. India is an elephant which has stirred from its slumber and has finally begun to move ahead with a degree of determination. However, unlike a sprinting tiger that runs out of steam, the elephant has stamina.

You'll waste a lot less time worrying about what others think of you if only you realized how seldom they do.' To this we might add Albert Camus' wise words: 'To be happy one must not be too concerned with the opinion of others. One should pursue one's goals single-mindedly, with a quiet confidence, without thinking of others.

We have also realized that our biggest failure over the last fifty years has been of administrative and institutional incompetence and our inability to implement rather than of ideology.

It was an unhurried pursuit. I did not want information. I wanted to be cultivated, and thus I read at leisure with lingering appreciation.

Envy is felt more strongly between near equals than those widely separated in fortune. It does not make sense to envy the Queen of England.

Why should one like you envy Yudhishthira? . . . Be content with what you have, stay with your own dharma—that is the way to happiness. —Dhritarashtra to Duryodhana, Mahabharata II.5.3, 61

Poor teamwork is pervasive in India. Take any institution, scratch its surface, and one finds factionalism. Whether it is a company, a university, a hospital, a village panchayat, or a municipal board, it is beset with dissension, and it affects national competitiveness.

Manu's verse quoted above, declares that the 'satisfaction of the mind is the only authority in cases of conflicting alternatives'. 54 The classical poet, Kalidasa, who lived in the fifth century AD , was of the same view: 'In matters where doubt intervenes, the [natural] inclination of the heart of the good person becomes the "authority" or the decisive factor.' 55

We grew up in the smug belief that although the mixed economy was inefficient, it was better than capitalism because it preserved democratic freedoms.

It was a stronger, more positive attitude, exhibiting maitri, 'benevolence', which is entailed in acting 'for the sake of others', and this is ultimately 'the highest dharma'.

Who has in his heart always the well-being of others, and is wholly given, in acts, thoughts, and in speech, to the good of others, he alone knows what dharma is.

The greater benefits earned by a few could be justified, I realized, if the inequality improved the situation of the worst-off.

The Indian intelligentsia was mesmerized by the apparent success of the USSR. It wanted big steel plants and not small factories which made clothes, shoes, toys, and bicycles—the sort of things that the masses could use. In those days, anyone in India who advocated greater investment in agriculture was branded an American agent.

Merchants understand from birth the power of compound interest; they know how to accumulate capital. The Internet has also leveled the playing field, so that it seems sometimes that any mad, passionate Indian entrepreneur can write his own future.

If a good person suffers, then the bad person should suffer even more: this is an idea that seems embedded in the human psyche. Consciously one denies it, of course, and proclaims piously, 'I'm not the sort of person who holds grudges.' Yet one unconsciously applauds when the villain 'gets what he deserves'. Wanting to punish a villain or seeing him punished is ubiquitous in literature, movies and politics.

The task of an inspiring leader in Kali Yuga is not just to think about the difficulty of being good but how to confront that difficulty—and to place that thinking in the great textual confrontations of the past.

Dharma, in any case, is at the heart of the poem; it is not only untranslatable, but the Mahabharata's characters are still trying to figure it out at the epic's end.